Whoever invented leaf blowers needs to be executed

I created this thread a couple of years ago. Leaf blowers are disgusting.

Agreed. I can't even take a pleasant walk around my neighborhood anymore because of Mexicans with their roaring leaf blowers that sound like chainsaws on every block. Fucking annoying.

In my city they have huge street vacuums that suck up all the leaves in the street. The homeowner has to blow them into the street on the designated vacuum day. It's a hell of a lot easier than raking and bagging.

Yes. Execution by chainsaw to the neck, the head to be blown away with leaf detritus.

before their beheading, they should also be afflicted with dust and mold allergies, then made to wander a gauntlet of leaf-blower haboobs.

I think their are noise ordinances in my city prohibiting their use on Sunday.

I used to be friendly with a poor soul who was an illegal from El Salvador. He was doing restaurant work and his brother got him landscaping work. I remember his first week he came to visit me, he was so rattled. I asked what was wrong and he said he didn’t think he could take the roar of the blowers, his ears were ringing. So it’s not their choice.

I should add that, if there is an ordinance as I believe, it is routinely ignored. And who would you complain to on a Sunday, anyway?

They are also linked to fewer fireflies/lightening bugs.

They hibernate in leaves over the winter and when you remove every single leaf, you remove their habitat.

R7, did the El Salvadorian present hole?

They're illegal in Beverly Hills and a few other cities around the country.

The Salvadorian could’t spring for a $20 pair of those noise-protection earmuffs that you can find at Home Depot? Sounds like a drama queen.

[quote]They are also linked to fewer fireflies/lightening bugs. They hibernate in leaves over the winter and when you remove every single leaf, you remove their habitat.

That also applies to ladybugs, which are among the most beneficial insects to have around.

Regarding the issue of noise, my personal pet peeve is the assholes who think leaf blowers are also snow blowers. I can't even fathom what sort of punishment might be suitable for that crime.

The most stupid, annoying, and useless invention ever.

OP and others who don't like them, volunteer to rake all the leaves in your neighborhoods. Simple solution to an earth shattering problem.

I don't own a leaf blower, but I do own a snow ❄ blower.

You're supposed to mulch. All cool people have their illegal lawn guys set their mowers on "mulch" at 6am on Sundays.

Summer belongs to the lawnmower and Autumn belongs to the leafblower. Deal with it.

You expect landscapers and homeowners to manually rake the leaves but you don't seem to be insistent they use the old manual push mowers to cut the grass? Make sense dammit!

I'm sorry, but my leaves ain't gonna blow themselves...

DON'T RAKE! MOW OVER THE SHIT AND CALL IT A DAY!

I wish I lived in the country, away from pesky HOAs. I wouldn’t have any yard work done at all.

Except maybe have some cute animals to munch on the grass.

I'll come live with you R21 and we can watch the deer in the backyard.

"In 2011, Edmunds, the car reviewer, compared a two-stroke-engine leaf blower with a Ford F-150 Raptor pickup truck, finding that a half-hour of yardwork produced the same amount of hydrocarbon emissions as a 3,887-mile drive in the truck. "

Many cities have banned them because they're so horrible for the environment, not to mention the poor bastards who make $8/hr to walk around breathing that shit in all day so they can put dinner on the table.

deer and bunnies

[QUOTE] did the El Salvadorian present hole?

He did. He was very fair and had blondish hair too, not what someone might expect from an El Salvadorian. His ass was the best part, very firm, very round, and very smooth.

I guess after that first week he probably got ear protectors or something. I didn’t ask him much about work, he worked in a library in his own country until the bad political situation happened- his own brother was disappeared- so doing the illegal manual labor in the US was a sore subject and I didn’t want to embarrass him further.

omg i love leaf blowers. try having a front yard full of pachysandra and raking that shit out... I LOVE me some blowing leafs! MARY!

How do you feel about wind chimes, OP?

R27, they make me think of Body Heat, which is a good thing.

