I lived in Florida for 24 years and when it comes to their lawns people will do the craziest things imaginable.
It is all trying to one up the next guy, people think that the native Bahia grasses are ugly and die back too much so they sod with Saint Augustine and other non native heavy bladed grasses. These grasses do not grow well naturally so they must be watered and fertilized regularly or they wont grow. Well my lawn has to better than your lawn so I water and feed it more than you,HAH!
Well the next thing you know my expensive St Augustine grass is being killed by the weed called Dollar Weed, so I water more and get a lawn company to come look at it and they sell me a weekly service to spray herbicide on it and oh yea I need to kill those icky bugs so on goes the insecticide.
The water used on lawns is measured in million gallons per minute, the chemicles are measured in million tons per week. Then of course in the rainy season it all runs off into the rivers and streams in the dry season it is washed into the water by lawn sprinklers all so the grass will grow so it can be mowed so the HOA and CDD wont fine me for too high grass or too brown of a yard and property values wont go down, not to mention the 'yard nazis'.
I will stop now before it turns into a true rant and I start start drooling and spitting.