Frequently Asked Questions

This page was originally published as our first blog entry, "Fire up your lawnmowers", on 6 February 2010 and has been slightly modified since.

Mow Your Lawn! is run by a Melbourne couple, which may or may not explain its geographic focus. After spending many suburban walks discussing the virtues and vices of the properties we passed, we thought it was about time we shared some of the worst offenders with the wider world. Now we don't mean to give the impression that we live in the middle of some kind of derelict slum - quite the opposite. An abundance of nice places have given us many ideas for the house we probably won't get to build for many years yet. However, dotted here and there through the neighbourhood like particularly persistent warts lie a number of properties which raise an inordinate number of questions. Does anybody live here? If so, how do they stand it? Is this a drug den? Was the architect both blind and mad?

What this blog is
This blog exists for the purpose of calling a spade a spade and a horrible house a horrible house. We mainly criticise buildings that have been poorly maintained, though architectural mis-steps are by no means omitted from our purview. I'd say that we don't mean to insult people's homes, but … that's actually the whole point, sorry.

Hey, that's my house!
Well, if you own it, then maybe you should do something about it. If you rent it, we know there may not be so much you can do (though if you're here for not mowing your lawn, MOW YOUR LAWN!), but your landlord should do something about it. Clearly your landlord sucks, eh? Though you probably didn't need us to tell you that.

Hey, I'm the landlord of that place!
So do something about it, you cheap prick. I know some landlords care about their tenants … I just haven't actually met one yet.

That's not a house!
Although our main focus is houses, we also feature shitty shops, office blocks, buildings of all descriptions – in fact any man-made structure. And Huntly. I recognise Huntly is just a force of nature for which nobody should be held responsible. 

You snobby shits, looking down from your palatial mansion, why if I ever met you I'd-
Calm down. We have lived or worked in at least two of the buildings featured here.

It might be perfectly nice inside!
All the less reason for it to be so bad outside.

Care to explain your rating system?
It aims to strike a balance between clarity and precision:

Lick o' paint: Minor quibbles or sheer blandness. It's perfectly liveable, or if you were visiting you wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen there, but something could be done better.
Unpleasant: Whoever designed it or lives there should have known better. It's not outright offensive to the senses, and if you had no alternative you'd live or stay there with only minor qualms, but it really shouldn't be this bad in the first place.
Damnable: You'd rather not live or stay here, but it has redeeming features. If you bought it and did it up, it may look quite nice. Shame it's possibly condemned.
Condemnable: What the hell happened here? Whoever let this place get this way should be embarrassed. Let's just start again.
Cellar floor: Don't let the bottom of the barrel stop you.
Dot Dot Curve: We hope to god we never actually use this rating.

With that said and done, we invite you to come and join us on our charming suburban adventures. But watch your step, I think there might be some dry rot in the corner there.