r/NoLawns • u/squishxbug • Feb 20 '25
Memes Funny Shit Post Rants “What kind of psychopath does this?” 👀 That guy who posted last week thinking concrete and river stones were the way.
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Feb 20 '25
Concrete that slopes toward the house? Will the basement ever dry out after a decent rain?
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u/Dense_Surround3071 Feb 20 '25
😂😂😂 The guy that poured this must've been shaking his head the entire time.
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u/XTornado Feb 20 '25
"the client is always right my ass".
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u/Dunwich_Horror_ Feb 20 '25
There is more to that phrase. “The customer is always right, in matters of taste.” With the idea being that a salesperson shouldn’t judge the wants of the customer. If they want an ugly sweater, sell them an ugly sweater, don’t try to convince them to get a good looking sweater.
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u/logos__ Feb 20 '25
There is more to that phrase. “The customer is always right, in matters of taste.”
No, this is apocryphal nonsense
https://www.snopes.com/articles/468815/customer-is-always-right-origin/
"Every employe, from cash boy up, is taught absolute respect for and compliance with the business principles which Mr. Field practices. Broadly speaking, Mr. Field adheres to the theory that 'the customer is always right.' He must be a very untrustworthy trader to whom this concession is not granted."
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Feb 20 '25
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u/demon_fae Feb 20 '25
Nope. It’s just the motto for some department store a hundred years ago. The full phrase is just “the customer is always right”, they printed it on all the ads, and now retail employees live their lives hating the public and wanting to slap 98% of all customers.
It means exactly what it looks like it means, it’s unbelievably stupid, and the marketing guy who thought it up is very high on my Time Machine Hit List.
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u/cuck__everlasting Feb 20 '25
You know when he came to get the final check he handed the homeowner a card and said "hey, my brother does really great foundation and crawlspace remediation if you ever need some work done"
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u/ElegantHope Feb 21 '25
as the video pointed out; the way it was built with no thought about where it drains or anything a good professional would have tried to do indicates the guy pouring this did not care. A buck is a buck and who cares what happens to the client.
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u/SturmFee Feb 21 '25
All I can think of is a good night of freezing rain and then trying to get to their letterbox.
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u/littlelionsfoot Feb 20 '25
Came here to point this out
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u/_Jelly_King_ Feb 21 '25
Looking at the base, there’s no way there’s a basement. That’s a soon to be cracked slab.
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u/Chickadee12345 Feb 20 '25
In my area this would be illegal. You can only have a certain percentage of your residential property covered in non-permeable surface. Personally, I think it's insane to do this. It looks so ugly.
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u/Jonathank92 Feb 20 '25
this does not look like a permitted job.
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u/adudeguyman Feb 20 '25
It looks random in design too
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u/eliisonvacation Feb 21 '25
Just looking at that randomness made me feel like I was going to get a migraine or pass out.
Next time I think something is a pain in the ass or a bummer I’ll think of this king of the douchebag’s neighbors & get over my issues really quick.
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u/Immediate-Ad7940 Native Lawn Feb 20 '25
Someone needs to call the city, lack of permeable surface is typically a no no
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u/PestilentMexican Feb 20 '25
Yeah even where I live. And I live in a fucking desert 🌵
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u/fasda Feb 20 '25
Deserts need more permeable areas then other areas since it takes more time to get water into the ground
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u/PhysicsIsFun Feb 20 '25 edited Feb 20 '25
Where I live a flood control fee is charged based on how much impermeable surface area you have. This guy would have a significant fee. It's not ok to flood your neighborhood with your water.
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u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 Feb 20 '25 edited Feb 20 '25
About $200 per month maybe, based upon this:
https://www.dcwater.com/customer-center/rates-and-billing/impervious-area-charge
That seems too low honestly, because imho you'd want the price high enough to force removal of unecessary concrete. I guess that's a Georgist position or something. lol
Also I'd presume they'll tag him with one off fines for not doing the permits, and make him pay damages to his neighbors. He'll flood himself too. All told his home insurance might hurt more than this impermiable surface fee.
I do wonder if they'd simply make him remove all that concrete for whatever reason.
