Why not just mulch the leaves with the lawn tractor, presuming it cuts grass?

Leaf blowers are a big topic for complaints around here. Between the landscapers and homeowners, its nonstop, fall and spring.

The houses here are closer together and I can smell the exhaust from the those things.

You have my sympathy. Its enough to drive you around the bend. Someone is going to get rich if they invent one with a muffler.

I feel ya. I have a neighbor that is endlessly mowing, collecting, trimming, ect. His yard and another neighbors. I don't like working on that side of the yard when he is out. But then, if I were married to her, I wouldn't want to be in the house either, lol.

I take a lot longer to mow than my husband- he wants to get it done, I like to zen mow. Maybe your neighbor is getting his zen on?

UGH! I can 100% relate! I have a neighbor that has a hotrod he is always reving the engine in his driveway for what seems like hours!! We live in a subdivision with small 1/4 acre lots. This has got to be the loudest vehicle I've ever heard in my life! My only suggestion would be to put on earplugs.

"Why not just mulch the leaves with the lawn tractor, presuming it cuts grass?"

Exactly! In fairness, if there's a big leaf drop at once that doesn't work so well; hence my comment re: leaf collector thingies (whatever they're called), DH pops it onto the tractor, which chops up the leaves and then shoots them into the collection bin. The bin does have to be emptied but sure is a lot more efficient than hours and hours of blowing, not to mention less grief for your neighbors. Ugh.

mxk, I totally sympathize. DH has one of those back pack gas blowers, a housewarming gift from friends when we bought this house on an acre. To his credit, he uses it to keep our circular drive clear of fallen leaves so they don't end up in the garage, then house, blows heavy build up along side the driveway and on our neighbors side of the fence since he feels he should - they are our trees. Every day, rain or shine he's running it maybe 15-20 min in the mornings and I HATE its sound. Also to his credit, he does then pick up the leaves - it can be maybe 3 30-gal lawn waste bags each day. I wish the leaves would just drop all at once and be done with it but No, it goes on and on for about 6 weeks. One more Fall coastal storm and we may be finished with them for the year. An acre of deciduous trees was never in my plan, he's the one who wanted this house so badly.

He uses his lawn mower to vacuum leaves from the lawn. So then shredded, but its gas and no more quiet than the blower. Hopefully he's doing it at times of day he's not imposing on anything the neighbors want quiet for.....Sigh. Men, and their toys.

Rant away! I love a good rant. And I hate noise, especially unnecessary noise and especially especially noise that I am not making :-)

You have my sympathy. The guy is a bonehead and he’s only thinking about what he wants, what he needs and what he hears.

He is probably lonely and obsessed with the fallen leaves.

We have lots of leaves because we live in the woods. The only clearing we have is our “garden”, “house,” and a bit of grass that started off, sort of as lawn.

I used to rake leaves, and that was fun, putting them all in a pile, and then taking one of those huge bamboo breaks that are really wide, and then sweeping them onto a top and then dragging the top down to the back of our land close to the woods and we will put the leaves in a big pile that would slowly decompose.

A leaf blower. I wasn’t strong enough to get one of the backpack leaf blowers which meant I had to hold it in my hand and I thought my office were going to fall off. That was fun, but it was very time-consuming and very noisy and I had to wear these orange earmuffs. The novelty were off.

We also used the lawnmower, which had a mulcher and a bag, and we just kept emptying the bag into a big leaf pile. That was really nice. They were all chopped up. I used to think of that lawn is a vacuum cleaner. It works well I put the chopped leaves on the.

Nowadays, I just leave the leaves in place I guess what? The wind blows them all over the place and the wind pretty much removes them from our yard. It blows them into the woods or into and around my perennial beds, which need them and it turns out it actually mulches them and keeps the weeds in check. Problem solved. No need for any gasoline powered effort. Very quiet.

I doubt your boneheaded neighbor is going to figure this out so I have some wild ideas, but it may get put you in jail ;-(

The most innocuous is that you can just ignore the person even though that may be for 25 days out of your fall beauty and serenity

The second is that you can figure out how to murder the guy. There are probably techniques on the internet or TV and newspapers.

But I assume that like me, you don’t want to go to those extremes.

There is also the option of spending hours of your time hoping that he will move, croak, or a weather event or winning lottery ticket will change things

But that is not as easy as it sounds. You have to focus on the guy and wish him the most horrible horrible outcome and you probably have to do it about 50 hours a day and would rot your soul. It would probably kill you before it ever affected bonehead.

