Company will apply green spraypaint to dead brown lawns of foreclosed homes

This story came out in February, but I just heard about it on the news today. A company in the depressed town of Stockton, California (which looked to me like it was about to collapse when I was there ten years ago; I imagine it's much worse now) is keeping busy painting the dead lawns of foreclosed homes with green paint so banks can tart them up for auction.

Nick Terlouw has launched the Greener Grass Co., which amounts to a service in which he sprays dead lawns with a deep green, water-based dye that makes the turf look good enough for a golf course or a professional football stadium.

For between $175 and $225 per yard, Terlouw uses a motor-powered 50-gallon insecticide sprayer designed for treating orchard trees. He waves his magic wand and in broad sweeps, a la painting a house, makes tired, if not expired, turf sit up and sparkle like Shirley Temple.

Upscale curb appeal goes green

• [Anonymous]

  I recently started a business dyeing grass. The idea occurred to me when my wife, a real estate agent, mentioned how much better the foreclosed homes would sell if the sprinklers were left on. I thought I had a unique idea at the time.
  The formulation for the dye I use is imported from Japan. It’s contains no chemicals, is non-toxic and somewhat translucent, not like paint, more like a dark green highlighter. The dark green color actually absorbs light and will not kill the grass that is not already dead. After all, why would anyone dye green, healthy grass green? It’s best suited for somewhat healthy grass that has a brown tint to it or numerous unhealthy patches.
  As for us, green grass means better curb appeal, which means quicker sales for a better price. Since my wife and I were both deeply involved in residential real estate, in this miserable economy, better sales means my kids won’t have to starve.
  Don’t sit on the sidelines and complain how bad you’ve got it. Take responsibility for you own life and do something to make it better for yourself and your family. Don’t wait for the government to give you handouts or your boss to hire you back after your layoff. Create your own source of income, who knows it may take off and when it does you’ll be putting other people to work so they can take care of themselves and their families.

• [oscar]

  THis happened in Seattle in the early 90′s. I know, hard to believe in the land of constant drizzle, but it did. Water was rationed, and people stopped watering their lawns. And at least one company sprung up that sprayed brown lawns green. I don’t know where anyone gets the idea that a sprayed dead lawn “springs up” when painted green – it was super-obvious and fake-looking when they did it here.

• [Daemon]

  Doing this to the lawn of a house that is up for sale is ethically dubious unless it is specifically states that the lawn is dead and has only been spraypainted to appear fine.

• [raisedbywolves]

  Maoinhibitor, that was my first thought. Eww.

• [Vanwall]

  The Soviets would plant fir trees in the permafrost of Siberian airbases when bigwigs were scheduled to visit, knowing they would die anyway, then paint the trees as well as any groundcover after they were dead. I presume the Dead Lawn Improvement Society will be doing the same for trees soon, as well.

• [tornadox]

  Growing up in 1970s Oklahoma, grass stayed green for maybe a month between the spring and scorching summer. So, every summer one funeral home owner painted the lawns of his house and business green. His yards really stood out in the neighborhood.

  That paint was nasty to walk through in bare feet. It turned one’s feet (and one’s white shoes) green.

• [wolfiesma]

  Antinous,
  I wanted to follow up with you about mosquitoes. It is a major problem where I live, too. You might already know about a certain insect repellent called, “Herbal Armor.” It is basically citronella, peppermint, cedar, lemongrass and geranium oils. The stuff works amazingly well, and without it I wouldn’t be able to work so hard at killing my lawn, if you know what I mean.

• [GaryInMiami]

  When I attended summer camp in Maine back in the late 1960s the dead grass was painted “grass green” right before the day parents were allowed to come visit the kids who were staying for the full eight-week term. The camp was Camp Zakelo, they had been doing this since the 1950s, and it was somewhat derisively known as Zako Grass because it looked so horribly fake. One year it rained shortly after Zako Paint day and practically the entire campus took on a light green color. I guess you could say Zakelo was green long before the term became popular. ;)

• [tikal2k]

  Seems ethical to me.

  It’s just like when real estate agents completely fill a house with furniture and a fruit basket on the table when it’s on the market. The furniture isn’t for sale, and neither is diligent lawn maintenance.

