Last summer, a Modesto resident provided city officials damning video evidence of a neighbor hand-watering plants in his yard on a non-watering day.
Call it one of those “gotcha” moments. Just one problem: The video also showed the lawn belonging to the whistleblower. It was greener and more lush than the yard of the neighbor he was ratting out.
The whistleblower “was watering every day,” Larry Parlin, Modesto’s public utilities director, told me. “He just didn’t like his neighbor, so he tried to turn him in.”
This year, we’re not even a month into spring and the city’s phones are ringing with complaints about neighbors overwatering.
“We’re getting bombarded with calls,” Parlin said. “About half of them are legit. The rest are just disputes between neighbors who don’t like their neighbors.”
"Journalism, n. A job for people who flunked out of STEM courses, enjoy making up stories, and have no detectable integrity or morals."
