243 Mansfield Street, Thornbury, VIC, Australia

When I first came across this place, my immediate reaction was to rip into it for being another ridiculous example of the modern architecture I hate so much. However, that was a little while ago, and I've had time to think about it and realise that for once, I might not be writing a hate-filled rant about something modern.

Yes, it's a funny shape. It's painted in colours more suited to a Teletubbies set. It doesn't have a roof. It has racy angles all over the place. It shouldn't work! But it a weird way, it's actually kind of endearing. I mean, I would be pretty happy to live here. With the right maintenance, those bright colours will stay bright and attractive (now I sound like a washing powder advert), and let's face it, no-one would ever get lost looking for your house. The only trace of mushroom-coloured paint lies around the front door, on a surface which looks troublingly like corrugated concrete from a distance. Still, that is a much better effort than pretty much all the other new places around here have made - generally, the only deviation in their "mushroom" paint scheme is a nice stripe of black or brown. I'm very impressed.

To be honest, I think the biggest flaws with this place are not with the house, but with the garden. Firstly, that fence has to go. Sure, it's not quite as bad as those fences around here that look like level crossing barriers, but it's pretty bland all the same. It looks more like a barrier at the side of the road to stop unruly children dashing out into the traffic than a tasteful residential fence. And the garden needs some serious work. It's bright enough as it is, but some nice flowerbeds would ensure that this thing could be seen from space! The trees on the left need a serious trim - surely if you're going to paint your house that bright, you're going to want people to see it. Still, unlike the flaws you find in most modern places, these things are all very easily fixed. Perhaps when this place gets leased, the new tenant will fix it up a little.

For the first time in the history of Mow Your Lawn, I am quietly optimistic about a modern place. A truly momentous occasion.

Rating: Kind of quirky but not too offensive, really. Probably equates to a lick o' paint.

528 Albion Street, Brunswick West, VIC, Australia

I would love to know what happened to this house, located on Albion Street almost at the point where Brunswick West becomes Essendon. Despite living not too far away from it, I only started walking past it regularly in late 2008; if I'd gone by before, I'd not noticed it - possibly because it hadn't yet suffered its fateful calamity. As you can see in this capture from Google Streetview (this area was done before April 2009, but I'm not sure how far before), it was once a very plain sort of place:

Aerial view from sometime before October 2010.

And now I'm just so curious. When I first remember laying eyes on it, it was the shell of a house. Its twin next door, seemingly a mirror image, is fine, structurally at least; its windows seem permanently sealed like a prison, but that's a rant for another time. This collection of walls with vacant windows, however, was just standing around forlornly, evidently showing the effects of fire. You can see what I mean in the Google Satellite screenshot at right. Compounding the fire damage was exposure to the elements, the streaks from the flames now joined by streaks from the rain. The "elements" in this neck of the world tend to end up including graffiti too, in this case some pretty scratchy and pissweak tagging. A wire fence was along the street frontage with a builder's sign, but it didn't look like much had happened in a while.

Then suddenly, I went past one day in the second half of 2010, and as you can see in my pictures - it had the skeleton of a roof! Some work seems to have gone on inside too, and the property was in general tidied up a bit. Then the mystery deepened: nothing has happened since and the property is becoming less orderly by the day. The skeletal roof is starting to cop the elements. The house looks more forlorn than ever; rather than a phoenix rising from the ashes, it's giving the impression of the ashes just moving around a bit.

Is this a sad case of an insurance company not paying up, or an educational lesson about the perils of not being insured? Is it a buyer or builder struggling for funds? Is this just renovations being carried out on a sort of geological timespan? Why didn't they just knock over the smouldering remnants and start anew? Well, I can at least answer the last question; it appears to have some sort of heritage protection. In my search for information here, hoping to come up with a relevant newspaper example, I found something mildly creepy - somebody died in this house. But not when it burnt down! As this births and deaths page from The Argus shows, a Margaret Spicer died here on 29 December 1945, with her funeral proceeding from this address to Fawkner Cemetery two days later. However, I can't seem to find any news about how Mrs Spicer's house ended up in this state over half a century later! My Google powers have failed me.

Rating: At present, condemnable! Before the fire? Lick o' paint. If it's ever fully rebuilt? I'll let you know!

6 Homer Street (Rooster Delight), Moonee Ponds, VIC, Australia

Disclaimer: I have a mild form of plague at the moment, so please forgive me if my posting isn't quite up to its usual standard. In this case, I think my subject matter might make me feel even sicker and it might even kill me. I hope it's worth it.

