My neighbor has me on the verge of tears. It’s not that he’s blowing leaves. Or even that he’s one of the picky types who has to blow EVERY leaf off his driveway/sidewalk. Every day.
It’s that this is the FIRST day it’s been nice enough to open the windows, and his leafblower is an electric, rather than gas jobbie, which means instead of a loud, low chainsaw-like growl, this thing whines at a very high-pitch. And an electric leafblower doesn’t have as much “oomph” as a gas-powered one, and he IS the picky type, so he’s been at this now for three hours. We’ve lived here for seven years, and I keep hoping the leafblower will die, but it hasn’t yet. One nice fall day, he literally spent NINE HOURS blowing leaves.
There HAS to be a polite, neighborly way to tell him that his leafblower is driving me insane. I’d be happy to buy him a pushbroom… I’d even consider lending him our gas-powered blower - it’s just as loud, but lower in pitch and more powerful, so it would take a lot less time to use (I think.) I draw the line at offering to clear his driveway myself, because 1) his leaves don’t bother me, and 2)frankly, I have better things to do.
Bag the leaves on your yard. Release onto his property as he finishes his blowing, about 10 - 12 leaves at a time. Every day. Once he gets his 500 dollar electric bill from running a 12 amp appliance for 10 hours a day (not ot mention the bill from his podiatrist and chiropractor) he’ll stop.
Go over there and tell him, in a polite, neighborly way, that three hours of blowing leaves is enough? I’m on pretty good terms with my neighbors, so that might work for me.
Actually, I was trying to be fit for polite society. What I’d really like to do is pour dishsoap down his throat, shove the leafblower up his nether regions sans lube, and turn it on “high” to amuse the cats.
But I’ll settle for a suggestion on how to approach this without starting a neighbor war.
I think this is one of those cases where he isn’t actually doing anything wrong, so your choices are leave or suck it up. It’s like people who start up their lawnmowers the minute it is okay to do so on a weekend morning - sure, it’s perfectly legal to mow the lawn at 8:00 am (I think that’s when our noise bylaw is over), but I truly do hate it. We’re still trying to sleep for another two hours, noise bylaw be damned!
In other words, I’d close the windows and mutter under my breath. Possibly post to a message board.
This vaguely reminds me of some neighbor guy somebody used to post on that they called Ladder Man, he was always up on his roof with a ladder or painting something with a ladder or somehow figuring out how to get on a ladder to do everything. They posited that there was a Mrs. Ladder Man he was trying to get away from. Perhaps the same applies. I can’t find it on a brief search - Ladder Man is probably gone forever. Made me giggle back then, though.
I have a tendency to use my leaf blower a lot. We have a lot of trees and a big piece of property and if I don’t do it almost daily I have huge piles of leaves and I end up paying someone to do it.
I really worry that it bothers my neighbor. He’s pretty ill and I’ve asked his wife about three times if it bothers them and she said no. If she told me that it does bother him (sick or not), I would really try to do something to work around their schedule so it wouldn’t annoy them. I wouldn’t be bothered if they told me. Are they the type of people that might be annoyed if you told them?
You can’t ask that they don’t use the blower at all but you could either ask him not to do it at certain times, or help him to get it done faster. Or get an ipod.
Personally I think the gas powered blower sounds even worse.
Maybe you should introduce him to my neighbor, she blows leaves at 9pm! She’s totally crazy, she’s told me as much she hates leaves and trees. We live in a townhouse with a huge tree and she has asked me a number of times to cut it down, but we like it. So last year she cut down every branch that overhung her house and now half the tree is gone. She still gets leaves from the tree, along with all the other ones too. But she’s still out there with her blower getting rid of them at 9pm. I should say she just took down her christmas lights yesterday as well. Not the small little lights, I’m talking ones that were a foot long.
I’d let your neighbor be, for now. Chances are one session is all he’ll need until fall. If it keeps up for more than a day or two though, I’d say something.
Windows open here too. I just came in from asking a teenage girl to please stop riding her moped past our house. Back and forth, back and forth, for at least half an hour. My husband works 2nd shift and this is his sleep time.
She was nice about it, and now she’s on the other side of town, making someone else’s life miserable. I can still hear her, faintly, but she’s a couple blocks away.
Last week we asked the neighbors across the street to please bring their dog inside after he barked at nothing for an hour. Bark bark. Pause. Bark bark. Pause. This had gone on for months but we were too chicken to say anything.
I think the only noise we make is mowing, and we do that in mid to late afternoon. My husband has a Harley but when he rides, he rides – he doesn’t sit in the driveway revving it up.
My wife tried this with the old guy next door. He’s well into his 80s, and putters around all day. He LOVES his leaf blower and will suck up leaves one at a time for hours on end. It can take him several hours to mow his suburban sized lawn, which he does every couple of days.
On the one hand, I respect that the old guy is still alive and kicking. On the other, enough with the motorized appliances.
She thought she was striking a jovial tone when she suggested that it would be quicker and easier with a rake. in retrospect, it may not have been the best choice, tho I’m not sure anything would have worked. When he asked what she meant, she commented that she had been hearing him suck leaves for a couple of hours and was getting a little tired of it.
The old coot responded that she should mind her own business and get off his property.
So no, I don’t count on neighbors being reasonable, polite, or considerate.
I had a neighbor once who worked on Harleys all day, every day and late into the evening. He seemed to spend most of his “fixing” time removing the mufflers and seeing how loud he could make them. I asked him nicely. He blew me off. I appealed to him as I had a small baby that was being awakened constantly. He blew me off. I called the police. They ignored me. He called the police because my dog barked at the noise & I got a ticket for it. Finally, I decided that I had a mosquito problem and had to fog my yard EVERY time I heard a Harley start. Funny how that thick insecticide can make a problem go away.