I do have some very modest devices that I could sell you, but they would probably cost a couple hundred dollars each. I’ll include one of them here as a photograph.

The next idea is, you could befriend him and offer to help him. You could make him brownies and pies and you could offer to help rake his leaves, but tell him you have migraines so would you mind raking them with you and then you could do your yard?

Oh! Well, you’re friendly with him., you can notice that he has a leaf or a bagger and a hopper on his drive-around lawnmower. You could ask him if you could ride and play with it use it and you can vacuum up all his leaves.

If he doesn’t want them, bag the and offer them on Craigslist or FB Market for $30 per bag, organic, mulched; no harm was causing any caterpillars or worms or any other critters. And they’re excellent to put around plants. They will help your soil get lots of worms in it to air the soil, blah blah blah. You can charge $30 a bag.

I’m not serious about murdering the guy that’s only for fantasy you understand.

I don’t know what to do with thoughtless boneheads. Maybe some people are not inclined to think about anybody else because they were not taught how to be considerate or why it’s important.

I’m sorry you have to put up such racket during one of the most beautiful times of the year. Most of the leaves are off the trees in the northeast but we are very dry and it hasn’t rained for maybe a month and so everybody is supposed to be thinking, aware and careful as well as watching & sniffing for smoke or fire.

Despite your noisy neighbor, I hope you can find some pleasure, fun and beauty in this late autumn before Thanksgiving and the holidays.

Warm wishes to you!

PS Elmer has sound advice.

My neighbors UP the street are freaking out over the NEW Ford Amphitheatre they built next to new million dollar homes. Yep! Really loud I'm told. Leaf blowing .....it could be worse.

I am with you! I live in a forested area on the outskirts of a city. All of the lots are forested - they range in size from 1/4 acre to maybe 15 acres. People move out here and put in 1/4 mile or longer blacktop driveways, then spend the rest of their lives trying to keep leaves off of them. It's ludicrous and unbelievably annoying. Move to a beautiful, peaceful, natural place and ruin it. I have a neighbor who build a big mcmansion around 20 years ago. He owns property across the back of mine and down one side. Before he built the house, he came every weekend and spent the WHOLE day running a chipper shredded on the edge of my property. For months and months. He scoured his property for any limbs, anything that could be chipped. I finally lost it one day when I saw him drive in with his pickup filled with brush and limbs to chip - he was importing stuff from his other home! I finally went and talked to him and he was SHOCKED that all that constant noise would bother anyone. I mean really, how self centered do you have to be to not realize that your little country recreational property is actually other people's neighborhood? He agreed to limit the sessions to 2 hours, which was still annoying but better than 6-8.

Then he built a house and I could fill a page with the inconsiderate things they did, but I won't. Then, once they moved in he bought a ROCK SAW and started sawing rocks to build rockeries all over his properties. I thought a chipper shredder was loud and annoying, but a rock saw has that beat!

He's retired now and I think not in the best health, so his machine time is almost non existent. And both of the dogs that barked and awakened me every day for 10 years have died, thank goodness. The last 5 years have finally returned to peacefulness from his noisemaking.

It’s an issue in my community. No so much the homeowners, heaven forbid they should do their own leaves, but the landscapers. It is winding down now, but it has been gas-powered leaf blowers from 7:30am to 7:30pm every day for the past two months. It will happen again for two months in the spring cleanup.

The reason is, gas blowers are more efficient than battery-powered or electric, or a rake. It would be a lot of leaves to mulch, and some of that would still have to be removed.

The thing is, if there were no landscaper leaf blowers, and the city offered up that they would remove the leaves and compost them for us, and here is what it would sound like for two months, twice a year, from early morning till after dinner, the community would say ”heck no, we want to preserve our peaceful town”. But since everyone pays for their own landscaper, they think it’s only one crew.

I can hear the crews in a four-block radius. And they don’t all do it at the same time, or even on the same day. So it is constant.

As to Elmer’s advice, I do wear my noise-cancelling headphones. But I just can’t wear them 12 hours a day. I can’t leave my house for 12 hours a day. And no, it won’t last forever, it just seems like it, because it will start up again in March. However, cocktail hour has indeed started earlier and earlier the past two months. Cheers.