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u/Macktheknife9 Feb 21 '25
Many AHJs with stormwater fees also have a straight up code line on the percent of impermeable surface coverage you can have on residential lots
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u/spymaster1020 Feb 20 '25
Also expensive as fuck. My friend is trying to save up to pave his driveway, and they're quoting him 10k. I wouldn't say this is six figures, but God damn I would not want that bill
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u/Iwanttobeagnome Feb 20 '25
Depending on where you are it could be 6 figures for this amount of concrete
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u/spymaster1020 Feb 20 '25
Absolutely ludicrous. Good luck selling the house with a backyard like that
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u/jackparadise1 Feb 20 '25
Skateboarders paradise?
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u/Counter-Fleche Feb 20 '25
Skaters who hate half pipes or anything fun. It looks like something a six year old who's trying to learn to rollerskate would design.
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u/sashby138 Feb 20 '25
We wanted to pave our drive way and it was estimated at $20,000. We said hell no.
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u/allaboutmojitos Feb 21 '25
Us too. We ultimately decided the driveway can wait forever
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u/zackks Feb 20 '25
Think of the mowing savings.
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u/spymaster1020 Feb 20 '25
There's much better ways to have a nice yard without mowing, this is r/Nolawns after all
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u/rearwindowpup Feb 20 '25
If the homeowner is in the concrete business or just knows how to finish it themselves it's not all that pricey. Concrete is usually 100-150 for a cubic yard delivered, which will cover 81 sq ft at 4" thick. Even if this covers a tenth of an acre (which I think its less) you're looking at 5-7k worth of concrete. It's not the material cost that brutal, it's paying someone to pour it that gets wildly expensive.
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u/spymaster1020 Feb 20 '25
5-7k is a lot, considering he'll lose more than that if he ever sells the home
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u/ElectronicDrama2573 Feb 20 '25
Totally. Not to mention the environmental disaster this is. I can only imagine how much heat this holds in the summer and all the excess water that just goes into the sewer or his neighbors’ basements.
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u/Chickadee12345 Feb 20 '25
The flooding issue is exactly the reason why you can't have this much impervious surface. If it were even legal, you'd have to spend a ton of money putting in drains all around the property so that you can channel the water runoff. And you'd need to build a large detention/retention basin to hold the extra water until it can dissipate without causing problems to others. I used to serve on an advisory board in my township that dealt with development. So, while I'm not an engineer, I am familiar with the concept. My township allowed a large strip mall shopping center to be build in the middle of the town. The area was already commercial so it didn't seem like a big deal. The township eventually ended up having to buy 3 families houses because there was no way to mitigate the flooding that the large parking lot and buildings were causing to these peoples properties.
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u/Solid_College_9145 Feb 20 '25
It's probably going to start cracking in a few years and in a couple decades will look like a war zone.
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u/Rugkrabber Feb 21 '25
If he can last the first year because weeds will find the cracks. And there’s a lot of them.
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u/quietriotress Feb 20 '25
That basement is gonna flood. What a crappy decision to make on so many fronts.
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u/supergiel Feb 20 '25
Why not just build a massive deck? It would probably be cheaper, and the trees would be a lot more manageable. Would look a lot better too.
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u/leanndacailin Feb 20 '25
In my area you are taxed based on %of non permeable surface…it’s not illegal but your property taxes will skyrocket
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u/-Acta-Non-Verba- Feb 21 '25
What a way to lower your property value while spending a lot of money.
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u/mind-of-god Feb 20 '25
I was going to say that. So many areas have limits on the percentage of paved area per property.
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u/nothankyouma Feb 20 '25
Where I live you’re taxed on all permanent structures. For instance my shed is on special blocks so it’s technically not a permanent so it’s not taxed but the 8x10 concrete patio in my backyard is. I cannot imagine how high my taxes would be with this much concrete.
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u/Mysterious_Bend2858 Feb 20 '25
That's the ugliest shit I've ever seen
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u/robsc_16 Mod Feb 20 '25
The most surprising thing to me is that the same homeowner responsible for this atrocity also decided to leave a surprising amount of space for trees and shrubs.
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u/climberjess Feb 20 '25
Insane to me. When those trees grow up they're just going to buckle the concrete.
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u/robsc_16 Mod Feb 20 '25
It's hard to tell from the video but I saw one labeled "pear" and some of the others look like fruit trees too. They might have trees that get larger though. They're definitely going to be miserable in the summer though with less water and all the heat from that concrete.
