Poetic Justice
Shenna knew that a code enforcement officer couldn’t force her to clean up her front yard — nobody could. The lawn was simply Shenna’s property and hers alone so she had every right to decide what the lawn looked life, the code officer even told her as much during his visit. Even though she liked a clean front yard as much as anybody else, she could stand to let a few weeks grow if it meant that Alice got what was coming to her. Calling the authorities was Alice’s last-ditch effort to make Shenna’s life difficult. The house was a freestanding unit and wasn’t policed by a homeowner’s association, either, so it wasn’t anyone’s decision but Shenna as to how her lawn should look. But Alice hadn’t thought about what codes she was violating.