Florida neighbors can't bear the sight of nude gardener

STUART, Fla. — Adam and Eve may have been naked in the Garden of Eden, but neighbors in a South Florida city are not happy about a nude gardener in their paradise.

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Residents in a north Stuart neighborhood called the Martin County Sheriff's Office to complain about a man who does yard work and walks around his property in the buff, but deputies said there is nothing they can do, WPBF reported.

"I came out Sunday night to put the trash out, and I look over and he is bent over, winding up his hose, and I'm like that is my view of the neighborhood,” Melissa Ny, a neighbor, told the television station. "He works on his car, and he does it naked and everyone has called the police, he is just out there doing his yard work, whatever he needs to do outside, naked.”

The naked truth, deputies said, is that as long as the man is not touching himself inappropriately, authorities cannot do anything because he is on his own property.

That’s an answer neighbors can’t bear to abide by.

"Have some respect for the neighborhood kids. Kids catch the bus here. It's wrong," another neighbor, Charlie Estes, told WPBF. "I have seen these people stand on their front step, buck naked, both of them, and talk to a police officer, sheriff department. The sheriff's department told me to turn my head."

At least one neighbor is not offended, the television station reported.

"I am not one of those people who have concerns because it is their way of life, and it is on their property and I know it is legal," Molly Merritt told WPBF.

The television station spoke with the nude gardener, who declined to be interviewed. He said he was not interested in being interviewed because he and his family were private people, WPBF reported.

"If they are private, why are your privates on display? That is not private at all, that is very public," Ny told the television station.

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