The concept of "charcoal chicken" takeaway places was not at all unknown to me when I came to Melbourne, but they seem to be really fucking popular here, inexplicably so. You might be thinking that's not strange at all. It might bring to mind barbecues, sunny days at the beach, and overall some delicious tasty chicken. That's kind of what I thought too ... until the day when I first walked past one of these places. More specifically, Rooster Delight in Moonee Ponds.

Not so inviting frontage.

Now, "Rooster Delight" is a bad enough name in the first place. I have frequently been put off what might otherwise be perfectly good restaurants just based on the name, and this is no exception. Anything with "Rooster" in the title is inherently damning, simply because of the potential that removing the "S" holds. Teehee, rooter. However, that seems like a perfectly decent and attractive name when you think about what this place was originally called. I believe I did see the place under the old name on my very first trip to Melbourne, but I don't remember too well. Fortunately, they've had the kindness to leave the old sign up out the back of the store!

I can smell the factory farms from here.

The Chicken Machine? Seriously? What kind of mad drugs was the owner on when he thought that would be a fun and appetising name for a takeaway place? All I think of is the "chicken" you see in the deli sometimes, you know, the kind that comes in perfectly round slices. The kind that close reading of the label reveals to be "manufactured meat, minimum 40% chicken". The other 60%? Don't even ask. Are you hungry yet? I'm not, and I was so hungry 10 minutes ago that I was about to eat Axver. I don't know about you, but the last thing I was to be thinking about when I'm eating chicken is factory farms and meat processing plants.

Still, those things will probably be the last thing on your mind as soon as the smell of this place invades your nostrils. It is inescapable. Just be glad that the Internet doesn't enable you to smell things from the other side of the world, because I would totally inflict that on you. I can hardly describe it. It smells like death and burning and plague. If I smelt it out of context, I would assume that there was a crematorium nearby. NOTHING about that smell makes me think "oh, I'd love a chicken burger!"

See large version for a better view of the dingy awning.

Going back to the core purpose of the blog, I've got to say that the building itself isn't doing anything to redeem itself either. Dingy old "Chicken Machine" sign aside, the flaws are many. At the front, you can see a sign lurking behind the fancy new "Rooster Delight" billboard which possibly even predates The Chicken Machine. The awning is falling apart - I'm quite worried about its structural integrity after looking at the right-hand corner - and is in serious need of a good clean/lick o' paint. Being situated next to a fairly dingy and unattractive alley leading to the Coles loading zone doesn't help much, either. They could at least paint the brick wall - I've seen nice murals done over ugly brick walls just like this, and it can make such a difference.

In an area with such a high standard of dining, this is simply inexcusable. I don't know who they're trying to cater for with this charcoal chicken thing. People with no sense of smell, perhaps. I don't know. Just knock it down and let people go to one of the many other fine eating establishments in Moonee Ponds. I wouldn't even be tempted to eat here out of sheer morbid curiosity, and that is really saying something.

Rating: Condemnable

494A Victoria Street (St John's Anglican Church), Brunswick West, VIC, Australia

Now, normally when I rag on a church, it's because I find some aspect of their theology ridiculous or offensive (and being an atheist, this is not an uncommon occurrence). There is a Catholic Church near us that provides us with endless amusement via unintentional double entendres on its messageboard, but the church building itself is pretty imposing. Churches themselves have a habit of being attractive buildings. However, there are a couple of nearby churches that aren't exactly up to the usual standard, and today my focus is on St John's Anglican Church (or St John Chrysostom West Brunswick) on the intersection of Melville Road and one of Melbourne's ten bazillion Victoria Streets.

The front entrance on Victoria Street.

More specifically, today's sermon is about the Sin of Glass Bricks. Some of you may think there is nothing wrong with glass bricks; some of you may even own glass bricks. Well I call upon you to give up your glass bricks and come into the light of truth! No, seriously, what is the purpose of glass bricks?  It's basically like you're trying to give a false impression of openness and transparency while actually trying to stop anybody seeing in. Never mind a basic wall with windows; the front (Victoria Street) entrance to this church is three-quarters glass bricks. "Come on in, we're nice and airy and open ... except we really aren't."

Click for a larger copy and you should easily see the cross pattern.

Now, I don't know anything about this church specifically or its people, so I don't want to slur them directly, nor do I want to turn what is just a light-hearted blog made partly from curiosity and partly from casual revulsion into something overly serious and theological. But glass bricks are honestly quite fitting for many strands of the church organisation in general over history, trying to present an image of openness and light when they're actually a closed shop - especially if you're some sort of homosexual or unmarried sinner. Glass bricks are how you can present a welcoming image when you actually don't particularly want to be welcoming. Plus they can look fairly dirty even when new, an attribute exaggerated by this church. The pattern of a cross is made by some of the glass bricks, but it just looks like they've gone grubby with age and need a good scrub; I initially thought some had acquired a coating of dirt until it twigged that they were in the shape of a cross. This is all not to mention the glaringly obvious: glass bricks are seriously tacky. If the Reject Shop were a window, it would be a glass brick.

