The argument began with a difference in opinions over the plant growth in the garden in front of the houses in southern Swedish town Helsingborg, SVT Nyheter reports.
The pair then stopped talking, but that was only the beginning of the dispute. It soon escalated when the man involved started to park his lawnmower next to the boundary with his neighbour’s garden and then leave it there, turned on, while she was sitting outside with guests.
He would then go out to do other things like walk the dogs with the mower still buzzing away all the while.
The woman explained that she did not tell him to turn it off because she did not wish to speak with him. The man meanwhile insisted that he was not intentionally attempting to annoy his neighbour, claiming that the mower was left on the front patio because it leaked oil, and that he had kept its engine switched on because it was old and difficult to start.
Helsingborg district court did not accept his arguments however. It judged that he had acted ruthlessly and had shown clear intent to disturb his neighbours, sentencing him to a significant financial penalty for harassment.
Earlier this year a man in southern Sweden was apprehended by police while driving around the grounds of a house, inebriated, on a lawnmower.
Police had been called to the scene in order to mediate a fight between neighbours when they encountered the heavily drunk lawnmower-rider.
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