I am in love with my leaf blower there are so many uses other than just blowing leafs. It is a quite fast way to blow debris from the garage, beats the hell out of sweeping. I use my leaf blower to clean the crud out of the keyboard on my laptop, no more buying cans of air. It is great for cleaning an electric shaver. I bring it in the house for spring cleaning, blowing the dust out of upholstered furniture, getting the dust from behind the washer and dryer, refrig, and stove. It is great for cleaning the gutters. I love my leaf blower.

Nothing better for cleaning leaves out of gutters.

.....

.....

....

Also great for cleaning mulch out of gardens.

....

I also use my electric leaf blower to clean out the dryer venting to the outside. I pull out the screen and blow the air out, you will need to wipe down or vacuum out the inside of the dryer because some lint will go in the drum. You can also use it on the outside vent to clear the lint from the dryer vent outside.

MR DYSON, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SKIP THE HUMIDIFIERS AND VACUUMS AND CREATE A QUIET LEAF BLOWER!

It's hopeless, OP. We have irreconcilable differences.

I wake up to this about once a week. Not even my earplugs can mask the sound. They will literally use it for 30-45 minutes for a relatively tiny area. I could swear they are just blowing leaves around for no reason. Why else would it take so long?

Yes yes yes OP. I hate those fucking things. Maybe we can convince the environmentalist crowd that it's contributing to global warming and get them banned.

I hate wind chimes even more than leaf blowers.

Yeah, well, you live in the city and you have ambulances.

I only use the leaf blower to get the leaves out of the gutters and the flower beds. Everywhere else, I rake and put the leaves in a pile to decompose. Just turn them over with a pitchfork once in a while.

Or you could just reach in with your hand and put the muck into a bucket without getting shit all over your cedar siding, R43.

I use an electric blower to get all of the neighbor’s oak leaves off my lawn so he can deal with the noise a few times a year. Our city does the vacuum truck so I spend half an hour blowing everything to the street for collection three times a year. Mulching leaves on your lawn can change the pH and ruin the grass.

Anyone else thinks it's humorous the number of home owners who will spend money to make maintaining their homes easier and at the same time spend money on gym memberships?

R45, you should move to a poorer neighborhood where there are no trees to worry about. Here in the Midwest, there are plenty of gated communities built on corn fields. You wouldn't have to worry about oak leaves.

There was such a great movie about this topic (sort of)--with Tim Robbins who goes vigilante because the sound of car alarms in NYC is driving him nuts. He begins by breaking into cars and ripping out the horns. Then moves to the country somewhere for some peace and the idiot across the street turns on a leaf blower.

Neighborhoods are much louder than in the previous century. Leaf-blowers; lawn-mowers, both manual and riding, that sound like 747s; cars with mufflers that don't muffle; kids who shriek instead of just yelling; etc.

Thank you, OP, this is a very timely thread. My landlord had a leaf blower guy over at my place for a good three hours last Sunday—the day I get to work quietly at home. I escaped to the coffee place down the street for a bit, but you could hear the leaf-blower noise just as clearly in there, drowning out poor Billie Holiday and rattling the coffee spoons. I sent an irate but courteous text .

I love you OP. It is going into "fall clean up" season and it's the worst. I have noise-cancelling headphones, but they only really work with music. I need to get a wireless adapter so I can watch TV with them, but music is still more effective. Like R39, I have been woken up by them countless times all through October (and it's not even clean-up yet, technically). They are allowed to start at 7 AM, and they start exactly on time. Not to mention, you can hear them 10 houses away. My area is a little packed with homes, so it's basically 7 AM to 4 PM leaf blowers / lawn mowers daily - then, when people get home from work,they do their own stuff too (and then on weekends, homeowners do their own). I think the lawn mowers are just as bad, depending on the type maybe.

My landscaper decided not to come on Friday for some unknown reason (was not raining or cold) and then showed up 7 AM Sunday right outside my window - buzzing away for 30 minutes. Then promptly left a $720 bill for the season in my door. He hasn't even been here half the times he claims. I take my dog out in the back and the grass is not cut when he claims...separate issue, but adding insult to injury there. Of course, he won't answer his phone either.