We and all our neighbors also live on acreage. Heavily wooded acreage that surrounds our yards. There are IDK 10+ times too many leaves to just mulch in. Many of us have chain saws/leaf blowers and tractors. We all wear ear protection when working so we don't hear our own noise near as loudly as the neighbors do. They can be purchased at any big box store that sells tools. My neighbors lawn tractor is as loud or louder than any blower--it drives me nuts but it's an hour a week so it is what it is. I don't collect my leaves I blow them into the woods--with my tractor. I ride it almost daily once the leaves begin to fall until the trees are all empty. We all do what we have to do and it's unfortunate the noise is so loud, but it's part of having neighbors after all. Winter is coming. They quiet and howling wind drove many settlers insane I remember from my history classes.

I have 3 neighbors who use gas leaf blowers too and fortunately we're all an acre distance apart. To me it would seem to be more work handling the weight and recoil force of the blower equipment. I use a rake and have for decades, it's much quieter, much cheaper, and good exercise, hope my neighbors appreciate my old-fashioned approach.

Inconsiderate neighbors make my blood boil. That said, have you met this neighbor? Sometimes people can be approachable about these things if you actually know each other.

It could be worse and he never took care of his yard. Ask me how I know. My next door neighbor...I have to have our lawn guy mow his yard about a third of the time. I would LOVE to hear him blow leaves, grass whatever for 3 hours ever so often. He is a slob and an embarrassment to our neighborhood.

Mxk, what does happen to the leaves blown to the road? They don’t get picked up by the municipality, right? They just sit there and get blown around?

I am very lucky to live on a corner with streets to two sides and an alley in the back. And the only connecting house has been vacant for a few years but kept up. People around here seem to not be able to handle basic yard chores any longer. There are so many lawn services operating when a decade ago , it was rare to see them. Husband has a leaf blower but it's electric and makes little noise. He only uses it to round up leaves on a sheet and carries that to the curb for pick up. I don't want the yard to be pristine because he mows after and grinds up any residue that is left for wildlife and insects to winter in. Noise pollution is a very real thing and can cause great anxiety if it's constant. I live in a town so there is car traffic but my street is a very quiet one until the lawn service arrives across the street. The homeowner is way younger than my husband but apparently needs this service weekly. That's the only one on our block.

The inconsiderate people who live on my several mile long, hilly, winding tree lined country road, blow their leaves into the road, where they get rained on and turn to slimey mush several inches thick. The road is never cleaned. Eventually in most years we might get some snow and maybe, but not always, a snow plow will show up and move the leaf slime and snow mixture to the side of the road. I can never have anything resembling a clean car all winter.

You should buy him a battery powered leaf blower for Christmas, with an extra battery.

Very grateful to have neighbors who care of their property.

I was just thinking of this neighbor of ours. Thank goodness they are a little ways away from us but these people are always burning something. We live in an urban subdivision and houses are side by side and back to back, I am so glad they aren't behind me and feel sorry for our neighbor's across the street that are directly behind them. Always having to breath that burning pile of whatever they are burning. My neighbors have two large dogs with a fenced yard, so when these morons are burning, they cannot even let their dogs out to play. This is also terrible for people with allergies. I am pretty sure it's not even legal to burn here! But, if you call about it, no one does anything.

If it's a Saturday and he's using his blower for so many hours, maybe he works and it's the only time he can get it done.

My neighbors use a lawn tractor that makes the most awful whining noise that just grates on DH and me, but so be it. Better than they should not mow. So we tolerate it and then are most thankful when it's over.

I have a neighbor is a total deplorable and commits act of agression with the smoker. He is as reprehensible as they come . The political climate of the last decade has really emboldened him to let his hate flag fly freely and his hostility is beyound social acceptance.

He is an ongoing threat

He has placed it within five feet of the back of our house and uses it like a weapon, An act that he has fully admitted as to what his intention is. He has weaponized it and considers us to be the enemy.

He is so reprehensible!!!

In our county gas blowers have been banned. But it is hard to enforce.

I wish there were more regulations about where people could put these smokers . Most rules are only for townhouses, not single family lots. He is a total scum and so hateful. He is a loser at life and looking for someone to blame. I coud go on and on about him because his level of hostility is deep and I think he has some real mental problems.

We quit speaking to him years ago. Even a casual greeting is met wth hostility. A dangerous fool he is!

lol I also have a neighbor across the road that has a riding mower with what must be a carburetor problem. It makes a whining noise that goes uuuuppp and dooowwn the entire time he is mowing. I don't know how he can not hear it.

Also have a hostile neighbor man with a controlling wife, we used to be friendly but I finally had to stop initiating conversation with them and try to avoid them. No one else sees this side of them, so I try to ignore as best I can.

Wow, lots of you dealing with stuff too... Maybe it's good to for all of us to get it off our chest LOL! But bad neighbors can make things absolutely miserable. This guy I'm talking about isn't a bad neighbor per se, I'm just ranting about the noise, nothing on the level of the guy Jehanne Hansen mentions above. There's somebody a few plots down that burns a lot, but we're allowed to burn here so nothing I can do about it other than shut the windows and stay inside when they burn.

I sympathize. There’s a reason why gas leaf blowers are banned in many of our cities where I live ( So Cal ) & also, in many states. They’re obnoxious, not to mention the pollutants they emit.

Noise pollution is infuriating and hard to ignore. So sorry.

Here’s the current rant on MY chest: I live on a 6-block-long deadend street with about 60 homes. The local country club is also on this street. There is a wide street entrance to the neighborhood but there’s a permanent iron gate with pillars in the middle of the street. Only one way in and out for all of us.

A new-ish homeowner who lives half a block just OUTSIDE the entrance to this neighborhood has started parking an F350 Ford dually pickup on the street. For non-rural readers, this is the very largest pickup made.

How annoying for all of us to have to squeeze by the truck, or wait in the street next to the iron gates for oncoming traffic to clear. Not to mention school buses, FedEx, persons towing a golf cart trailer behind their vehicle, etc etc. (Yes, this neighbor has a driveway.) 🤬

@jehanne hansen One or two of these outdoor fans might solve your problem. This one even has a mist that might compell him to move the smoker farther away:

Shark FlexBreeze Fan - Indoor & outdoor oscillating fan, pedestal & tabletop, corded & cordless portable fan with outdoor InstaCool misting...

Many others to choose from. Weatherproof for outdoor use

" Eventually in most years we might get some snow and maybe, but not always, a snow plow will show up and move the leaf slime and snow mixture to the side of the road. I can never have anything resembling a clean car all winter. "

As your area averages 3 days of precipitation every 7 days calculated on an annual basis (42% of the days annually), the nearly every other day of precipitation will keep roads and puddles almost always damp and muddy. That's the culprit keeping cars dirty. Not leaves.

I bought noise cancelling headphones for that very reason. I can't tolerate continuous noise like sand blasting or leaf blowing especially when they don't know how to hold down the button on the leaf blower and go in short bursts at a time. If you want to drive me crazy that kind of continuous noise will do it, I get an immediate headache and that is the only time I get a headache. Funny though I love the sound of a chain saw. I don't understand also blowing leaves onto the street. I have a neighbour across the street who blows them onto the road and the cars just spread them to every other lawn. It's against the city by laws to do that but he doesn't care as long as there is not one leaf left on his lawn. haha I don't have any trees out front but the neighour's gingko drops its leaves covering my lawn with leaves that don't compost down so they have to be raked up. I don't mind.

The thought of suggesting noise cancelling headphones/earbuds came to me, as I mentioned above, when I was typing my reply. It's interesting to learn how many people in fact use that approach for neighborhood noise.

I've never seen or heard of anyone get cancelling headphones to drown out a neighbor's activities no matter what they do. It's odd, crazy and strange to me. All my neighbors make more noise than one could only imagine including myself, drag strip 53 Chevy gasser with straight pipes to the west, drunken parties, tractors, tillers, shotguns, dirt bikes, dune buggies off road 4wheelers, ATV's, diesel tractors, snowmobiles, chainsaws and of course gas leaf blowers.

It's progress and something is getting done or someone's having fun! It's also an open invitation to everyone to come join in, help, play or just sit and watch while having a drink. There isn't a weekend without a blazing smokey fire at someones house, follow the smell and bring some beer is the unwritten code.

Yesterday my neighbor to the North was leaf blowing so I fired up my zero turn with my yard sweeper and gave him a hand to help him get it done. He's a hard working brick layer able to crush a hand without thinking, and since I'm retired I jumped in to help and he was so happy I did, then we had a beer. This is how neighbors should act, not annoyed because they're doing something everyone else is doing but doesn't fit your schedule. I'am curious to know what hate flag Jehanne's neighbor is flying, care to give a hint?

olychick, when he first started doing this we tried air circulator fans taht we already had. This just emboldened him as he enjoyed watching us try to not let our house infiltrate with smoke and odor. Our entire house is engulfed in it and it seeps in and prevents us from using our porch or deck. He says that he is trying to rid the neighborhood of rats....us.

He is nasty, nasty, nasty ,mean and unhappy man who is now feeling empowered with a new freedon to hate.

