Underground weed killed a garden bed... and real estate say we (tenants) are to blame.

Maybe it's couch grass or something else. Long stringy, breaks off at the next segment down when you pull on it, grows long tendrils above ground and underground grows through roots of other plants before killing them.

We're renting and I noticed it a while back. Talked to the real estate and told them it was going to kill a garden bed. The stuff grows a lot underground and incredibly hard to get out. No response from the agent.

Then it did exactly what I said it would - it killed a few plants by tangling through the roots. I can snap off the weed at ground level but it requires serious digging to get it out of the roots.

Then comes last week and real estate agents blasts me saying it's my responsibility to weed the garden... to which I agree, however I disagree that it's my responsibility to dig down into the earth and untangle a weed from the roots.

I spoke to the owner later and discovered that before we moved in that he and his wife had spent a few hours snapping off the weeds at ground level... so it looked like there were no weeds but of course they were all still there.

Anyway, wondering where I stand on this? We're moving in a few months and I know they're going to try to take the bond for "garden bed repair" or something like that.

My feeling is that this is like a tree root growing underground and cracking the house or killing another plant - outside my responsibilities as a tenant.

What do you think?

 

As far as I am concerned your only job is to maintain it (i.e. water it, keep it neat). Any underlying issues rest with the owner. Just keep documented correspondence with the owner/property manager notifying them of any issues.

 

Wouldn't maintaining it also be wedding the garden bed? Otherwise it isn't neat?

To OP - wedding the garden bed to me is your responsibility as you also pointed out. If it is under the ground with no visible sign above then it might be different.

 

The weeds do have a visible part that grows above. You can snap off at the ground but the weed is still alive and entangled through any plant roots. The bit under the ground is what killed the plants. Incredibly difficult to remove and requires digging up the existing plants and detangling by hand.

The "weeding" the owners did prior to us renting was snapping off weeds at ground level. The other day I dug up a whole dead garden bed and the stuff was right through the roots of the few plants struggling to survive.

 

Do you have any pics? (To help identify what it is)

 

Is it grass or weed? You mention couch, sounds more like kikuyu...

 

Some weeds are like bamboo
They store reserves in the root system to regenerate.
The only way to kill them is with a poison everytime the pop their heads up and start to show green again.
So get some straight roundup and a tiny paint brush to apply to the specific weed.
When you move, just weed and rough over the top as the owners did !

 

Sounds like Wandering Jew/Creeping Jesus. Weed sprays are the most effective method followed by weeks of painstakingly taking out each runner. Not your problem.