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I hate leaf blowers with the passion of 1000 suns.

Everywhere I am there is a guy running a leaf blower. At my house, leaf blowers everywhere all day long. At work, of course, leaf blowers blowing dirt and allergens into the air. It’s such a special noise, it goes through walls and headphones so effectively. They are the most pervasive, annoying things on the planet. I hate them more than mosquitoes.

fireweed ,

I know everyone hates HOAs because they’re usually petty and dumb, but this is where I think they’d actually be helpful. Designate certain neighborhoods as “quiet zones” where similarly obnoxious activities (that have reasonable, quiet alternatives) are banned: no motorized leaf blowers, lawn mowers, souped-up motorcycles or muscle cars. If you want to own one of those things, don’t move into that neighborhood.

I’ve come to realize many people feel “forced” to move to incredibly space- and resource-inefficient (and thereby ecologically-damaging) places like suburbs and exurbs for basically two reasons: better schools, and in an attempt to escape asshole neighbors. Sometimes it’s so that they can themselves be the asshole neighbors, but generally people are trying to live in a “nice” neighborhood not over usual HOA things like house siding color and properly-concealed trash cans, but rather for a general desire for peace and quiet. I know I dream about living on 40 acres not so I can start a dairy farm, but to escape the various forms of pollution (primarily noise, air, and light) emitted by my current neighbors. But I wouldn’t feel the need to do that if my neighbors had similar desires as I and limited things like car idling, porch lights, and landscape-related noise. Meanwhile the neighbors upset at me for keeping my yard wild to support wildlife could have a neighbor with similarly bland yard maintenance standards.

sparkle ,

I know everyone hates HOAs because they’re usually petty and dumb, but this is where I think they’d actually be helpful. Designate certain neighborhoods as “quiet zones” where similarly obnoxious activities (that have reasonable, quiet alternatives) are banned: no motorized leaf blowers, lawn mowers, souped-up motorcycles or muscle cars.

Or… hear me out… we can have laws on emissions and noise pollution (which mostly already exist in cities) and cops/government officials that actually enforce them (and by “enforce” I don’t mean shoot somebody after arriving on-scene) instead of relying on a private entity to dictate what happens in your living space

fireweed ,

That would be great IF you could convince the city that thoroughly-entrenched tools like leaf blowers and lawn mowers and motorized vehicles fell under nuisance laws. Chances are the mayor and most of city council use these things (or pay someone who uses them). The problem is that most people either love these things or don’t find them obnoxious enough to warrant action. Even if you somehow could get them to fall under nuisance laws, enforcement would be complaint-based, and who’s going to risk pissing off their neighbor for being a snitch Karen?

GBU_28 ,

It’s unfortunate, but the only solution is helicopter dispersed anti personnel mines.

mechoman444 ,

Then you’ll love his game.

taiyang ,

Here’s a “fun” story: my old place had at least four different agencies doing leaf blowing of a fire lane right out my window.

  1. The condo I was in hired one weekly
  2. The condo across the lane hired one weekly.
  3. The city hired one weekly.
  4. The county(?) hired one weekly. (Or maybe the fire dept? Not sure but it was four a week total)

Despite a ban in Culver City, they all used gas blowers (yes, the city even paid for one) and the gas fumes went directly into my window and lingered because it was essentially an alley and I was on the second floor directly above. I had to close my window almost every day, even during heat waves, but the noise echoed loud enough that it barely mattered.

I’m so glad to have moved.

Rentlar ,

I hate suns with the passion of 1000 leaf blowers.

Sorry, I just had to.

NeatNit ,

I think that’s actually more passion

MacNCheezus ,
@MacNCheezus@lemmy.today avatar

!mildlyinfuriating

Hugh_Jeggs ,

The biggest problem with leaf blowers is that they’re absurdly useful. They’re incredibly good at what they do and a thousand times more efficient than a brush

I use one professionally, so answer me this - if you hired me to clear leaves off your driveway and I said I can do it in half an hour with a leaf blower, or two and a half hours with a brush… which one would you be willing to pay me for?

nucleative ,

Counterargument: I’d hire you to leafblow 2.5 hrs more area

Hugh_Jeggs ,

🤔 That’s three hours then. No deal

nucleative ,

(⁠╯⁠°⁠□⁠°⁠）⁠╯⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

rbesfe ,

As a professional, what are your thoughts on the backpack-style electric blowers?

Hugh_Jeggs ,

The council guys have been using them in the town near me, they said they had some shit ones before, complained about them, and were given Stihl ones instead.

