Honey, time to spray the lawn

Roberts worked in the mortgage industry before business dried up.

"Maybe this is my way of giving back," he said. "Maybe I put these people in this home. This may be some sort of hell for me."

Mark Kazemier, who followed Roberts carrying a splash guard to keep paint off the sidewalk and driveway, was recently laid off as superintendent of a high-rise condo project in San Diego.

Foreman Bruce Cooney is a stone mason. "My business has been slow, but these guys are keeping busy," he said.

Milligan, a 54-year-old father of five from Murrieta, painted his first lawn as an experiment. The house next door to his had gone into foreclosure. The grass had died. So one day he touched it up with a splash of green.

"The neighbors loved it," he said. "Now other guys are trying it. But your average Joe Blow gardener can't do this. He can't do the detail."

Milligan's attention to detail stems from his other line of work: cleaning crime scenes. He's mopped up after shootings, stabbings, beatings, arsons and suicide. He's torn out carpets, floors and walls to get rid of human remains and rancid smells.

"The crime scene stuff helps me with the house stuff because of the detail," he said. "The better the detail, the better the job."

As Milligan surveyed the faded wood chips and wilted plants adorning the sad lawn before him, his mind raced. Why not install plastic plants and spray paint the bark red? Maybe paint the rocks as well, he said.

"I see an evolution of this business. The foreclosures will end, but the water shortage won't," he said. "It's only a matter of time until people get sick of watering their lawns and ask me to paint them."

The next-door neighbor emerged to see what was happening.

"It looks a lot nicer than before," said Nona Martin, 35. "These houses have become eyesores. I hope this helps get it sold."

Five hours later, the job was done and the area tidied up. The once-moribund lawn now resembled a putting green.

Milligan was pleased.

"Drive down this street now and you couldn't tell the difference between this and any other lawn," he said.

His smile evaporated after he drove a few blocks to inspect a lawn he would be treating next week. It was a jungle of thorny weeds -- with no grass.

"This is a disaster," Milligan said glumly. "I will be painting dirt. I don't dislike painting dirt, it's just that the paint applies differently to dirt than grass."