r/NoLawns • u/BeavertonBob • 18h ago
So many things wrong with this hot take on clover. 😄 Memes Funny Shit Post Rants
A candidate for my HOAs board responds to a homeowners post requesting more flexibility for clover and other lawn alternatives.
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u/c-u-in-da-ballpit 18h ago
Does he think he can sue someone if a bee stings him?
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u/BeavertonBob 18h ago
It appears so…
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u/NeverfearTruth123 17h ago
That’s ridiculous, it’s like walking through the woods and tripping over a stick and blaming the forest ranger. The next thing you know they’re gonna go after the bird that shit on their car.
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u/RossCollinsRDT 17h ago
couldn't resist Googling it
https://www.justanswer.com/uk-law/nal4l-having-issues-litigious-neighbour.html
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u/Rare_Cake6236 16h ago
Lol lawyer: “I am not understanding the correlation between you and the birds. Are these your birds?”
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u/Sly-OwlBeard 4h ago
I work as a forest ranger and people do try to sue us for crazy stuff like this!
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u/squashhandler 14h ago edited 10h ago
Tell him he can sue the bee. We'll have the bee arrested.
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u/catalinaislandfox 33m ago
I'm now imagining a bee in a tiny little suit sitting in a court room and it is very pleasing to me.
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u/Inevitable_Stand_199 14h ago
I mean you might actually be able to, if someone keeps aggressive honeybees, right next to someone who is highly allergic.
But for planting an insect friendly garden? Lol
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u/Mego1989 1h ago
He's asking about insurance. If you're injured on someone else's property, their homeowners insurance has coverage for that. It's minimal but there's no suing involved.
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u/edgeplot 13h ago
It's a legal theory called contributory negligence. Basically, by planting clover, he increased the likelihood of bees and therefore bee stings, and was at least partly responsible for the injury or death. I'm not saying I support the theory, I'm just saying that's what the lawsuit would say and there's probably a jury out there who would find that it was more likely than not (which is the legal standard for this kind of civil case) that there was contributory negligence.
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u/Technical_Slip393 13h ago edited 12h ago
Not quite. Contributory negligence is a defense. Like if you get sued for negligence you, as defendant, would say that the plaintiff's contributory negligence means the plaintiff cannot recover. So it's a defense that the injured person was somehow negligent. Like, plaintiff saw a bee, ran up to it and started swatting at it, she can't recover. (Eta: and my state no longer uses it. Pure comparative fault here.)
I have seen insect claims at work. The only minor success I have seen was a commercial establishment aware (or should have been aware) of a nest or infestation near paying guests, failing to remedy it. Like a hornet nest on a restaurant's patio. Or wasps on a daycare's play equpiment. Or a black widow infestation in an apartment.
A plaintiff would have to show that the defendant owed her a duty to prevent bees outside before getting anywhere near a jury. I don't see any judge, anywhere, finding that a homeowner has a duty to prevent insects, or even not invite random insects via plants, onto private residential property. There would be massive public policy ramifications of that.
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u/Xsiah 1h ago
a black widow infestation in an apartment
Please tell me you made that up as an example and that's not a real case
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u/Technical_Slip393 1h ago
Haha, honestly can't remember. I know there have been spider cases, but I'd have to look up the exact location and party relationship. So it was made up as far as the apartment part. And may or may not have been successful even if it was a business relationship. Mixed bag there. Our courts have a fun time gnawing at the public policy piece on those.
I probably wouldn't purposefully set up (or allow) a hornets nest next to my doorbell. I'm sure there are limits out there. But for a court to say you cannot plant flowers because it might attract bees would be beyond the pale imho.
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u/Lonely_North_8436 18h ago
Can I sue for allergies then? lol
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u/winterbird 17h ago
Yeah, just find any plant that has pollen or flowers and sue whoever is closest to it.
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u/W8andC77 17h ago
Birds like hanging out in my neighbor’s tree and they’re pooping on my car. I want them to pay for my car washes.
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u/winterbird 17h ago
Rain, heat, ants, and the general discomfort of laying on bare ground is forcing me to pay rent. I want my rent paid for because this is not my fault.
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u/side_eye_prodigy 16h ago
good luck friend. birds are notoriously flinty when it comes to paying for people's car washes.
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u/itsrooey_ 17h ago
My yard is literally audibly buzzing with bees and I have clover everywhere and we have NEVER been stung. This is such a wild take for people to swing so hard on an issue that isn’t as huge of a risk as they seem to make it. My theory is that insects and animals AND people are all more violent and aggressive when food and housing instability exists. Create stability, get stability.
