Landscaping Rehab Issues

[Monica Breckenridge]

What are you guys doing for your front yard landscaping? My husband and I seem to have problems every year. We want the house to have nice curb appeal so we put down sod and red mulch. However we have had problems several times with watering the grass. We've had several of our above ground sprinkler with a timer blow out and water goes flowing down the streets. We typically get a call from the neighbors telling us water is going everywhere. Or when somebody goes to mow the lawn, they move the sprinkler and then they don't put it back right and the grass dies. Worse, I've had lawn mower guys leave the sprinkler by the side of the house and water seeps into the foundation and floods the basement and the front yard dies. I've had this happen 2x. It seems like we deal with one idiot after another.

So my question is how do you handle landscaping in the spring and summer? Do you put fake grass down, do you do nothing and put in the MLS that seller will give credit for the yard, do you prep it for grass and put the mulch down and then put the sod down after closing? I'm just curious because we aren't the only investors in town who has this problem and I'm trying to figure out a better system.