What about raking and trimming trees back or weeding gardens?

Maybe an area for gardening and common space for community interaction, etc. 

We have a 4' tall Magnolia soulangiana tree in the small front yard of our rental place. (see pic) The next door neighbor has been asking us to remove the tree as it is about 3-4 feet away from their wall and they are...

The City used to heavily go after illegal garden units. 

Get a garden flat spade and scrape that stuff off, or go to box store and get a floor scraper with a blade to get up as much as you can.  

I want more time with family and my garden.

Any other pet add-on advice is appreciated.They are smoking on the patio, also expressly against the lease terms.They are into organic gardening, which is fine, but has resulting in a bit of a swarm of fruit flies in the dining area.

Which is in the Livonia/Garden City/Redford/Canton area.

In fact by the time dinner was over I had a nice list.I got up the next morning and went to the local building supply, got a quart of paint, a bucket, some cleaner, a brush and a garden hose.

The last gardener, despite telling him not to, would scalp my tall fescue grass during the heat of the summer, and that would cause the grass to nearly die because it was too short, and the soil was getting baked.