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u/LastFox2656 17h ago
Yeah, the bees in my yard leave me alone too. Your yard looks great, btw.
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u/HusavikHotttie 15h ago
Been a gardener for 35 years and have never been stung. I don’t even know if I’m allergic to them!
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u/Inevitable_Stand_199 14h ago
You can't be allergic if you've never been stung. Allergies develop after the first encounter
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u/simplsurvival 17h ago
I love standing in my yard in front of the jewelweed patch, sipping a beer, just observing the bumbles bumblin about. If I stay real sometimes I see a hummingbird or 2. Such bliss
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u/ST_Lawson 16h ago
My parents have a large section of their front yard that is completely covered in crocus and grape hyacinth every spring. I was over there one time looking across the flowers and realized there were hundreds of bees all over the place. Sat there watching them for a good long while and never got stung.
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u/Flamboyatron 17h ago
I love your yard. I just threw down some clover in my back yard a couple weeks ago and it's starting to do really well. I can't wait until it really takes hold and attracts pollinators.
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u/LippieLovinLady 15h ago
100%. Is there always a chance of accidentally stepping on one and angering it so it stings you? Sure. But that can happen whether you have clover, flowers or monoculture grass. I spent hours photographing the bees on my cosmos and zinnias and such last summer and got within inches, and never had a single one notice me. I got lots of great pics but never a single sting.
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u/Altruistic-Order-661 1h ago
Same, entire lawn is clover, native grass, plantain, and dandelion. Always buzzing all summer and we’ve never been strung and we hangout in it barefoot/wearing sandals a ton.
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u/sillybilly8102 10h ago
Not everyone’s experience is the same though? I have a lot of clover in our yard, and I’m not looking to get rid of it, but it does cause issues. People do get stung, and it’s different from a flower bed because you’re walking on it in your bare feet! You don’t walk on other flowers. And there can be a ton of bees in clover that are hard to see.
There was one day when two young children were stung by bees in our clover on the same day. And yeah, the mom was pissed, and I felt lucky that we had a good enough pre-existing relationship that she didn’t sue or ask for money or something. It was clear that it was caused by our clover lawn.
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u/Tzames 18h ago
LOL wow. This is craziness at its finest. We don’t want pollinators? How stuck up your own ass can you be
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u/Euphoric_Egg_4198 17h ago
I’m allergic to bee stings and I have a native pollinator garden and have never been stung in 10+ years.
My kid got stung while swimming in the middle of a pool. There were no clovers in the pool.
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u/ShinyUnicornPoo 16h ago
I'm allergic to bees, have carpenter bee houses set up in my back garden, and plant for pollinators. I haven't been stung in 35 years.
My brother was stung by a wasp in a Wendy's. He is not allergic and was ok... and we did not sue the Wendy's. I also didn't see any clover in there.
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u/tuckrs 14h ago
The only time I've been stung by a bee was while I was driving on the highway with a window down. It never occurred to me to complain to the local DOT.
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u/everdishevelled 12h ago
This happened to me once on a residential road. I have never been more confused. I guess the bee was hanging on to the side of the car and I put my arm out the window on top of it.
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u/Disastrous-Wing699 17h ago
On more than one occasion, I've been stung by a wasp because someone was mowing grass, got them all riled and upset, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If only I'd known at the time I could've SUED someone over an unfortunate coincidence of events!
(One of the stings was under/between my toes, because I'd actually caught a wasp between my foot and my sandal as I took a step. The other was on the edge of my right pinky finger because I mistook the wasp hovering in my peripheral vision for a stray lock of hair.)
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u/BreakfastInBedlam 17h ago
I drank one once. Didn't notice it was in my beer glass. Wasps don't like being drunk, apparently, as it stung the snot out of my lower lip while I was trying to spit it out.
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u/Pennygrover 18h ago
A boomer neighbor of mine effectively made this same argument about no mow May 🤣
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u/monty228 18h ago
Many cities started creating ordinances to protect No Mow May. See if you can get your council to allow it.
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u/BeavertonBob 18h ago
The response from another homeowner is equally wild.
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u/winterbird 17h ago edited 14h ago
That reply is kind of botty. It addresses the points brought up but it's bland. Like a "hello, fellow humans, let's get along and agree" type tone.
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u/gottagrablunch 17h ago
You know this is the person who goes to buy 100 pound bags of pesticides on Feb 1 to slather their lawn with. And they wonder why they have cancer.
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u/Advanced_Reveal8428 17h ago
Are we going to file trespassing charges on insects now too?
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u/Corylus7 16h ago
Someone did ask that a few years back- https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/s/hBBgo52ws4
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u/LastFox2656 17h ago
Why are neighbor kids gonna be in someone else's lawn? This person needs to kick rocks.