• [Bloodboiler]

  Soviet Russian towns did the same thing when big wings were coming for a visit. I assume next you will be trying Romanian custom of photographing your leaders next to tables filled with wooden sausages.

• [Secret_Life_of_Plants]

  I guess that this lawn-spraying is one way to gauge the political persuasions of your new neighbors…

  http://tiny.cc/tBrfG

• [Frank_in_Virginia]

  …tart them up for auction…

  The former governor of New York is looking for a job, might he help?

• [Apreche]

  Look at the houses in that picture. Mansions! Foreclosed on a mansion! Someone is living well above their means.

• [Jebdm]

  Maybe Dave Barry should’ve filed a patent. He pioneered the technique of painting lawn (spots) green way back.

• [acb]

  Are they also posting security guards to prevent looters from breaking into the repossessed McMansions and ripping out all the copper wiring/piping to sell for scrap?

• [Kieran O’Neill]

  Well, what I was going to say about this was “If that’s not a story of capitalism, I don’t know what is.”

  Then I saw #17 (lol!) and read the rest of this thread in detail.

  So maybe it’s more a story of the world’s two economic giants (the United States and China) both sliding into their own peculiar version of a hybrid capitalist-socialist state, combining many of the worst aspects of each. (Russia’s in a similar place, too.)

  I often wonder whether that isn’t simply a matter of scale – maybe once you pass certain thresholds of GDP and/or population, good governance becomes impossible?

• [Wigwam Jones]

  @ #17 Bloodboiler:

  Nice one. I presume you are referring to “Potemkin Villages” as described here:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potemkin_village

  I agree.

  For what it is worth, in a world where appearance is fast becoming not only important to reality, but a valid replacement for it, we have strange juxtapositions of culture.

  In China, where the fireworks were fake and the little-girl singer was replaced with a better-looking lip-sync artist, they’re putting a photographer on trial for pasting a tiger into a photograph that won him a prize.

  http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-09/27/content_7065877.htm

  So what’s real? I guess what we get away with. The only part that amazes me is that some actually express a preference for the appearance over the reality. Odd.

• [gollux]

  @34 Not yet, however; if you’re buying a McMansion here in the Pacific Northwest, you might want to talk to the neighbors and find out how long the house remained roofless over winter (Sheeting only, no shingles). We’ve had some here go through two winters before being roofed. Think OSB and mold. You cut into the stuff and the black mold spores just powder out of it if its been left to soak for one winter.

• [wobblesthegoose]

  So cool. Natural lawns are such an insane waste of water, money, and creativity. Someone on my block had this done for promotional shots a while back, and while it was unnatural at first (she had it done in february, way before any other yard on the block) it looked great once other yards on the block started to green. I don’t see the American lawn surviving this financial crash.

  • [Antinous]

    The rather larger problem are the green swimming pools serving as incubators for mosquito-borne diseases.

• [VibroCount]

  My first permanent assignment in the Air Force was at Bergstrom AFB (near Austin, Texas) in 1970. While LBJ was President, Air Force One would use Bergstrom to ferry the President and his family close to his ranch in Johnson City. The rumor was that Lady Bird disliked the brown grass next to the runway, so they formed a detail just before she would arrive (or take off) to paint the grass green.

  I had no reason to believe this was anything more than just a rumor until we were ordered to build a new tool crib in the maintenance hangar where I worked. After building it, the sergeant asked for some paint, any paint, any color, to cover the bare wood. No regs specified what color it needed to be. The supply guy said he’d send over whatever paint he had the largest surplus of — and we got a few gallons of grass green paint. I cannot imagine why an Air Force base would need a supply of grass green paint…

• [NicodemusLegend]

  For sports games and movies, I can see why this would work. The observer is a good bit of distance away from the painted ground. For selling houses? I’m a bit surprised. I would have honestly thought that anyone close enough to the grass to actually SEE it would notice the paint instantly. Or maybe they can tell, they just don’t care?

• [CopyrightMe]

  The Chinese were doing this to the roadsides in winter 2001 when I was there. I was quite amused.

• [Takuan]

  can’t just toss in a few bucks of feeder goldfish?

  • [Antinous]

    The fish would just die and serve as fertilizer for something worse. I live in one of the hottest, driest places on the planet, and I have an out of control mosquito problem. I have Vector Control on speed-dial.