By the way, for those wondering why / how these work - there's usually two guys working on the process. One blows the leaves into a big pile basically, and one sort of guides them into the "lawn waste bags" with a rake. My neighbors across the street were in front doing it themselves & it took them about 20 min with a surprisingly quiet blower. It looked more like a "home use" type - possibly even corded.

I actually feel like I made a huge mistake moving here, mostly because of this - 8 moths a year (then the snow blowing starts).

[quote] Whoever invented car alarms needs to be executed

fixed it for you

Car alarms? Are you posting from the late 90s?

No, from a big city, where they go off for hours at a time.

Most are terribly cheap, not very effective......but some prisspot will set it to super sensitive and if a dog farts near their car the fucking alarm goes off for six hours. It is the leafblower of the city.

I live on the ground floor of a building and these lazy fux can't rake 2 or 4 leaves near my window they have to blow everything to smithereens. Yelling out my window telling them to wait until I close it is futile. It also stinks of fuel hours after they leave, as if we need more air pollution. I would love to shove a leaf blower up the inventor's ass (not for sexual purposes)

Next door neighbor started with a leaf blower at 6:15 one day. Right outside my bedroom window. I worked at night. That was the last straw in a year long torture session stemming from their lawn obsession. I didn't even bother to complain and get into a fight with them.

I figured that if the lawn was their obsession and that was the cause of all my torment then I needed to strike at the root of my problem. For the next 6 months I systematically took their obsession away. Nightly doses of salt water applied to their lawn. I even used a super soaker to get to their back yard over the fence. I don't ever think that they figured out the real cause of their problems. They just gave up and now do minimum lawn care.

Lazy assholes love to use them to blow leaves and garbage onto the street and into other people's yards.

[quote] I would love to shove a leaf blower up the inventor's ass (not for sexual purposes)

The DL appreciates your clarification r55.

I love you R56

Love r56 too. I wish I could salt my whole fucking neighborhood. There are just way too many homes jam packed in here, so I hear it all day.

Today - ironically given this thread - was probably the *first* day I heard nothing. The silence could give me an orgasm after how hellish October was. The grass had frost on it so there was NO FUCKING MOWING.

That being said, half the leaves have fallen from the tree in front of the house. The whole neighborhood is covered in leaves. So, they'll be back...

Leave the leaves. It's why all the insects have disappeared. You'll find out how bad it will get when the coffee is gone, the chocolate disappears, the fish are gone, the blueberries, tomatoes, etc. Keep it up, idiots. You'll never listen to reason and keep buying stupid shit. And fuck you, R56, for killing the life in that soil. You should've bought some earplugs, you selfish little cunt.

R56 Here.

Thanks for all the love folks.

Ironically I'm a gardener. But I'm an organic gardener so my leaves stay in my yard and go into the compost pile. By rake. I have a pollinator garden.

Believe me as a gardener it took something to go the salt route. I finally decided that they weren't caring for the soil either. So now they have brown patches all over and some dirt patches mostly in the front. I also used hot water.

It was an older woman and her 30 something son. She is the neighborhood snitch calling the city if people don't do what she wants. I knew I wouldn't get caught because she has so many enemies. We live in a kind of hippy dippy neighborhood but she thought she was in a gated community. Any way her son is now gone so I doubt when it all grows back that she will get obsessed again. It wasn't just the blower, there was the every two day mowing, the weed whacker and then the edger as well.

No regrets. Her lawn was serving no purpose other than to disturb the neighbors.

I have a shop vacuum that has a blower end. There's no need for an airplane engine sound level blower to do small house hold jobs.

There are the perfect symbol of Modern UN-ecological FAT America's Lard-ASS Laziness!

One other unexpected suburban noise -- ass holes who leave their dogs out for HOURS to bark and bark for attention because they can't be bothered. If you can't take care of your dog, don't get a dog!