They said they’re fine but you can’t just refill them when you’re away from the depot

MindTraveller ,

Noise pollution is bad for public health. This is what economists call an externality. Your use of the leaf blower affects more people than just the customer. The government should tax leaf blower use to fund public healthcare, and you should pass the cost onto the client so they’re paying for the externalities of the convenience

Hugh_Jeggs ,

Counterpoint - I live in the middle of fuckin nowhere, as do my customers

Ibaudia ,
@Ibaudia@lemmy.world avatar

Cities and rural areas shouldn’t have the same laws so blow away IMO.

boatsnhos931 ,

You know…leaf blowers have feelings too and I think it would be appropriate to apologize for your hurtful words…Time to head to Alaska boys/girls/?s

thesocavault ,
@thesocavault@lemmy.world avatar

Also the fact that they don’t actually clean up any leaves, they move them to the neighbors house.

LordWiggle ,
@LordWiggle@lemmy.world avatar

I’m from The Netherlands. Every autumn there’s a whole leaf lower army coming out of nowhere, municipality workers who start way too early, and instead of running the damn thing constantly, they are playing with the gas making them even more annoying then bikers screaming for attention. Wrrrrr wrrrr Wrrrrr Wrrrrr wrrrrrrrrrrr wrrrr. They are moving leafs from one side to the other, then to move them back again. They are paid by the hour, not by the amount of work they do, so they are just messing around waking up everyone at 7am which is horrible for anyone working late or night shifts. Hours and hours. They are even blowing leafs in parks, clearing grass and dirt spots from leafs, destroying the natural decomposing and fungi creating great compost for next year’s greenery. It’s so fucking useless, it’s so fucking annoying, it’s so fucking stupid, yet every year they manage to get more and more leaf blowers out, all running on diesel, moving leafs around pointlessly. The leafs are all put in big round baskets. While they are blowing all the leafs around, the wind blows all the leafs out of those baskets again, creating a circle of never ending leaf blowing.

I saw this post and I immediately fell a great anger boiling up from deep inside of me. I had to vent this anger, as you’ve seen. I probably need therapy because of leaf blowers. If you ever hear of a Dutch leaf blower massacre, you can assume it was me.

There, I did it. Have a nice day, keep kalm and kill leaf blowers.

Edit: grammer/typos

win95 ,
@win95@lemmy.zip avatar

All summer it’s the weekly lawn mowers and then it’s the leaf blowers and year round it’s all of the neighbors constantly using drills and saws and other equipment.

I may be overstimulated in this country.

kadotux ,

I agree 100%, I’ve had similiar rants :D

mino ,
@mino@lemmy.ml avatar

Had to check i didn’t write this in a fugue state. 100% can relate.

mojo_raisin ,

Oh, what about when there’s like 3 or 4 going in the same yard, sounds like that Tibetan Monk chanting with their motor rev going up and down.

I hate them, but we use gravel a lot here to save water and can’t think of a way to keep gravel walkways clear without blowing debris. Brooms, rakes, etc don’t work in this case.

ji17br ,

Just wait until you see people clearing snow with a leaf blower, cause they are too lazy to shovel. It’s ridiculous.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

We know when spring has hit in our typical suburban neighborhood. The constant drone of small engines. Mowers. Leaf blowers. Trimmers. Doesn’t matter the day, you can always hear at least one somewhere, but weekends are obviously the worst.

I’m doing my best to go electric. Electric trimmers are fantastic if you get a decent one. I’d like to get an electric blower, but reviews seem to indicate they’re not quite there yet in terms of power and useful time. We’ve got a large-ish lot, and an EV mower that could last long enough would easily be high 4-figures. Can’t swing that when I’ve already got a paid-for gas one, but I’d love to go all electric.

ohlaph ,

I hear you. I make up for my leaf blower by using a reel mower. It’s a push mower and makes next to no noise.

mojofrododojo ,

Gas run ones for sure. I have a battery operated job that’s perfect for cleanup but doesn’t fill the neighborhood with WHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRRRRR

some_guy ,

So, we had an office whose building enclosed a tiny parking lot, maybe six or seven spaces. Two guys showed up with leaf blowers. Our location put us on the edge of the space with a door and windows making the noise quite prominent.

An hour in, my buddy said something to the effect of, “I wish they’d be done soon. They’re giving me a headache.” Queue other buddy cracking up hysterically. Turns out, he’d surreptitiously tuned our stereo (hooked up to a computer) to a youtube channel of leaf blowers blowing for hours. None of us caught on. The actual guys with blowers had been gone for a long time.

It’s still one of the funniest pranks anyone has pulled on me and I’m still mad at him for it.

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