Guerrillas

Who Is the Yardwork Guerrilla?

The typical yardwork guerrilla is a first-time home and yard owner in a city or a town. His median age is 31; most first-time home and yard owners are between 25 and 35 years of age.

In 2007, about one half of first-time home and yard buyers were married couples and 11% were unmarried couples; in 2011 two thirds of first-time home and yard buyers made the home purchase as a couple. The rest of the first-timers are single: one in four is a single female and 11% are single males. The yardwork guerrilla fights with support from a spouse or partner.

The median income of a first-time home and yard buyer in 2011 was $62,400. First-timers purchase smaller and less expensive homes and yards than repeat buyers: on average, a 1,570 square-foot home costing $155,000. The vanguard of the yardvolution is a medium-income American who fights on a small territory.

The G.Y. is a middle-class individual, with a college degree, and some post-college job experience. He likely believes in the long-term value of home and yard ownership or, like 60% of all first-time buyers, wishes to purchase a home out of a simple desire to own a home of his own—attitudes that signify the maturity and values of adulthood.

What Is the Yardwork Guerrilla Like?

The yardwork guerrilla must possess keen knowledge of herself. Hence she must continually assess her state of mind, physical shape, and identification with purpose.

To embark on the guerrilla yardwork path, the home and yard owner must possess a distinct consciousness of the necessity of change. Continuing and completing the yardvolution requires that revolutionary consciousness be cultivated.

The yardwork guerrilla must possess great powers of endurance, which runs on the fuel of self-discipline. Persistence to the point of stubbornness prevents flight and surrender. To persevere in a protracted conflict, the yardvolution insurgent must display physical and mental fortitude.

The guerrilla yardworker is a person of action, always on the offensive, retaining initiative and surprise. Such a pro-active outlook requires fearlessness as well as patience. The G.Y. prefers to make mistakes doing something rather doing nothing for fear of mistakes. She must be cunning and capable of swift comprehension and inventiveness in order to adapt to circumstances.

The guerrilla yardworker must also be a brave and positive individual. Her astuteness must compensate for her deficiencies in arms and equipment.

Qualities that complement the basic set of personal traits pertaining to inner strength include idealism, aesthetic sensibility, and love of Nature. Practical combat skills include spatial awareness, basic understanding of topography, as well as the ability to measure and calculate distances, determine routes, and draw maps, plans, and schedules.

* Excerpted from Guerrilla Yardwork: The First-Time Home Owner’s Handbook. Buy now on Amazon.