I wonder if I can get a video with dogs barking, lawn mowers, and school buses all happening simultaneously.

And sawing

I'd rather listen to 8 straight hours of leaf blowing than barking dogs.

I have barking dogs on both sides... but one side has a nicer owner who won't let it go on past a minute (but it is exactly at 8 AM nevertheless - for his morning pee)

You know you can train a dog not to bark...or to be calmer. It's not that hard, but it does take dedication and maybe a few hours up front + reinforcement then every day for a few weeks / months (along with everything else you want to train though). People are so lazy with their dogs. I guess I say this as someone with no kids who can focus on his dog all the time - also because my job isn't away from home a lot. But, still... I know plenty of guys at this obedience school who all have families and day jobs out of the house (one is my mechanic, who gave me the number). They're the right kind of people to own a dog, not ass holes who let their dog be alone outside for an hour or more, when it is obviously stressed out or it wouldn't be barking like that. The owners deserve the barking - the neighbors do not - and guess what... yelling "quiet" doesn't work. They actually don't speak English.

Leave the leaves alone

Someone just finished mowing / blowing the leaves now - 3-4 PM with 33 degrees F outside. wtf - How could this be so important to people??

I have been looking into all these "noise types" that can mask this but I tried some mp3s and nothing really worked. White noise, pink noise, brown noise, etc... they will block it out but then you can't really hear TV or anything (if you do it as headphones. I'm gonna have to move to a cabin somewhere in the woods... or back into a building in the city - it was actually quieter.

Leaf truck just made its second round. It’ll be back in two more weeks. Not all of the leaves have fallen yet.

There has to be a special seat in the worst region of hell for the inventor of the leaf blower. One he'll share with everyone who lets their bass bleed into someone else's space. And the inventor of air "freshener."

I'm sure if it were a leaf sucker, we'd be having no complaints. Probably a slew of in-home use stories.

R56 vandalized another person's property because he was "inconvenienced" by noise.

[quote] R24: deer and bunnies

They both have brown fur! They’re practically the same!

There was one period when a neighbor would park his car with a very sensitive alarm on my street, and it kept going off. There also was a concrete block on the sidewalk out front that the city neglected to remove for years. So, I used to fantasize about smashing the block into the car windshield or car roof. I even thought of carrying it up 5 flights to throw it off the building roof onto the car. I didn’t, though. I wondered if anyone would turn me in, but there are always goody two shoes.

r73 = deaf

I'm R56 and I don't have a penis at all.

I seriously have no regrets about it. Shove your leaf blower up your ass.

I would love to understand why some people are completely not bothered by this noise & figure out how to become like them. I hate this noise with a passion, and if everyone was like me (or a lot of people in this thread) - these things would be illegal. But, the majority of the population is apparently fine with this? Why? Is it some kind of sensitivity issue? I hate noise in general, but I've known plenty of people who could sleep (and lived in apartments) next to train tracks.

R78, a psychiatrist told me it's a condition called "misophonia," hating extraneous noise.

If everyone ignored their leaves, what would happen, seriously? Woudln't it be messy? Don't wet leaves kill your grass? Clog sewers? Cause slipping hazard when it gets icy?

R80, seriously, life would go on.

Life’s would no longer be worth living. I have a cold-weather fescue lawn and love looking at its green loveliness all winter

The dark part of me likes leaf blowers 'cause a monumentally bleeding-heart columnist, Robin Abcarian will go on and on and on... and on in print about the sad plight of one thing or another. But she tweets about her exasperation with blower noise on her street in Venice (Calif)., comes across as one more whiny, self-absorbed SoCal jackass who's drowning in a sense of entitlement.

They're even going at it today - on Thanksgiving. They never fucking stop. I am going to start googling how to buy land mines. I'm joking - I am actually looking into audiologists to reduce noise sensitivity but none are covered by insurance and a full course of "treatment" is $3-4000. Usually it's for autistic kids but whatever - if it works for them, it should work for me, right? I've been sensitive to noise my whole life - with this noise being #1 or 2... I don't understand how other people tolerate it like it's nothing.

