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Jamey Carpenter was surprised to see a city work crew mowing his lawn Monday morning, and more surprised when they claimed it as city property. Mr. Carpenter’s protest resulted in the crew leaving his yard half-mowed.

A city of St. Joseph crew mowed the wrong yard Monday morning.

Well, half of the yard.

The mowers packed up and left without explanation the moment they realized they had the wrong house, said the confused resident, Jamey Carpenter. Mr. Carpenter added that the crew did a bad job on the half it did mow, apparently scalping the grass in some spots with weed trimmers.

The city now says it will offer to mow the rest of Mr. Carpenter’s yard. Mr. Carpenter might be better off, uh, cutting his losses.

What’s worse, half of a bad job or the whole thing?

The root of the problem was a typo, said Steve Hofferber, who oversees the city’s property maintenance operations. The city was supposed to mow the house across the street — 2202 S. 11th St. — but instead mowed the house at 2201 S. 11th St., which Mr. Carpenter and his wife rent from her grandparents.

Mr. Carpenter said his wife noticed the crew, and he went out to ask what they were doing. A crew member explained that the city now owned the house (the city is foreclosing on the house across the street for defaulting on a Community Development loan) and would mow the grass.

So Mr. Carpenter called City Hall, where he said a woman in property maintenance confirmed that the city doesn’t own the house and the crew didn’t have a work order for the address. Before he could get back outside to sort things out, the crew was gone.

“I don’t want it to happen again, with the couple weeks it’ll take to grow back,” Mr. Carpenter said.

Mr. Hofferber said he was unaware of this happening before, although he reported that the city once demolished the wrong building before he was hired.

Joe Blumberg can be reached at joeblumberg@npgco.com.