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Homeowners may be able to relate to the feeling of Thomas Lyons, a TikTok user who shared his unique method to prevent people from walking across his lawn.
Lyons shared the footage of his newly installed automatic sprinkler system, which detects people walking across the lawn and sounds an alarm, before hosing them down.
"When people won't stop cutting across your lawn," he wrote, sharing footage of people taking the route of his front yard, which sits on the corner of a road.
"Set up an automatic sprinkler," he advised, gaining 38 million views after posting on September 23.
The video showed footage from September 22 and, along with upbeat music, showed young people being suddenly soaked after walking directly across the lawn. In each case, the individual ran straight off from the yard.
As shown by a second video uploaded, an alarm also sounded at the same time as the sprinkler.
The video can also be seen in full here.
Last week, Lyons showed how effective the sprinkler system has been with comparison footage of before and after.
Before the sprinkler came into action, people would freely walk and cycle across the yard, during both day and night. Whereas after, people were left suddenly running from the yard in footage from September 23 and 26.
According to homeowner Lyons, he had previously "asked nicely everyday to stay off the lawn, but people keep coming."
Lyons promised that "we got a lot more of these videos coming," in a comment, after confirming that his "buddy" recently installed the system.
With a collective 42 million views across the three videos, they've split opinions on whether or not the system is called for.
"I love this level of pettiness. It's your lawn, so do as you wish," wrote one user.
"I don't understand. I was raised to never walk in someone's yard. Especially a stranger," commented a viewer.
"There's a sidewalk 10 feet away. Constantly walking over grass will kill it and it's literally someone's front yard," added another.
"Had someone do this in our yard. Tried to sue us before they tripped in a hole my dog dug and fractured their ankle. Keep spraying them down," reasoned one user with an anecdote.
Others online however felt that the automatic sprinkler was a step too far, with one user writing: "Never understood why walking on the lawn was such a bad thing. It's grass."
"Let those kids get home a minute faster," added another.
"Cutting across the grass has saved me from missing the bus many times. People cut because it is always faster and even 30 seconds can make a difference," recalled a user.
"What's wrong with crossing through lawns imo it's kind of rude to do this especially if I need to go somewhere fast without access to vehicles," commented one viewer.
Despite splitting opinions, for some, the videos have been a sense of sheer entertainment. Lyons has promised there are more to come.
Newsweek has contacted Thomas Lyons for comment.