The Melville Road side.

As for the building overall, I think they tried. The main body of the church is a big brick edifice (big, I mean, in relation to the surrounding buildings) and it is exactly what you expect out of a church. It seems to follow a fairly tried-and-true traditional style - even if the top has windows that seem straight out of the mid-20th century, complete with an overly obvious cross. "Hey it's funny because the patterns in our window create a cross and we're a church so our symbol is a cross and yeah we're emphasising it REALLY REALLY HEAVILY just so you get it ... so you see it's funny ... and clever." Or not. But at least the main body, a hall I presume, is done right.

Think they ordered "prison tower" instead of "ornate tower".

And then they even decided to go for a tower. Nice big hall, capped by a tower - it should look good, shouldn't it? But this is a case of "good idea, poor execution". Here's a missed opportunity if I've ever seen one. A tower should be a grand statement, something beautiful that draws the eye. If you're going to make anything ornate, if you are going to demonstrate that you are devoted to your god by building him an imposing and gorgeous house of worship, if you are going to make your building a landmark around which the community can gather, then the tower is where you go for glory. Evidently they didn't get this memo. The tower just looks like they decided to lock somebody up the top ("shit, the pastor's gay? Well this'll fix him!"), or they wanted to give pigeons a roost to poop all over and suffocate within. Because they want the pigeons to have a chance to be close to god too ... or something. This doesn't look like a tower for a deity, but a tower for a somewhat petty local authority that thinks it's got some influence but doesn't even command the obedience that your school fete "little Hitlers" manage to acquire. Come to church and worship the mediocrity of our decent but uninspiring council!

St John's, I can see you tried. You're not a bad thing in the community. But those glass bricks? That plain tower? You can do better. Get out the paint cans, at the very least. Replace those glass bricks with something that actually shows off a vibrant faith community.

Rating: Lick o' paint.

194 Dawson Street, Brunswick West, VIC, Australia

Or, "how Mow Your Lawn! got its name".

It was 31 December 2010 and time for that annual celebration when the entire planet joins weirdos like me and Charlotte to be number nerds and celebrate something as basic as one number changing to another. I mean, I think interesting dates are a perfectly good reason to get drunk and set off fireworks, and it's comforting that once a year, everybody else joins in.  What, you're telling me there's a bit more to it than that, something called "culture" and all that?  Oh, well then.  That's not the point!

The point is that, on this particular New Year's Eve, Charlotte and I were going to meet my mother and her partner for dinner.  Classy souls that we are, we got smashed on delicious cider before even getting out the door.  So we stumble onto the tram, and I'm trying not to be one of those obnoxious, overly loud tram drunks talking about totally inappropriate subjects (cf Charlotte when we took Helen to see Alpine in November).  I don't think I entirely succeeded.

We already had some budding curiosity about decrepit buildings and crankiness about shonky modern architecture.  See, for example, this post and another post on this topic from Charlotte's blog.  On this particular trip, we'd already - and fairly quietly - noted a couple of Melville Road's more curious places (like Gibbi's Pizza and the shop next to Con's).  But then the tram pulled onto Dawson Street, I laid eyes on #194, and blurted:

"Mow your lawn!"

Because, christ, this thing really does need a mow, soon.  The property is otherwise lovely, and with a nicely mown lawn would attract a considerable amount of approval from me, not that this hasty shot shows much beyond the overgrown lawn:

I spent the next ten minutes critiquing unmown lawns and even urging one concrete paradise to "get a lawn!", which just made me think of a line from the Late Show's sketch about things wogs would never do.  Charlotte finally forcibly got me to shut up, or perhaps it was the urgent call of my bladder, parlously overloaded with cider.

Anyway, all I was getting at that night, and all I'm getting at now, is that you should mow your lawn.  You can't do a whole lot on an unmown lawn (except pass out in it, or hide power bills you don't want to read), and it's probably going to wind up home to things that want to kill you.  Especially in Australia.  And since this country is only three quarters of a mile from the sun, it's a bushfire risk too.

Rating: MOW YOUR LAWN!, or on our oh-so-formal scale, "lick o' paint".

Fire up your lawnmowers

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 in at least two of the residences 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.