• [Jack]

  This reminds me of abandoned buildings in NYC in the 1980s getting faux painted windows and facades.

• [Takuan]

  larvacide?

• [microcars]

  This is the same stuff used by Sports Teams and Golf Courses to keep their turf looking good no matter what.

  Here is one major brand: Greenlawnger

  I used to use this stuff in the Film Industry (they still do), to make locations look “perfect”. Of course I also had cans of Green “Floral Spray” (acetone-base spray paint in hues specific to gardens) for those little touch ups…

  I first encountered it many years ago in Cypress Gardens FL (mid 1980′s or so) I went down there in the Winter to film a TV commercial there and they had a horrible drought, everything everywhere was just brown, but at Cypress Gardens everything was GREEN! (unless you went off the publicly accessible areas behind the scenes…then it was still brown).

  • [Antinous]

    Didn’t they get the idea here?

• [dainel]

  If the grass is not dead when you paint it green, will the paint actually kill it by blocking sunlight and air?

  Is there a company that will paint your healthy lawns a different colour … bright red, flourescent blue, black, … ?

  I live in the tropics, where everything is green all year round. I work in a photo shop. Sometimes I see customers bringing in beautiful autumn photos. Maybe someone here would want to paint their trees these colours. It would certainly be an attraction.

• [gollux]

  Can’t wait to see the local Real Estate Vultures try this on the McMansionville Ghost Town up the street.

  The only problem is that it was rolled sod which wasn’t allowed to properly root. When it died it contracted, pulled and tore into a pattern you normally see in the arctic where frost thaw breaks the surface into these interesting patterns.

  It’s gonna look kind of silly and weird spray painted green, but anything for appearances.

  Personally, I’ve got my eye on one of the formerly $695,000 ones. When it hits $250,000 I’ll buy it and turn it into a four unit apartment.

• [robpettengill]

  In the 1970′s Richard Nixon paid a visit to Palo Alto while he was president – Palo Alto painted the California summer golden brown dry grass along Page Mill Road bright green in his honor. This seems some how especially appropriate in retrospect.

• [Engine Here]

  This might be the only thing worse for the enviroment then actually having a perfectly pesticide laced, nitrogen infused, heavily fetilized lawn.

  They would be better off ‘renting’ sod, and rolling it up and taking it after the house is sold.

  As enterprising as this seems, it reminds me that there are some dangerously insane individuals out there.

• [MerrickB]

  I don’t know what the hubbub’s about. One of my Ex’s and his family were originally from Stockton, CA before they moved out to Atlanta.

  When I went to meet them for the first time during the Thanksgiving Holiday, I was outside enjoying the cool air after being in the stuffy house most of the morning and early afternoon and noticed that the lawn had been spray-painted.

  Coming back into the house, I asked his parents why it was spray painted. They said it was Caribbean Grass and that they hated it being brown during the winter so he routinely went out there to spray paint it. He picked up the habit when they were originally living in Stockton. He further explained all the neighbors did it as well…

  Seems to go hand-in-hand with the region… I shrugged and chalked it up to regional bizarre habits and haven’t thought about it since, given more places seem to be doing it, instead of actually buying astro-turf. :)

• [Razalon]

  In November of 1969, I saw the same type of thing happen in Tucson AZ. An unusually cold (for Tucson) spell had sent the Zoyzia-type grass on the street/highway medians into winter brown. Since people go to Tucson and pay outragous seasonal prices for the privilege of NOT seeing brown dead-looking stuff, the city fathers had the workcrews painting the grass green. Shades of the gardeners in Alice in Wonderland…”painting the roses red!”

• [pentomino]

  The ideal move would be to re-landscape the lawns with native plants and no grass. That’s very common in Phoenix, where we’re less inclined to pretend we’re not a desert.

  But I’m in favor of any cheap, effective fix for neighborhood blight. A good house can lose value because of a neighbor’s bad lawn.

• [nonrational]

  Did anyone else’s RSS reader display the title as “Company will apply green spraypaint to dead”?

• [mikelotus]

  That is what they do to the grass for the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, FL since the St. Augustine grass turns brown in the winter (or at least they did as I am not sure they still use the St. Augustine grass there anymore).

• [maoinhibitor]

  Stupid question:

  What is this doing to the ground water?

  I have to assume that a dye that can last for four months probably isn’t biodegradable.