Sit down because I'm jumping right into some science. This is for your husband to help understand why the bridge idea is not going to help you. Normal soil has an open pore structure that allows air and water to pass through it. Inside this structure lives 10s of thousands of species of beneficial microbes which thrive on the open pore structure. These microbes are Mother Nature's invention. As it turns out the species of microbes living in swampy land are different from those living in dryish land (lawns). When you allow standing water to stand for several days, that cuts off the air flow to the beneficial microbes and their populations begin to decrease. If this happens enough, normal grass will thin out and stop growing. They will be replaced by swamp grasses like nutgrass and some others. So it is important to keep the water from pooling on your lawn. Back to the issue... If your community has an ordinance that says homeowners must drain all water from their own property and not allow it to cross over onto a neighbor's land, then all you should have to do is call your city code compliance officers and make them deal with it. If you live in the savage west, then you might have to do it yourself. Talk to your neighbors and ask them to berm up their land at the fence to keep the water on their side. Since they already dug the ditch, they are unlikely to bend to your wishes. So when that doesn't work, berm up your side of the fence and push their water back onto their property (see how they like having standing pools of water!!). Six inches of berm would normally be plenty. Planting a lawn in the spring is not the best idea, but if you really have to you have to. If you can afford sod, then that should be better, but if you were planning to seed, I would not spend a lot on seed for a spring installation. What will happen is all that new grass will find itself competing with crabgrass which also sprouts in the spring. Your grass seed will be less hardy than the crabgrass and will thin out in the summer heat. It is not uncommon to have a full crabgrass lawn by July. It is much better to seed new grass in the fall because crabgrass seed is not sprouting then. It also gives the new grass all winter and spring to develop heat tolerant roots. Now a word on forum etiquette. This is not your thread. The original poster had a problem with soil structure. Your problem is neighborhood drainage. You should have opened a new topic so people who want to help you don't have to read through someone else's problem from last year - which is really not your problem. I also suspect you will need some advice on planting your lawn (spring? or fall - either one). Now is the time to ask, so post a new topic! When you ask about planting a new lawn, please mention specifically where you live. The zone system is not good for helping with lawns, so give a town or zip code. And if you want more help on the neighborhood drainage issue, I would still post a new topic with your new questions. This forum seems to have a lot of opinions about neighbors '-)

You need to amend your soil because it sounds as if it is nutrient deficient. Have you ever aerated your lawn or top dressed with cow manure? Crabgrass loves dirt as do many other weeds. I live in NC and we have water restrictions in place that we cannot even wash our cars and my lawn is green, but of course last summer it was brown because I planted Kentucky Blue. The insects I don't know about and unless someone else knows specifically you may have from square one. Sorry. If humans don't eat it catches up with them the same as any other living thing. Here is a link that might be useful: Propagating Perennials

That is what a normal mix of fescue and Kentucky bluegrass looks like in the colder climates this time of year. Does it green up in the summer? If so then that is what you have. The lawns which do not look brownish in the winter are 100% fescue lawns. Kentucky bluegrass normally goes dormant when the weather cools down. It does not have to as was proved on another forum, but to make it so that it does not turn brown is a Herculean effort. Do you want to take that on? It involves getting a good soil test (not a university or extension service test) and then getting good advice as to how to proceed with those test results. And then it further involves frequent organic fertilizer apps all season long. Here is a picture of what that looks like... This lawn is in Eastern Pennsylvania. It is 100% Kentucky bluegrass, as are the rest of the lawns down the street. In the summer his lawn looks even better. That picture was taken in April, 2010. Owner is morpheuspa if you want to look him up.

I agree with billhill. Would you say you paid extra to get the best sod and seed or are you on a budget and got inexpensive seed and sod? I'm not making any judgments, I'm trying to reconcile the differences in your turf. If you still have the seed bag, can you find the seed analysis and report back here? I am guessing that you bought seed that has a significant amount of Weed Seed and Other Crop. Or it could be that some varieties of the seed have not come in yet. But I would need to know what the seed was. What is the yard going to be used for? Any children or pets? Or are you just holding the dust down? I see you have a dandelion peeking into the picture of the back yard. You might want to invest in a Weed Hound tool ($20 at any garden center). It allows you to pluck them out while standing up. Once your lawn gets established, you should not get dandelions but that might be a few months. Summer is not the best time to establish a lawn. Hopefully you will be allowed to water. Where do you live?