Dear Prudence,
My husband and I have always been pretty eco-friendly. We recycle, compost, bike instead of drive when we can, and a long list of other things. We had a small drought last year and tried to water our lawn much less than normal. Our neighbors, however, didn’t and that made me pretty mad. It infuriated my husband. Over the course of the past year, he has been working to redo our yard to incorporate many more flowers, plants, and native grasses that require little watering. Our yard has turned out great. We’re forecasted to have another mild drought year and about a month ago, some neighbors asked my husband if he could help them figure out how to redo their yards like we did ours. My neighbor is a professor so once summer started, he went all in on these projects. They turned out great too. Other neighbors have made some passing comments to us about how great our yards look.
My husband has taken this to mean that he should offer up his new found “services” to the neighbors. He literally wants to knock on their doors and say he can help people redo their lawns. I think this is really weird. We do live in a pretty close-knit neighborhood and we know most of our neighbors at least a little bit, but I think something like putting up flyers or having the neighbors we helped tell other people my husband is available is a much better tactic. My husband thinks this is too passive. I think he would try to change every lawn in our city if he could. I think his approach is going to make things awkward between us and some of our neighbors. My husband has a strong salesman personality and tends to try to “sell” things to people all the time. What should I do?
—Backyard Blunder