Member-only story
RETIREMENT
Weed Control at the Over-55 Retirement Community
As in the contract
At the Over-55 Retirement community, we buy our houses and rent the land. The rent buys us a number of entitlements like access to the clubhouse, the gym, the pools, lawn mowing, snow plowing and shoveling.
It also includes yearly mulching of our gardens.
As the property owners seek bids for services like this, and have been known to switch vendors for small savings, the contractors who do want to bid have to tighten their belts as their expenses increase.
You might expect some slipshod work would result, but if you drive in during summer to meet a salesperson at the clubhouse, you will find meticulously trimmed, vibrant, almost glowing grass lawns and richly mulched gardens of pampered shrubs.
It’s quite impressive, really. Just don’t wander too far from the clubhouse.
If you do wander, you might see an employee of the lawn care contractor driving a large mowing machine at high speed across someone’s lawn. As he reaches the point where he must turn around for the return pass, he expertly cuts the wheel, quickly spinning the roaring machine around, casting up divots as he turns. A quickly mowed lawn with a holiday or two is technically still a mowed lawn.
