This New Hampshire City Will Send You a ‘Judgy’ Letter if Your Grass is Overgrown

If you let the grass get too overgrown on your lawn, the city will intervene, depending on where you live. Were you aware this is a thing? I always thought that once you buy a piece of land, it's yours, and you can choose to maintain (or not maintain) your property however you see fit.

I can understand if you live in a place with a lot of tourists and it's important to keep up appearances for that reason. For example, Martha's Vineyard! If you live in one of those cute gingerbread houses that everyone takes pictures in front of, you can't be letting your grass grow into an unruly meadow. It will ruin the aesthetic!

Someone recently shared on the New Hampshire subreddit that the city of Somersworth sent them a letter, essentially asking them to mow their lawn.

Apparently, there is an international property maintenance code put in place by the town that dictates the residents must keep their exterior free of weeds or plant growth any higher than eight (10) inches.

The people of Reddit raised many questions about this letter, including:

• Is it 8 inches or 10? Which one?
• Is grass considered a weed?
• What happened to "Live Free or Die"?
• Will they send someone to mow your lawn for you if you don't mow it yourself (that one is from me)?
• OR if you don't mow your lawn, will you receive a hefty fine? If so, how much?

This was very eye-opening to me. I didn't realize that cities/towns can put codes in place to dictate lawn care! Does your town have a code or regulation like this in place?