Landlord Revenge

Last week I got a surprising text from my roommate, Natalie. It said “Did you hack down our rosebushes?” Which, while driving in my car, makes me think that someone chopped down our roses, because I know that I didn’t do it. I tell her as much. When I get home I look at the damage. It’s true, the bushes have been demolished. Not trimmed, not gently cut, but more or less hacked to the roots. Natalie texts our other roommate, Liz, and tells her about the massacre. Liz texts back “WTF.” Actual photo of our rosebushes, or one that looks just like them, pre-massacre.

It is a complete mystery. When did it happen? Who was it? Why? This is a real-life who-dunnit mystery, I tell Natalie. Only there are no suspects, no motivation, and no clues. We figure if our landlords wanted our bushes gone (why would they, they’re roses?), they would call and let us know. We are convinced it is a psycho.

He probably crept into our backyard in the dead of night while we were sleeping. He took out his rusty, sharp saw and murdered our flowers. But why? Does someone hate us? We conclude that the suspect could not have been a yard maintenance man because of how the rosebushes are cut (not trimmed) and because of the fact that leaves and debris were left behind. Not all the debris, though. The actual bush that got cut is missing. They took it with them.
Actual photo of the remains of our rosebushes, post-massacre

Outraged, I want to call our landlord. After some hesitation, our landlord actually calls us first. She calls to tell us that one of the houses next to us is open and if we know of anybody, they can move in the first of September. Natalie is all “hey, bitch, do you have an agenda out for us and decided to thoughtlessly hack away our rosebushes in rage in the dead of night while we were sleeping?” Only what she really says is “hey, Anne, you didn’t happen to cut our rosebushes, did you?”

The mystery is then revealed. Anne ordered yard clean-up for a house next to ours a while ago. She says that she also sent kind of a nasty letter to the previous yard maintenance guy, because he wasn’t doing his job. The puzzle is pieced together. Suspect: angry lawn maintenance man. Motivation: revenge on woman who fired him. We (Anne included) come to believe that out of rage, the lawn guy probably hacked down our rosebushes when we were gone one day, because he is mad at Anne. Anne then tells us that she has hired someone new, who will come weekly to maintain our bark dust and rosebush stumps. Because you know, we don’t have grass, and now we don’t even have flowers.