Our noisiest yard tool is the mulcher vac that is towed behind our riding mower. It makes a gawd-awful racket and it’s usually in use for up to 90 minutes at a time.
BUT we’ll use it 3, maybe 4, days each autumn, and maybe once in the spring. Never early in the morning, and never on Sunday unless weather limits us to that day. None of our neighbors has ever said anything, so I think we’re doing OK. And it sure beats raking by hand.
This makes me chuckle, trying to think how I would incorporate a ladder into most of my yard work. Digging a new bed? Gonna need the ladder! Mowing the lawn? Ladder!
Now I’m wondering what my husband and I do for house and yard maintenance that drives our neighbours crazy.
I’ve met similar people and I’ve wondered what their value to the planet is if they can devote such huge amounts of time and energy to basically pointless tasks.
OMG, I had a neigbor totally bitch me out because I hadn’t come out at midnight to clear my car after the snow had stopped. She is yelling across the street, kids in tow, about what an inconsiderate neighor I am, while i sit there, goggling at her blankly because a) no way am I coming out at midnight and b) who the hell are you anyway lady?
We have 24 hours after a snowfall to get our sidewalks cleared here, and I’m not going to bust anybody who lets it go for a day or two after that (but honestly, the sooner you clear it the easier it will be). When I see a sidewalk that obviously hasn’t been cleared all damned winter, that’s when I take it to city hall.
Sometimes I think these OCD types just can’t wait to use their shiny, expensive, powerful equipment. They’re like kids with toys and are just waiting for any excuse to fire them up. OMG! The driveway is slightly tinted from a transient dusting of snow and—ZOOM—they’re out there playing with their million-HP Pentablade SnowSucker 3000™.
And they love showing it off too.
If you want to drive OCD Snow-Man crazy, shovel the sidewalk a few feet over the line to include a bit of his walk - as a Territorial Violation and implication that he isn’t doing his “job”.
I did this deliberately one winter and pissed off the similarly OCD loon who lived next door to the place we were renting. He and his wife were pieces of work (we once caught her on our lawn raking a pitiful few leaves so they wouldn’t blow over on their pristine expanse of green).
He was a Lutheran choir leader.
Unlike most of the responses on this thread I would likely BE that neighbor across the street. I never have to deal with snow, but I do have several grassy areas and plenty of shrubbery, trees and flower beds to maintain.
I enjoy the grounds around my place. I enjoy being outside and the fresh air. When I read the OP I said “That would be me except I don’t deal with snow and I wait until the grass is high enough to cut.” I use noisy implements after 9 a.m. and before 4 p.m.
But I’m out all the time doing something. Tzigone (post #12) has me pegged. No T.V. and my landscaping is a relaxing, never ending, hobby. But I have only the mower and line trimmer.
In conclusion I bet my neighbors think I’m a bit wonky for the time I spend on landscaping. It’s okay. They get to enjoy the fruit of all my effort.
Just some general replies -
I don’t think showing off the shiny toys is a big driver, although I do seem to live in a neighborhood of middle and upper management types who spend all day in a suit and fluorescent tan, then come home to be Real Manly Yankee Woodsmen. They all have expensive quads to ride around the neighborhood, especially if there’s a half-inch of snow on the ground. They all have Peterbilt-sized motorcycles for summer jaunts. Etc. So forth. And in crisply pressed LL Bean shirts. So maybe, but he’s just too… focused to look like he’s riding his Cub Cadet in Hey Lookit Me mode. And most of his yard gear is pretty ordinary, down-scale stuff.
We don’t have sidewalks. (It occurred to me as I was musing this that I’ve lived almost precisely half my life with and without sidewalks, and growing up on sidewalkless street is probably why I never learned to skate, board or do many of the things that are so much more difficult on asphalt.)
Noise, fortunately, is not part of the issue - his gear is top-grade and very quiet. We can hear it, but it’s just a distant hum. If it were noisy… I probably would have bombed his property with Agent Orange by now.
Nothing about it suggests he’s doing it for fun. He’s out there kind of wearily slogging most of the time. I’ve had neighbors that truly lived for their yards and they did look like it was enjoyable. Not this guy.
He does share a house with a spouse and at least two full-time adult children, and it’s not that large a house - 2400 sf, I think. So a good part of it may be getting away from the fambly.