R83 sounds like a whiny, self-absorbed SoCal jackass. Make that "asshole."

They want to ban them in the summer. Wtf? I went mad last week from my neighbors landscapers using them for HOURS. No lie, they were BLOWING LEAVES OUT OF THE TREES. They need to be banned year round.

If I were a juror in the trial of someone who shot a leafblower-wielding neighbor, guess who'd walk.

Are all of you whining about the sound willing to rake everyone's yards? No? Then shut up.

I can't believe anyone admits to owning one of these infernal things. They need to be outlawed, period. Pay your neighborhood's kids to rake the goddam leaves and clean your gutter. Kids need something constructive to do nowadays -it builds the character (that you lazy rude fucks are so lacking in).

[quote]If I were a juror in the trial of someone who shot a leafblower-wielding neighbor, guess who'd walk.

The person who was gunned down by a lunatic who presumably was arrested after shooting someone?

[quote]Are all of you whining about the sound willing to rake everyone's yards?

I'm willing to rake my own yard, unlike some people who can't do yard work without gas operated equipment.

I'm also willing to pick up garbage/litter, unlike some people who just blow it all into the street or the fenceline.

If you don't have a GIANT LOT you don't need a leaf blower or a riding mower.

They are for assholes, sociopaths, the crude insensitive, and suckers who buy useless junk.

[quote]Pay your neighborhood's kids to rake the goddam leaves and clean your gutter. Kids need something constructive to do nowadays -it builds the character (that you lazy rude fucks are so lacking in).

The kids I know don’t go outside unless they are participating in an organized sport. I also don’t have any kids on my street, except for the toddler two houses down.

Agree with R93, what decade are you posting from, R89? My neighbor kids, assuming they ever left the house unescorted, don't mow lawns and such for pocket money.

I don't understand how leaf blowers are somehow more annoying than lawnmowers, pressure washers, or any other power tools that get used outdoors. I don't do my entire yard with it, mainly the planters, and you can't beat it for cleaning out your garage without have to pull everything out, especially if your garage also doubles as a workshop. I try to be judicious in my use and not use it too early or late, but I'm not going to get rid of it anymore than I'm going to cut the grass with manual clippers or scrub moss off the roof by hand.

Also, OP, have you considered the physical wear and tear to people who do this kind of work for a living? All these power tools are a godsend if you're a gardener or landscaper and don't want to end up crippled with arthritis.

My yard is 150x100 and has over 45 trees on it. I'm not raking the whole fucking thing. And, really, why is it more annoying than lawnmowers for so many of you? At least the leafblowers are limited to one season.

My landlady Cindy Rice uses her leaf blower in St. Louis as a way to show power over her alcoholic husband. It's very loud and runs for 3 hours when she has something up her ass. It's awful and upsets my dog.

[quote]except for the toddler two houses down.

What does the toddler do?

[quote]What does the toddler do?

He toddles.

Shop vacs do the same thing without sounding like an airplane landing next door.

Get a shop vac,

I remember my grandfather used to mow the lawn with this (see pic) and then he had a tool to trim the edges of the grass. Ultimately, he raked everything after that. This was on a small 1950s style home with maybe 100 square feet in the front and 500 in the back though he did have some massive trees to clean up back there.

If you have an enormous lot, you're not typically bothering people anyway. It's the neighborhoods with 100 houses jam packed tiny lots from the 70s which are much worse - and the thing is, those people probably can rake - the lots aren't big. If they don't want to do it, it will put more landscapers in business - but then the labor will double the cost. So, back to leaf blowers for tiny little lots.

,,,,,,,,,,,,

Agreed

One Easter Sunday, I was at the house of a friend of a friend's. The husband (of the friend of a friend) was using the leaf blower for a little while. He was a nice guy, so I asked him why he used it / what was so good about it. He said it saved him a lot of time on yard work. I think it's one of those things that's actually probably fun to use, like a power washer. I have no experience with a power washer, either.