Drought hack: Who will bring lawn painting to Vancouver?

Earlier this week, the City of Vancouver imposed Stage 3 water restrictions that include a ban on residential and nonresidential lawn sprinkling.

The province’s dry summer means that’s leaving many Lower Mainland lawns brown.

Homeowners who still have a lush and green front lawn risk being labeled a “grasshole”, the implication being they are likely defying the city’s ban on lawn watering.

Now, one industrious California man has emerged with a “drought hack” that could be adopted by Vancouver residents as a way to beat the heat.

“We specialize in painting lawns that have turned brown during the drought,” explains Josh Cox in a video produced by AJ+. “We paint them back to their natural colour.”

California is several years into one of its worst droughts on record. In Fresno, where Cox’s lawn-painting business is based, water restrictions in place this summer allow for residents to water their lawns twice per week.

Cox markets his company, Mirage Lawn Painting, as a solution to a brown and crispy front yard.

“The drought, it’s terrible. I would say 80 to 90 percent of the lawns are either brown completely or have a lot of brown spots,” he says. “Hopefully it starts raining and we won’t be needed anymore. But for now, it is definitely busy.”

Update: The future is now. As Leslie Boldt noted on Twitter, this service has already arrived to Vancouver.