Hunglish.orgWhat's the difference between Austrian backyards and Hungarian backyards? Approximately the difference between "Golden Girls" and "Sanford and Son."
As one rides or drives across Magyarország, one finds they are not as particular about their yards as Americans and many Western Europeans usually are.
Most US communities frown on keeping weedy lawns, defunct vehicles and livestock on your residential property. In Hungary, this is standard operating procedure. As is keeping a pile of some sort of leftover building material stacked somewhere in the yard.
Hungarians often have a pallet or two worth of wood or tiles covered with a plastic tarp. A similar plastic tarp can be used to construct a type of greenhouse that can be also abandoned and left in one’s yard.
Contrast this with Austria, in which the landscaping appears to grow on command. In Austria, having a tidy yard borders on national obsession.
Crossing the now non-existent border, the front yards go from „Golden Girls” to „Sanford and Son” immediately.
I guess they figure, „All that stuff is going to be valuable one day.”
In the meantime, though, the junk will just sit around and drag down the property values. In the end, it just looks a bit like year-round lomtalanitás.
I think the way to put an end to this behavior could be to tax it. Hatred of taxes could trump hatred of yardwork.