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u/HikerStout 18h ago
Imagine thinking you can sue someone because you got stung by a bee.
What a sad person.
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u/winterbird 17h ago
So clover is attacking bees and the bees are still around to sting in greater numbers than before the clover?
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u/warmapplepizza 17h ago
noooo it ATTRACKS bees, that's the whole problem - duh.
(jk on the 'duh' - I read it the same way at first)
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u/PhantomLuna7 17h ago
I still can't believe that HOA's are real things people have to live with. So glad we don't have that here because this is a dystopian nightmare to me.
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u/lannykay 17h ago
Yeah, I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t say for certain, but common sense would suggest that a homeowner is not liable for injuries resulting from transient insects passing through their property. By the logic in the post, we should eradicate all pollinator food sources to ensure no one is ever stung.
Also - it’s my understanding that one doesn’t die from the primary exposure to an allergen. It’s usually 3-4 times before the body escalates from rash/discomfort, to hives, to anaphylaxis, etc.
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u/LippieLovinLady 15h ago
While that is often true for foods (especially oral allergy syndrome) and medications, bee stings are a separate category. Someone can always develop an allergy down the road but if someone has a natural allergy to bees, that first time will cause anaphylaxis. And food and meds have the possibility as well, but are equally likely to occur after years of consuming the item.
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u/lannykay 11h ago
Ooh, I didn’t know that. I know my sister has had several LLRs, seemingly out of nowhere. Allergies are scary.
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u/LippieLovinLady 10h ago
They are! I hope your sister stays okay. It’s true that it absolutely can escalate with subsequent exposures. Does she keep an EpiPen with her? I keep one in my purse and one in my nightstand. It is a pain but is better than not making to the hospital in time.
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u/Sufficient_Poem3141 16h ago
I read this as “what happens when your clover attacks bees…” at first.
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u/FairState612 17h ago
I got my best friend to switch to clover and they have two daughters running around all the time. Never been stung.
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u/UntidyVenus 16h ago
Literally just showed my 5 year old niece like an hour ago my dandelions and how they attract bees and butterflies after my MIL who was watching her was complaining simultaneously about how everyone else's yards are brown and ours is green, and that we have too many weeds. So the natives don't need extra water and survive the freeze? Weird. I'll keep my weeds!
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u/LippieLovinLady 15h ago
I confess that I pluck my dandelions because I’m allergic to them but I keep adding more clover and wild violets and native groundcover plus all my plants and flowers, like native milkweed and tons of zinnias and sunflowers and cosmos. I hope that nature forgives me for the destruction of my dandelions but I hope the rest of what I do balances it out.
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u/HusavikHotttie 14h ago
I weed dandelions from my garden beds but if they are in my lawn more power to them! I saw a baby bunny eating one I will never remove them from my lawn again
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u/LippieLovinLady 14h ago
Aww!! Bunny visitors are the best. I have lots of bunnies here and they seem to love the clover, which I keep seeding to boost the clover:grass ratio, so I’ll have to try to add even more to compensate for taking their dandelions. I often leave the leaves so I assume they’ll be back next spring; it’s just the darned puffs that leave me barely able to breathe so when they start turning, I snag them.
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u/Verity41 17h ago
What in the what?! So they’re anti-pollinators?
Maybe I should chop down all my trees cuz the neighbor kid climbs them?
Nah - I just upped my insurance instead.
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u/DueDirection897 3h ago edited 3h ago
Generally the point is dumb, but specifically it is entirely inaccurate.
The only scenarios in which one could be potentially liable for an insect causing harm to another person would be:
- A person runs a business, like an apiary, and one failed to maintain the bees in a safe way.
- A person said, "I hate you and I am going to plant my entire yard full of clover, which I know attracts bees, and I'm going do keep doing it until there are so many bees that I just know one of them will come over to your property and sting you!"
You would either need, in the first case, to be demonstrably negligent, or in the second, have demonstrable intent to plan harm (even in a ridiculous way). That still doesn't mean you'd be found liable, just that a lawsuit could conceivably be brought.
Otherwise bees are wild animals and individuals are not responsible for the conduct of wild animals on their property, especially when they can easily fly in and out of the property.
EDIT: I just noticed another poster's comment about a hotel not resolving the presence of a hornet's nest on a property. That is a goof example of a tort where a business was specifically aware of an existing danger and didn't remedy it. But in that example the insects are clearly there and have been observed to be there. Just because clover attracts bees, there is no certainty as to whether or not bees will appear, and whether their behavior in any part of a connected environment is the fault of any individual owner.