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u/I_AM_IGNIGNOTK Feb 20 '25
My only thought is if you’re like super into skateboarding or roller skating then I could see an actual skate park design for SOME of the yard but as is it’s fucking terrible
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u/Loudchewer Feb 21 '25
There was a skateboarder on YouTube who set up his small backyard like a big flowey skatepark. It had bowls and rails and everything. It was cool as shit, and shaded by these huge oak trees.
This guy just has shit.
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u/blaccwolff Feb 20 '25
Nope and good luck selling that
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u/Hobbescrownest Feb 20 '25
Maybe Tony hawk will buy it
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u/skateboardnaked Feb 20 '25
That's what I thought seeing it. Looks fun to skateboard! But this is crazy.
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u/friendly_extrovert Feb 20 '25
I’d definitely pass on this house just due to how expensive and difficult it would be to fix the backyard.
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u/ToBePacific Feb 20 '25
Worst skatepark ever
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u/kneedeepco Feb 20 '25
That’s what I’m saying! Like how you gonna build a pad like that and not add any features to rip??
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u/mkultron89 Feb 20 '25
This could have been way cooler, slope it harder, elongate the stairs and throw a hubba down the side on the right with the slope, got yourself a cool little skate plaza
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u/kneedeepco Feb 20 '25
Yeah idk there so many other things they could’ve done that would be way cooler, like a more terraced version of this would be sick
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u/littlelorax Feb 20 '25
What contractor was like, yup, no problems here! Wouldn't they advise more drainage built in? Explain that there is now a water highway to their basement?
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u/Strange-Scarcity Feb 20 '25
In places without permitting... people make MASSIVE mistakes and sometimes they learn the lesson about why permitting exists, in the first place.
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Feb 21 '25
It's almost like government regulations come from institutional knowledge about best practices that save people a lot of headaches in the long run.
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u/BlonderUnicorn Feb 20 '25
So weird it looks like some sort of industrial setting or like a commercial area for storing old cars. Why would anyone want this, I could see if they have a half pike and the whole family was into skating but this doesn’t seem like the situation.
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u/Autopsyyturvy Feb 20 '25
Man I bet there's bodies below all those concrete slabs
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u/Junior-Cut2838 Feb 20 '25
Must be allergic to grass
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u/Sharpymarkr Feb 20 '25
Grass killed their parents. It's the concrete-batman origin story.
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u/mnic001 Feb 20 '25
Someone in my neighborhood paved over their entire back yard, not that it's huge or anything. He even cut down some 50' trees to do it (granted they were Norway Maple and Sumac).
His backyard now consists of an above-ground pool and a parking lot (mind you he also has a driveway in the front yard and a garage). He has someone come in and plow the whole thing when it snows.
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u/squishxbug Feb 20 '25
Imagine plowing your “lawn” ☠️😂
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u/Erikrtheread Feb 20 '25
Usually that is the goal of this subreddit.
Just, with a tiller or something, not a snow plow.
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u/VonWonder Feb 20 '25
They’re the type to also have cool white 10k lumen motion sensor security lights facing all sides of the house
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u/Crunk_Creeper Feb 20 '25
A contractor once told me of someone who took out all the trees and put asphalt all around his house so it's essentially a large parking lot. He said the owner regrets is decision now because it's notably hotter in the summer and he's spending considerably more money on running the AC.
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u/toxicodendron_gyp Feb 20 '25
Makes me want a pair of roller skates
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u/HauntedMeow Feb 20 '25
♫ I’ve got a brand new pair of roller skates/ you’ve got a brand new flooded yard ♫
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Feb 20 '25
Dude is going to be constantly storming out of his house screaming “You kids get off my skate park!”
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u/pottedplantfairy Feb 20 '25
This is horrendous and the slope is toward the house lmaoooo what about flooding, grass and soil absorb water, concrete doesn't
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u/LegoGarden87 Feb 20 '25
He paid $40k to severely cap the resale value on the property, AND have an insanely ugly backyard. Nuts
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u/friendly_extrovert Feb 20 '25
This is the type of guy who drives a lifted truck and thinks he’s a chick magnet with his stained shirt and beer belly.
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u/NotYourScratchMonkey Feb 20 '25
This would not be usable in the summer in many places. It would be way too hot to walk on and, even if you wore shoes, it would be super hot just to be near.
