Las Cruces business owner’s tumbleweed troubles

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico - (KVIA)
Business owner, Mike Garcia, is facing a pesky tumbleweed problem after a recent wind storm blew in a sea of tumbleweeds from his neighbor's grain farm. The amount of tumbleweeds is so troublesome that even his horses became trapped by them.

Garcia said, "We always have winds this time of year, and we've got tumbleweeds rolling into this and that, well, I guess last year the property behind us, they farmed it, and just didn't take care of it, and all these tumbleweeds grew there. About a month ago, we had some really bad winds, and these guys just kind of moved in on our property."

Tumbleweeds are notorious for breaking apart when they're picked up, making it challenging to clean them up. Garcia had a crew come and take them off the house because they were such a hazard. He said, "If you've ever seen a tumbleweed burn, it just ignites in two seconds."

Garcia cleaned up the tumbleweeds for his horses because their water was blocked from it, and their food area was blocked. He said, "Just the other day, they were stomping on them themselves just to get them out of the way."

Unfortunately, the tumbleweeds keep going on and on, all the way to the back of the property. Garcia said, "It's just going to take a lot of effort, a lot of manpower to get it all cleaned up. Because we have more winds coming today and more winds coming this week. When we clean up, it's just going to be here again because there's more tumbleweeds back there."

Garcia said that once they clean up the tumbleweeds, there's a lot of debris on the ground that they have to come back and rake up. They're also going to have to spray for all the seeds that have been falling on this property now that they didn't have before.

Garcia is frustrated because he believes that his neighbor should take responsibility for the tumbleweed problem. He said, "It's upsetting because if it was my tree that fell on somebody out there in the road, I'd pick it up, pay for it, help them out, and it seems like these people just don't want to do anything about it."

He believes that if his neighbor is not going to farm on the property, they need to spray or put a fence up that keeps the tumbleweeds in their yard. Garcia said, "It's a hazard for my horses. My horses are completely surrounded by these tumbleweeds right now. They could not get out."

The situation is a hazard for several homes as everyone has pine trees and big trees covered in these tumbleweeds. Garcia hopes that his neighbor will take action to prevent this from happening in the future.