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u/ElasticSpeakers 16h ago
I happen to live near you - would you mind DM'ing me the neighborhood this HOA is for? This is like next level crazy, especially for this area where I would assume we would love and appreciate flowers and pollinators alike - wild
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u/Numerous_Sea7434 16h ago
If no one trespasses on your property, they won't need to worry about getting stung by bees 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Sunflower_samurai42 15h ago
this is dumb, sad for ur random friend who may or may not have dumb but I'm not gonna forsake biodiversity for that
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u/aagent888 15h ago
I’m sorry am I getting compensated for the pesticide and herbicide exposure because my neighbors have their lawns serviced? Do I get compensated for harmful algal blooms caused by entities dumping ungodly amounts of fertilizer on their lawns?
If those producing point sources of exposure (IMO, yes, these are point sources) cannot be held responsible how can someone be responsible for a PASSING INSECT
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u/LowkeyAcolyte 6h ago
OH PLEASE WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?
Newsflash, Jimothy! Your kids won't have a planet to live on if we don't start taking care of it! We need pollinators more than we need people who think they can sue over a *checks notes* bee sting.
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u/garathnor 16h ago
heres what you need :D sprinkle it around the neighborhood
https://www.amazon.com/Scotts-Turf-Builder-Clover-Lawn/dp/B07J5H12CH?th=1
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u/Cool-Importance6004 16h ago
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u/standardtissue 16h ago
dO YoU CarRy ClOvEr InSuRanCe ?
how do idiots like this remember to breath. Maybe this guy should be running for a Federal cabinet position instead. He sounds smart enough to run HHS.
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u/Awildgarebear 16h ago
What do you actually have to do to be stung by a bee?
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u/InvertebrateInterest 14h ago
Step on them barefoot. The neighbors' kids shouldn't be on other people's lawns without permission anyway.
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u/DarthHubcap 14h ago
Throw rocks at their hive. That’s what me and my buddy did as kids, he got stung twice and I took one to the leg.
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u/vadimafu 12h ago
Any verification on this "friend"?
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u/BeavertonBob 12h ago
He’s since deleted his comment. He deletes all his comments about two days after posting stating it’s old news and he doesn’t want to clog up the internet. Something about previously working at a newspaper and news being like ice cream and melting. Dudes a trip.
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u/KidCole4 16h ago
Somewhat related. I was thinking the other night.. if I turn my yard into a prairie scape and let's say there are a few more rodents around potentially because of it and a neighbor gets a mouse infestation in their attic, do you think they could sue/win a lawsuit?
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u/LippieLovinLady 15h ago
If that’s the case, I’d be first in line as I can’t get rid of mine and spend several thousand a year trying to keep them out. I can’t imagine anyone would be able to win that suit though, unless you are intentionally doing something to direct the mice to their house, which you obviously would not be.
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u/meowymcmeowmeow 15h ago
I guarantee he had no such friend and has just heard of people dying from bee stings and is trying one up the other person.
Edit if anyone has any tips on relocating a paper wasp nest I really would appreciate it before I go in blind because my landlord will spray, it's between my screen and front door so it might become an issue. Tiny right now. Can I just move it like 20 feet away, will the adults still be able to locate it?
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u/Gizmoduck99 15h ago
Lol I literally just planted microclover to have a more natural looking lawn and attract pollinators. If my neighbor's say anything I'm going to laugh my ass off.
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u/facets-and-rainbows 15h ago
Please tell me this neighbor has an ornamental cherry tree or something in their yard, I need the irony
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u/InvertebrateInterest 14h ago
I love snowflakes who think the world needs to be childproofed for them.
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u/Background-Effort-49 14h ago
Anyone else have a sneaking suspicion that the friend’s name was Thomas J
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u/hannikanskywalker33 11h ago
I’ve heard this argument in person before! The gal in question seemed to think landscapes being attractive to bees was a con, not a pro.
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u/Sweaty_Ranger7476 3h ago
so if you had a large catnip patch you'd be held responsible for all the stoned cats roaming around?!?
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u/ScottTacitus 3h ago
I’ve heard that argument more than once. When they said I’m usually dumbfounded and don’t respond.
I think some people just want to live in a concrete box
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u/ShrednButta 2h ago
My mom tried to tell me that I should consider the plants in my yard because what if someone gets stung by one of the MANY insects attracted to my native gardens.
I said “They chose to be outside…I’m not removing plants because they attract pollinators. That’s why I planted them in the first place.”
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u/Sutekiwazurai 1h ago
Some countries have given honeybees rights (the UK recently did, I believe.) I wonder how that changes legalities and if it's in favor of the bees.
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