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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/LawnJustice_ThrowRA on 2023-06-25 23:19:06+00:00.

I (37M) always kept my lawn mowed until a year ago, when I ended up hospitalized for a month and when I came back I found all sorts of plants growing. I had been told before that some of them were weeds but there were other plants I hadn’t seen around before, so I decided to look into them since I was stuck at home recovering anyway. Turns out none of them were weeds and the “weeds” were actually native wildflowers that are illegal to remove.

I ended up calling my local city government and told them what was going on and, after a few long talks, decided to just let my whole yard grow to preserve more wildlife instead of just the flowers, which I think is awesome. There’s apparently a lot of different bugs and small animals that depend on the plants growing in my yard and this can help them flourish. I started seeing all these butterflies, moths, bunnies, and so many more in my yard and I loved it. I told my neighbors about it and a handful of them have been letting the flowers grow, though not anything more than that.

Well, I ended up in the hospital again for a few weeks. When I came back, my entire yard was completely trimmed, including my fruit trees. My beautiful marsh was just an inch of grass. I actually cried because several cocoons that hadn’t hatched yet were gone, as we’re the bunnies who had been staying on my back porch. I learned that a local who goes around doing free yard work for those in need came by and did it without asking me. He has a YouTube video and I’ve watched before and usually people are incredibly grateful to him, though he asked permission.

I will not share it since it shows where I live. His video showed he tried knocking for a few days and then decided to “make it look nice” for the neighborhood. It took him several hours to cut it since my yard is large. Why didn’t my neighbors stop him? I don’t know. He had comments pointing out the wildflowers and that the trees were fruit trees out of season, but he responded saying they were wrong.

I called the city and they are planning on giving him a fine and told me I could press charges since he trespassed and damaged my property, I instead decided to sue. It is going to take ages to get it back to where it had been. I had been feeding the bunnies and they had started trusting me and they haven’t come back. Its so quiet now with all the birds gone that I’ve been incredibly sad. I miss the butterflies and moths.

I’ve gotten a lot of hate from the local community over me suing, but I didn’t think I was in the wrong, he damaged my yard and killed native insects. I get hate mail and dirty looks when I leave my house. I’ve also been uninvited from a lot of community events and banned from others. I’m starting to wonder if I should just drop it?

AITA for suing a local one man business for mowing my lawn without permission?

Edit: I did talk to him before I sued. He defended himself, and refused to replace the trees he damaged. Also I’m not suing him for very much, only a few thousand, which I know he can easily afford. I’m going to replace my trees and use all the money to make my yard better for the wildlife and put up no trespassing signs. The amount I’m suing is based off of the quotes I’ve gotten for that stuff.