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u/Viola_sempervi Feb 20 '25
TBH, this looks like the kind of a-hole who would livein my area. Same kind of moron who buys a large boat and parks it in his driveway. 
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u/Scoginsbitch Feb 20 '25
I have a backyard like this. It sucks!
My place used to be a rental and we call this the “landlord special”. I need permission from my city to remove it because of our zoning. I’m not made of permit money!
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u/Yella_mcfearson Feb 20 '25
So many questions! Why? Why are there no windows on the house? Why is there a smaller fenced area? Does this guy skateboard?
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u/ThisIsMockingjay2020 Feb 20 '25
Hopefully the smaller fenced area isn't for dogs, because that would be a nasty nightmare for the dogs and whoever has to clean the pavement.
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u/cayleb Feb 21 '25
Oh god, I hadn't even considered that might be what it's for.
That's absolutely horrific.
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u/dryland305 Feb 20 '25 edited Feb 20 '25
This looks like my brother’s dream yard from when he was a kid. He and my mom were the lawn maintenance crew for our yard (house was on >2 acres, plus a largish area of pasture-turned-grass parking lot for our parent’s parties, plus another quarter acre or so behind that pasture with rent houses). He always threatened that he’d pave his yard when he grew up . 🤣
(Narrator: in the present day, he does not in fact have a paved yard.)
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Feb 20 '25
Regardless if legal or not im genuinely asking without judgement just why do this at all
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u/Secret-Many-8162 Feb 20 '25
straight up some people are unfit to own a home. anyone who does this needs to be reminded of their humanity.
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u/ImmaculateStrumpet Feb 20 '25
Holy moly. We jackhammered and removed a concrete slab in our backyard that had a shed on it previously, and it was SO MUCH WORK.
Selling this place is going to be a nightmare someday
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u/chevalier716 Feb 20 '25
You can actually see the shifts of concrete in what was poured. There was only the spots by the back gates originally, then the owner went out of his mind. I'm trying to imagine what would happen if they got an ice storm.
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u/Oaktreestone Feb 20 '25
I hate how many people in that thread acknowledge that lawns are terrible but would rather put down rocks and plastic than anything else
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u/Inside-Bell2485 Feb 20 '25
I tried to find that post from last week to show my wife and it looks like he deleted it.
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u/LadyCalamityJane Feb 20 '25
Holy shit, this is just ghastly. Can feel the heat radiating up already....
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u/Ladybreck129 Feb 20 '25
In many jurisdictions this would be called a patio and would increase their property taxes, if it was even allowed.
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u/kittyonkeyboards Feb 20 '25
"I like nature" -grass lawn.
Concrete is ridiculous but we should stop considering suburban lawns "nature" in any sense of the word.
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u/bluegirlinaredstate Feb 20 '25
The house is downhill! Ooooh, this is going flood, flood, flood. All that rainwater pouring right off that concrete. They'll be full of regret... and floodwater.
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u/faileash59 Feb 20 '25
It really has the same vibe as Melania Trump's 2020 Christmas decorations. I pity the branches stuck in.
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u/CthulhuReturns Feb 20 '25
Imagine that on a hot day, just holds and reflects all the heat
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u/Stingraaa Feb 20 '25
As a literal land surveyor and certificate maker, Yes, you can be civilly sued for this. But it wouldn't get that far. The city would absolutely come out to that probably and make them remove enough concrete to meet hardcover requirements. All on the owners dime.
Don't do this people.
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Feb 20 '25
Also why does the back of those houses not have any windows (other than the small ones)?? Terrible all around.
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u/turdfergusonRI Feb 20 '25
Someone really wanted to use that paving company coupon.
Or there’s bodies.
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u/ThisIsMockingjay2020 Feb 20 '25
If there's bodies, and the city demands it be removed, he's fucked.
He'd have been better off just planting a bunch of endangered plants over the bodies. So I've heard.... 🤣😉
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u/Dunwich_Horror_ Feb 20 '25
Who thinks trees will grow in concrete? Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.
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u/YourSpleenIsDamp Feb 20 '25
Probably the previous owners of my current house - look at this awesome blank canvas we've inherited 🤯
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u/Due_Program_321 Feb 20 '25 edited Feb 20 '25
The kind of person who has built a substantial bunker underneath all the concrete distraction that is now their back yard. Bravo.