Mrs. B. just IMed me from upstairs that someone backed out from the garage and left… across two inches of snow. Shocking. Just shocking.
I’m starting to think that living in a lower-middle class neighbourhood is made for me!
No one complains if my yard is a little sketchy, there are businesses and activity nearby, I have sidewalks (and actual destinations too), etc.
Thank you guys for the reminder that “to each his own.”
I would go crazy if my neighbours biggest concern about our relationship was whether I was meeting their landscaping standards.
See, that’s just going to make lazy trees.
Years ago, I had a neighbor whom I saw ONLY when he mowed his lawn. Never saw him get into a car or hang out on his nice grass, never ran into him at a store. But most evenings during good weather, even if he’d mowed the day before, his garage door would roll up and out he’d come, already mounted on his lawn tractor. When he was done, he’d ride back into the garage and the door would come down.
I marveled at this, and eventually told myself and my family that his pant leg must have gotten caught in the machinery and he was too proud to ask anyone to help, so he was now permanently seated on his riding mower, ordering food deliveries to his garage and waiting for the cool of evening every day to come out for fresh air.
Seemed plausible, anyway.
I remember when I was about 12, we moved to a new subdivision. Lawns were sprigged - the builders did not give you a solid, sodded yard.
That summer one of the neighbors meticulously and regularly pinned his grass runners down with hair pins so that his new lawn would fill in uniformly with no bare spots.
This was before OCD was a common term. IIRC, “crazy idiot” was used instead. 
When I was very young we had a neighbor who seemed rather OCD, though PTSD may have played a role as he was a combat vet (probably from WWII). He used to get a scrub brush and scrub his driveway.
That reminded me of the guy who lived across from my dad’s house when I was about 10. Everyone had one to three elms in their front yard - this was before the blight killed them all, and I miss them still. The guy was an obsessive raker, sometimes doing it multiple times a day at the height of leaf season. Then one day I found my dad looking out the kitchen window, chuckling as the guy used a hose to try and knock down the last 5% or so of the leaves.
Except that… the guy did such a consistently crappy job that his wife often hired the neighbor’s 10yo ahem to come do the job right, during the workday. I don’t think “Bob” ever caught on, and assumed his diligence was what was keeping his lawn so spandy-neat. 
Yes, I - I mean, he - was well-paid to keep mum about it. Worked for… him.
I read “Mr. Ohseedee” and briefly thought, "Is that Japanese? Doesn’t sound like it. Korean? No…What European heritage would have the name “Ohseedee?” :D:D
We have an acquaintance who’s like this – and we are eternally grateful! We first met him when he lived next door to close friends. He not only mowed his own yard every day, he just kept going and mowed theirs as well. After observing this for a number of months, my husband casually remarked that if he ever felt like it, he could mow our yard, too. And in no time at all, that’s exactly what he did. And he has continued to mow, edge and mulch for the past couple of years. He also blows the leaves in the fall, and clears the driveway and sidewalk of snow during the winter. We never have to call him – he just shows up. He never asks for payment, although he accepts money to cover expenses. My husband and I both have health (and age!) issues that would make it almost impossible for us to do even a little bit of what this guy does for us. The back story is that at the relatively tender age of 38, he had a severe stroke that rendered him unable to continue his profession as an engineer. So he needs to stay busy. In addition, apparently he and his wife are not exactly best buddies, so the more time he can spend outdoors, the happier both of them are. I can’t tell you how thrilled we are to have this OCD guy looking after us!
My grandma used to cut the buds off her peony plants before they bloomed so they wouldn’t make a mess. She wasn’t a soldier with PTSD - she was just Mennonite.
Why even bother to have the plant then? Peony plants aren’t that attractive all by themselves. The whole point of them is the bloom.
So today it’s ass-fraggin-lutley freezing, around 10 degrees with a stiff breeze.
It snowed very lightly last night. Most of it just blew away. Streets are clear. Driveways that were snowblewn have only a hard coating of packed icy snow in spots, a quarter inch thick.
Mr. OCD is out there, in literally Arctic conditions, carefully “mowing” his driveway with his smallest snowblower, grinding way a fraction of an inch of the spotty coating. Which, despite temps, is very slowly sublimating under the bright sun anyway.
I have a very nice workshop, indeed! 
And a ladder collection that would make Hank Hill jealous.
I wish we would get some snow so I could use the one snowblower! It’s freakin’ 60 degrees out here!