This is me swearing right now.
I begged my neighbor not to spray. I told her I would lovingly come and pluck out any weeds she might get. She said she was going to talk to her husband. That means they are spraying. She said “sorry we are upsetting you.” Yeah, UNDERSTATEMENT. You are poisoning your children, my child, the water, my dog, my boyfriend, and me, but that’s what it means to you- you’re ‘UPSETTING’ me. So I just posted a few more things on fb about pesticides, but i’m sure that her and her crew are sitting over there laughing at me. Cuz, you know, i’m just a ‘crazy vegetarian hippy’ and i’m just making these things up about how bad spraying your lawn is.
This is from ehow;
“Some of the most common chemicals found in TruGreen ChemLawn products include prodiamine (found in Barricade herbicides), imidacloprid (Merit) and carbaryl (Sevin), though there are many others
Some chemicals, such as prodiamine, have relatively mild toxicity, but they have been known to cause cancer and disrupt endocrine, reproductive and/or neurological functioning in cases of long-term exposure. Others can cause severe poisoning”
Read more: Dangers of Chemlawn | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_6155970_dangers-chemlawn.html#ixzz1PRwWrx6W
Even the EPA has a dangers sheet for pesticides and herbicides. It seems completely obvious to me.
Here’s the thing, though; living in the suburbs of the suburbs, I have to get used to the fact that most of these people don’t worry about chemicals. I live every day trying to keep my mouth shut while I see people giving their kids soda, chicken nuggets, wiping them down with wet wipes, watching them buy styrofoam plates and toss them away, etc. I open my windows to get fresh air and all i can smell is my neighbors’ laundry softener. Chemicals are everywhere, and it is actually hard to find any stores out here that even sell natural or organic products, much less find people who actually care enough to buy them. So this fact of life for me is to just shut up and do the best I can for MY family. My neighbors actually one day asked me if i used vinegar to clean my house and I said yes, and they then proceeded to tell me about how they use this one cleanser and they know it is horrible for them, but they just love the SMELL, and they then continued to laugh and giggle about that. And I stood there not knowing what the f*#k to say. I could have come up with about 10 different responses at that point, but none of them would have allowed any kind of continued polite relationship between us afterwards. I mean, am I supposed to think it is funny that they choose the smell of a certain product over their own and their families’ health? WOW that is HILARIOUS!!! But I kept my mouth clamped shut and nodded and laughed a little for their benefit (Heh heh, boy that is funny) and mostly cuz I could picture my boyfriend’s face when I told him that I told the neighbors that they were shitty mothers and shouldn’t be allowed to have kids if they weren’t going to protect them…
BUT OH YEAH my point…
Mostly I keep my mouth shut. [And in an aside, so you know my history, I have been studying chemicals and researching them pretty much daily for over 7 years now, and I really want to be a naturopath. I’ll give my complete history of this in another blog] But in this instance, where this chemical is being directly poured onto the grass and is going to end up in my yard and is so blatantly bad for everyone and everything involved, i felt that I really really had to speak up. My conscience demanded it. Because not only am I going to absolutely see the effects of what these people do immediately in dead bugs and maybe even a dead rabbit or two, my dog is going to be quickly sickened by this application, and I am in a quandry of what to do about this. She is a little runty bulldog, and barely juts out of the grass. I feel obligated to her to try to protect her, but HOW?!? If I could i’d take her somewhere else to go potty. i could bathe her after she comes in, but then she is already exposed and i’d also be bathing her 3-5 times a day, which would be bad for her, too.
These people are KILLING ME. I’ve been stressed about one thing or another that they do since the day we moved in. It has been almost a year now.
My challenge; finding a way to keep my mouth shut when she either texts me and says “Sorry, but we’re going to spray”, or just sprays and doesn’t say anything, or I see her and she tells me offhandedly, “Oh, btw…”
Do you ever have retaliation fantasies? Cuz I totally do. Let’s end with that, shall we???
What would be equal to them poisoning us??? Hmmmm…
Well, taking them to court would be funny. But too long term.
Oh so sorry i just buried a leaking nuclear waste barrel in your backyard? Does that upset you??? Too messy.
Oh did you not want me to dump arsenic on your yard? I use it to kill straying children. Too much?
(I’m finding this difficult as obviously they don’t consider much to be off- putting; if they were vegetarians I could easily think of things to squeam them out)
Oh I’m sorry, did you not want your children smoking weed? You think it’s bad for kids? Where’s that evidence? I don’t believe it! Stupid idea-
UGH I GIVE UP. Any ideas out there?
PREM exhausted and disgusted and hating entire human race (except you of course)