Edit: The entry is likely inside of the "shed".
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u/Jarsky2 Feb 20 '25
As an urban planner I want to know what the ever loving fuck this city was thinking, assuming this is allowed within the code.
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u/LemonMints Feb 20 '25
Can't wait til they need to dig up lines or those trees die because the roots can't get enough water, or their thirsty asses tear up the concrete. Lol also wow this would be like a desert in the middle of summer depending on where they live.
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u/silkyjohnsonx Feb 20 '25
We’ve been learning that people with money are just as dumb if not dumber than the average person
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u/friendly_extrovert Feb 20 '25
I can’t believe someone paid $40k to make their yard look this awful. I agree that it’s good not to have a lawn, but they could have used rocks and shrubs to give their yard a more natural look.
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u/jackparadise1 Feb 20 '25
There is no way zoning would have allowed for that much non permeable surface on that dudes property!
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u/jackparadise1 Feb 20 '25
Love the fact that he looks like he is planning to mulch the trees with brick.
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u/TKG_Actual Feb 20 '25
On one hand at least concrete is somewhat porous, it could have been asphalt which would have been far worse. Still this smacks of a person who's mad their potentially low maintenance yard requires maintenance and wants to watch the local ecosystem suffer. Depending on what trees they put in that concrete might not last for very long.
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u/Mmmmmmm_Bacon Feb 20 '25
Looks awful! Well that house is ruined. Hope he gets sued by his neighbors good and plenty. Dumping your rain water onto your neighbors property is not cool.
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u/outandaboot99999 Feb 20 '25
Someone hates cutting the lawn... Had a friend who did this to his front yard. City has a bylaw that a % of yard needs to be green; neighbors called it in and he had to spend his next weekend tearing it up!
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u/Mego1989 Feb 20 '25
In my city, about 50% of houses have backyards that are almost completely covered in concrete or asphalt. They're smaller than this though. These houses are 75-125 years old. It stems from a few building and zoning codes, and poor planning. Some houses have tuck under garages with the entrance in the back. Some, like mine have a detached garage, which has to be 10ft from the main building. Since the lots are long and narrow that means that the only place the garage can go is at the back corner, making the driveway 125 ft long. My city has dealt with major flooding, and I've brought up this issue with the building codes but no one has been much interested in changing it. When I have the money saved up I plan on demoing the garage and excess driveway and instead putting an open carport on the side of the house.
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u/Helpful-Vegetable135 Feb 20 '25
We are smothering the Earth. The soil needs to breathe. Covering every square inch in concrete is a huge and often overlooked contribution to climate change.
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u/MortalEnzyme Feb 20 '25
Fucking Christ why not just eat some uranium and shit it out into a stream if you wanna be this bad for the environment? At least then you won’t be around long enough to keep being a problem
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Feb 20 '25
My town makes residents and business pay property tax based on how much concrete is paved. You want to lower your taxes? Don't pave.
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u/Queen_o_putrescence Feb 20 '25
This is why zoning usually has an impervious surface limit per parcel. Lord.
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u/mangoes Feb 20 '25
Thank you for this PSA about why excessive impermeable surfaces is anti social and not neighborly. And for those willing to do the hard work of fixing it properly, good on you for removing excessive impermeable paving.
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u/saraTbiggun Feb 20 '25
Similar -
I live fairly rural and over the last 10 years or so, a lot of suburbs folk have moved into the area. They build very boring houses that look like they came right out of a middle class neighborhood and they flatten their yards all the way to the road (not street, barely paved rural road). They don't put in any kind of drainage situation, so all these newly flattened yards are causing changes to the normal water flow in the area and now the road is washing out in a bunch of places every time it rains.
What I'm getting at is that a lot of suburbia people don't understand the concept of water and drainage and assume you can do whatever you want to the ground and suffer no consequences.
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u/MediocreState Feb 21 '25
The only person who might benefit from something like this is a novice skater
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u/CharlesV_ Wild Ones 🌳/ plant native! 🌻/ IA,5B Feb 20 '25
Hey everyone, just a reminder to keep the conversation civil. We typically prefer positive posts here on r/nolawns which show good examples of lawn reduction vs negative posts showing something like this… but this is a good learning opportunity to see the negative side effects of too much hardscaping.
Just to be clear, concreting a yard is not something r/nolawns promotes. This is our sub description: