Submitted 21 hours ago by Simulation6@sopuli.xyz to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Especially gas powered ones. If you are going to blow refuse in the street, can’t you at least do it quietly?
As a scandinavian I never got what the deal is. Just let it decompose? Or use a rake, it’s not that hard.
Then I visited Texas, and leafblowers were everywhere to the point where I had to ask a coworker “why do you guys hate leaves so much?”
Idk I find using a rake is actually pretty hard
It goes against the perfect manicured lawn narrative.
And perfect lawns are horrible for the environment!
I’m Brazilian. As one can imagine, we do have a lot of leaves, being a tropical country and all.
I have not seen a leaf blower in my entire life, and I don’t understand the obsession with them.
Being in a tropical country, I imagine most/all of your trees are non-deciduous, as in they don’t lose all their leaves in autumn and then regrow in the spring? Imagine all the leaves drying up, falling off, and the mess is left all over the ground. Cleanup is a laborious effort. Leaf blowers speed up the process by blowing the leaves from trafficked locations and/or to more centralized locations that are easier to clean the debris. Helpful, noisy, and often environmentally unfriendly.
I live in the UK, I have never had an issue with leaves beyond a brief sweep of the main pathway.
You’re correct about most trees not following your typical seasonal variance.
You’re incorrect about this meaning we don’t deal with significant amounts of leaves and flowers. Search for Handroanthus images, then imagine one on each sidewalk, and imagine all their flowers on the ground.
The massive jacaranda mimosifolia (native to Brazil) which is dominating my front garden, laughs at your suggestion that it does not leave much mess on the ground.
It regularly carpets the area below it in purple flowers, tens of thousands of small leaves, hundreds of twigs/seed pods and a few larger dried branches. Not just one season either - it flowers multiple times a year with how weird the weather is nowadays. The birds and bees like it though so we’re cool.
I envy you. They are the bane of my existence. I have 4 neighbors that use them for landscaping once a week, most of the year. As for the appeal: you ever see a kid use a straw to blow stuff around? My theory is leaf blowers are on extension of that curiosity. A toy, really. When I hear someone rationalizing their use of a leaf blower, I hear someone talking about a toy they like. nevermind all the times i hear folks revving them like they’re on a motorcycle.
Gas ones are banned in my town starting June 1st. Going to be reporting so many people.
Luckily I own a battery powered one owned by a giant multinational gas company (Ego/Chevron)!
Wouldn’t a goat be a cheaper and less polluting solution which would also automatically mow the lawn and produce milk…?
(Of course it wouldn’t solve the noise problem, but it’d probably be less offensive than a leaf blower…)
I get a lot of leaves. I have a battery powered 60v leaf blower. I blow them away from my foundation so I don’t get a rotting mound around my house. Then I have to blow those away or they won’t biodegrade without leaving giant dirt patches. What I’ve found works well is blowing them into the forest bed at the edge of my property. The deer and other animals seem to help break them down. I don’t have to worry about them until fall but there are just too many to leave lie where they land. I go through three batteries a day over the course of weeks to keep them from building up really bad. I’m not a mow every week manicured lawn kind of person either. Right now most of my back yard is over a foot tall with a mowed area for my small dog.
I also like the leaf blower for cleaning off my gutter guards, drive, lawn mower, garage floor, deck, and even when it’s just a light snow I’ll go out a few times to blow everything off so I don’t have to shovel.
Is that really so much easier than raking?
Yes.
I had a neighbor who was rather compulsive about her yard. She would mow her yard/have it mowed 2-3 times a week and would use a leaf blower to push the grass clippings onto her neighbors yard every time. She would also leaf blow her roof with surprising frequency.
I gotta say, I was a little relieved when I saw the for sale sign in the yard earlier this year.
I agree that overuse of them is an issue, but damn they come in handy more than I thought it would… Mine is at least electric, and cleaning out dusty stuff (fans, cars, rugs, etc) is so quick and easy… I almost never use mine for grass or leaves.
Yeah! Clean the coils onthe fridge fast and easy. (Open windows first. Close cupboard doors.)
Oof, I’d go shop vac there. You’re just spreading it around, no?
If on the scale of annoyance gas leaf blowers are 10/10, electric are 3/10.
Ditto. Primarily mine is used to “sweep” the shop and dry off motorcycles after washing.
Have you ever used one to stoke a fire?
Honestly this is a reason I would kinda like to have one. But I do have a 500w electric blower for cleaning dust from my PC. Have thought of using that to help get the BBQ going real hot sometime if I get an extension lead for it.
How would you like your steak? I can apply it directly to the coals anywhere from orange to white hot.
Or bring a woman to orgasm?
The answer to the world’s problems … remove leaf blowers
you jest, but children around the world are no longer starving thanks to this post.
you jest, but various pollinators depend on leaf coverage for winter protection. Fewer pollinators does result in less food…
You know, I was just— bbbrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Your comment blows, dude…
I always think about something along these lines about cars.
I’m always taken aback by the hate. Where and how do you guys live that this is an issue?! Let alone a major annoyance?! I can scarcely imagine noticing leaf blower noise. It’s no worse than gas mowers and those are everywhere (or used to be), and go for far longer. Is this just a circle-jerk complaint kinda thing?
I know everyone around here thinks they’re an ADHD, autistic, OCD mess, but can no one tune out background noise? (No, you’re not special, more likely an normal adult human with modern life issues.) If anything it should be old people bitching as hearing discretion gets more difficult in middle-age+.
The homeless guy that lives behind our Lowe’s probably gets annoyed at the 9PM blowing, but that’s a 20-30 minute thing, and not too late. (Always felt a bit bad when I closed.) I pick every tiny bit of plastic out though. Not in my waterways!
A bit snarky, I know, but those were serious questions.
And BTW, organic refuse gets blown in the street because passing vehicles reduce it to dust very quickly. All organic, no harm no foul in my book. Also, it’s hellacious to corral that stuff for sweeping, no point.
They're loud, they kick up dust, and they happen at intermittent times based on when the neighbors do it. they also use fossil fuels. Loud mowers are annoying, too! If you -- heaven forbid -- want to keep your windows open and feel a breeze, you're going to get all of that noise and maybe even some of the dust.
I understand that we have to clear sidewalks and driveways so that accidents don't happen. People usually don't have so much sidewalk + driveway that a broom or something wouldn't do that job quickly. But then we have to blow the leaves off the lawn, too? I know that your HOA will kill you if you don't, but doesn't it seem silly to remove the leaves from a lawn, then buy and put down commercial fertilizer, when the leaves would have biodegraded into new topsoil? To spend so much time watering a lawn to keep it alive when the leaves would have shielded it from the sun? Why are we spending so much time, money, water, and effort to maintain sterile grass lawns? We can have beautiful outdoors spaces without being slaves to an HOA enforcing what plants we grow.
I understand that it's really the HOAs these days that are a big part of the problem. A good number of people in my HOA-less neighborhood have diverse plants in front of their homes. They look fantastic, they seem to take way less maintenance (I never see them mowing, watering, weeding, fertilizing, etc), and ofc they're much better for the environment.
So, again, what sort of space do you live in where this is annoyance? I’m only aware of leaf blowers when I’m driving and a lawn service is blowing.
Who’s complaining is my question. People in nice hoods with the neighbors going nuts? Apartment complexes? Is this an autumn thing where leaves fall everywhere?
doesn’t it seem silly to remove the leaves from a lawn, then buy and put down commercial fertilizer
I think you are imagining leaves from small and widely spaced trees. We do not put down fertilizer, but we remove leaves from the part of our yard we want to include grass. The parts of the yard we let the leaves stay kills all the grass (hardier plants grow there, but they are not compatibility with mowing to a walk-over height). Leaf mould easily takes two years to create, and grass needs sunlight in a half year from fall.
I understand your skepticism, but gas-powered leaf blowers have annoyed the hell out of me for years. I live in a relatively small city in Northern California, and I can always hear and smell a leaf blower before I can even see it. I can’t overstate how strongly gas-powered leaf blowers smell. The smell of gas permeates my apartment, even with the windows closed, and is the kind of smell that gets stuck my nostrils for hours. The noise is pretty disruptive, but the smell is way worse to be honest. I’m not sure why they smell so much worse than other gas-powered things, but it’s like they’re just spewing gas out into the air.
I have no problem with electric or battery-powered leaf blowers, just please use them at a reasonable time of day - after 8am and before 10pm.
Maybe it is a hearing difference. I was never into loud music and my hearing is still very good.
I know everyone around here thinks they’re an ADHD, autistic, OCD mess, but can no one tune out background noise?
Drag is often in physical pain and crying on the floor because of the leaf blower, but sure, autism is fake.
Leaf blowers piss me the fuck offffff VvRrrmmmm Five seconds later… VRRRMMMMMM Sound gets closer… VRRRRRrrrMmmmmmMMMMM!!!
Relevant podcast episode. 99percentinvisible.org/…/the-los-angeles-leaf-blo…
Good episode for sure. Well… most 99% Invisible episodes are good!
Theyre banning them where I live. Good riddance.
My town banned landscaping companies from using them, but enforcement is non-existent. More often than not, the person operating it doesn’t speak English, so I can’t even explain why I would like them to stop.
Even battery powered ones? I’d only heard of bans on gas ones.
Fuck leaf blowers and whoever invented them. Should be illegal along with ultra bright headlights
Blowers should be illegal.
Gas powered high volume blowers, yes.
Electric ones aren’t so bad.
Gets into the part that the hardware battery pack industrial complex needs to be regulated as well. So much e-waste and batteries use in most contexts where an extension cable is more suitable.
They were invented in the 1950s.
So the Depression and the World Wars were quieter…
I was also invented in the 1950s, and you did not start to see them until the 70s or 80s.
we are blessed here to have the noise in the winter, too. more than three flakes of snow and there’s sure to be a legion of leaf blowers clearing off precious pavement in neighborhoods all over town. the guys that do it at 4-5am are the true treasures.
am i the baddie?
My grandfather got in a minor disagreement with his neighbor one time. Shortly after I went to his house to visit and saw his neighbor on the roof blowing leaves off his roof on to my grandfather’s lawn.🤣
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 31 minutes ago
It sounds like a very American problem. I just let the leaves rot away on their own really, maybe sweep the path by my house and they can sit on a garden bed around some plants and rot down there.