Cape Coral homeowner apologizes for using wooden plank with nails to deter vehicles from lawn

Residents in a Cape Coral neighborhood are resting easy after police officers told a neighbor his do-it-yourself device to keep vehicles off his lawn was dangerous.

The device was two wooden planks with 4-inch nails sticking out of them placed on the corner of his house. WINK News’s report on Wednesday prompted the Cape Coral Police Department to knock on the man’s door, in the area of SE 15 Terrace and SE 6 Avenue, to tell him it was a safety issue.

“We explained that this was a violation of our city ordinance and when the officer got there the planks of wood with nails in it were removed,” said Master Sgt. Patrick O’Grady, public information officer with the Cape Coral Police Department.

The man removed the device and was apologetic, explaining he just had new grass put down and it kept getting run over, police said.

The Cape Coral police said they decided not to cite the man with a city ordinance. Instead, they hope the conversation will do the trick.

“I thought it was crazy and I couldn’t believe that someone would do that actually, to go to that extreme,” said one neighbor, Marilee Conroy.

The homeowner declined to go on camera but apologized. He said he never meant to hurt anyone but was frustrated with all of the commercial trucks and garbage trucks that drive over the corner of his lawn.

The homeowner said he used to have small rocks along the edge of his lawn, but the large trucks just pushed them into the ground. He’s considering another solution now.

“There’s a lot of kids that are around here that they walk around,” said Burt Garcia, who lives in the area. “I think it was more to deter the kind of frustration that he was trying to release to keep his house the way he wants.”