Got a dumpster, a rented jackhammer and a bunch of friends together to do some major work on the yard at our new house. Seven hours later the bushes are gone, the fence is mostly gone, the pointless concrete walkways/plinths/flowerbeds, and religious statuary bases have been removed, and a lot of other yard cleaning up has been done.
House as we bought it.
House as of Sunday morning. Where the wagon is now parked had another two massive bushes.
One of the gate posts was 1.5 ft in from the edge of the driveway, making the driveway opening narrow for no reason. And as I had suspected, the bushes up against the house were basically mouse highways into the house (this was confirmed when a mouse climbed out of a hole in the siding and dropped 2 ft to the ground with a squeak because the bush was now gone).
I spent another 4 hours today removing more of the fence, shoveling up and dumping the rest of the jackhammered concrete, and removing a (dead) plug box inexplicably sticking up out of the yard. I also starting in on sifting what will probably be a literal ton of gravel on the lawn.
The front yard will need to be regraded once the gravel is gone, and there is still more plant/shrub removal to do. But we got more done in one day that I had expected to get done this month. I have awesome friends.
Dumpster as of Friday afternoon.
Dumpster 26 hours later.