We havnt spoken to him in years but the last time I attempted to say hello to him I was countered with yet another verbal threat

His problem is that everywhere he goes in life....there HE is. He is his own foe. Others on the street do know that he is hostile but it is us right next to him that he has decided are the source of his miserable life.

But fans like that are of no use to propel the smoke back when it is being blown by the prevailing west winds, or just a breeze. Fans wont do it. He did however set up a large fan to enhance the blowing of smoke over us . Since it was in the same direction as the west wind, it did make it blow more. But these fans dont work our it the open air like that against a prevailing breeze or wind.

He is a miserable man, just deplorable and a threat to us.

A neighbor across the street has some legitimate differences with his neighbor and I heard them in a heated discussion outside a couple of weeks ago and now that neighbor has put his house up for sale . It is hard to live so close to offensive neighbors. It makes it very uncomfortable. I was not surprised to see the sign out front.

Advice deleted.........What was posted should not be allowed to be known by the masses and only by those worthy.

kevin, thanks for your interest but I am way to old to do all that. That would consume what life I have left and I have no power to make all that happen. I just want him to stop and leave us alone. We are elderly and hubs is not doing well. We are just trying to get by and take care of each other before we are forced by circumstances to leave our home. Just trying to stay in our home of almost 40 years for as long as we can. Hubs fell twice last week.

This man is a coward, really . He is a small man out there in the world and a big man out in his backyard where he makes it his mission to cast hatred our way. I have no transactions with him.

He is a disturbed man emboldened by the political atmosphere. There is a lot of that out there. He was already unbalanced and he now he lets his hate flag fly.

As an undiagnosed aspie/spectrum disorder person, I struggle with noise...and smells, bright lights, etc. When it gets really bad I use noise cancelling headphones, which I originally got when COVID happened and my wife and I both started working from home and needed the privacy, but I use them for any type of noise these days.

There is a substantial contingent of people in this country (usa) who get a big dopamine hit from living large: intentionally noisy truck, rolling coal, backpack blower, outdoor TV and music, outdoor lights on all night every night, noisy, plastic electric cars that their kids drive up and down the street, you get the idea. It doesn't matter whether they think they are accomplishing anything, the mere act of doing these things makes them feel good...or better...or less bad...or something.

Seems like some sort of "alpha syndrome" to me. There also seems to be a bit of OCD involved, when you can't tolerate one single fallen leaf on your pristine concrete for more than a few hours. I've given up trying understand it because its opposite of the way I like to live, which is to live small.

@artinnaturez8b I think you are into something, tho I think there are various reasons depending on the person. I've always found people who surround themselves with noise are seldom deep thinkers or are not emotionally available. Noise distracts them from thoughts and feelings. Some others seem to like to present as alpha (your noisy trucks example) and there are some theories floating around about the love of blowers, but they aren't appropriate for mixed company, lol.

My late father in law could not stand to not have the tv or the stereo on. We'd visit them in Northern CA on this beautiful piece of property they owned, acreage with some forest, and he had speakers EVERYWHERE, inside and out, You couldn't sit on the porch and listen to the birds or just enjoy the quietness of the space. It drove me batty and frazzled my nerves, We finally had to stay elsewhere because it was so annoying to me I could barely be civil to him. My husband wasn't bothered because he grew up with it and, well, the nut doesn't fall far from the tree....

I find this thread eye opening. Every once in awhile I think about moving, but when I read something like this, I think again. We actually like our neighborhood and have lived here 40+ years. A lot of people get out and walk with their dogs, their kids, or they jog or ride their bikes. So people get to know each other. We've had neighbors help us out when we've had situations. Surprising to us when that happens. We also had two new neighbors who also have already been helping out neighbors.

Noise is hard. I don't enjoy it at all. We have a neighbor with a child with a motorized car. A couple of neighbors who have landscape services that use blowers. The ocassional chain saw...lots of trees with fallen branches. We had neighbors with teens that had weekend parties and late nights, but they're all grown now. A few with loud motorcycles.

I am thankful because evidently, no one has been abusive in their noise making capacities. Sometimes I have to close my windows in the front of the house on a nice day. And I have a few neighbors that use wood burning stoves in the fall and it does come in my windows. Not their fault....the houses are built too close together and they need the heat, I'm sure. All of it is short lived and seasonal. And our house is usually quiet enough when we have to close the windows. I haven't had to resort to headphones. [g]

All my sympathies to those dealing with these issues too often!! I would really like to travel back in time to when there were no power tools etc. Maybe even as far back as horse and buggy times? [g] And no cell phones either. I guess a lot of people would find that boring, but I would love it.