This has been going on for years. I used to think, literally, the guy was sawing timber or something to make money on the side, and I didn’t want to say anything to hurt his business. Then one day I look outside and see it is a leaf blower. It blew my effin’ mind! It’s like a backpack unit but sounds like a huge generator or something. It is that loud. It is louder when he uses this thing than when the lawn guy is cutting the grass right outside the window.
He feels the need to blow his yard for hours at a time, several days a week. It is madness.
I have complained before, once, so he knows (remembers at all, maybe?) it’s an issue, but obviously the first step is for me to say something again.
But let’s say he just blows me off? He is a nice guy, so I don’t think he would be like eff you or anything. But what do I do if he doesn’t stop?
And aren’t there relatively quiet leaf blowers out there? I would have to imagine he found the loudest one possible, ripped off its muffler, and augmented it with some sort of noise-making device.
Admittedly I go out of my way to insure my leafblower intensity and duration are kept to a minimum just so that I don’t bother my neighbors who all are good people and deserving of such consideration. So maybe I’m a little biased here but why in the world do you think he feels the need to do this so frequently and so long, decibel level aside? I mean if it was loud but short that would be tolerable, right? That’s kinda weird that he’s that obsessive though and may speak to some deeper issue. OCD? You’re entirely correct, 6 plus hours a week of intrusive behavior outside is crazy.
Electric leafblowers are much quieter, although other factors like a cord, battery expense, etc do come into consideration.
I have a neighbor, directly across the street, who mows his lawn about three times a week, in all but blizzard conditions, taking an hour or more to do it each time. He’s gone (upwards) through three mowers since we’ve lived here, from a typical rider to a fancy one to a Cub Cadet ZTR that must have cost $4-5000. When it snows, he’s out shoveling, blowing or (full squee mode) plowing with his little quad. The guy never stops fussing around with his yard and to be honest, you really can’t tell. It’s just tidy, that’s all. It’s not that he’s a DIYer, because he’s tried to sell the house twice with no takers, and the interior photos show why. (He’s had a parade of trades in over the summer and it might go on - and on to - sale in the spring.)
Part of this is just annoying because it’s our view a significant number of daylight hours. Part of it is the noise, which is modest but frequent. Part of it is that he’s an inconsiderate jerk who clears his driveway with his little plow - frequently, as if an inch of snow will damage it - by shoving everything across the road into a berm along the front of our yard, which can remain, a huge icy white whale, long after all the other snow has melted. He also lights his yard like an airstrip, and the lights remain on until the wee hours. Understand - this is the deeply forested suburbs. If he wanted streetlights, he moved to the wrong place. If I wanted my bedroom lit up all night, I would have moved to the day side of Mercury.
Anyway - the one thing we don’t put up with is a screaming leaf blower. There ARE noise laws, and even after purchase such equipment is supposed to conform to them. I’d get a noise meter reading from controlled distances, a recording of the noise, and (1) politely point out he’s in gross violation and (2) report him for noise ordinance violations. (Look up your locale’s rules so you are in the right.)
I think it’s something like that. I don’t know if he’s retired or not–don’t know much about him–but I think dicking around outside like that is his ritual, so to speak. I don’t want to get in the way of it, but…
How do I measure the noise?
I don’t see why in theory he’d object to an electric blower. Then he could dick around with the cord, which would add to the ritual!
Have you tried talking to him, again? Perhaps with reinforcements - other neighbors who are tired of this. You say he’s a nice guy; maybe he just doesn’t realise how fucking annoying he is until someone tells him straight up.
I had a neighbor once who would rake and arrange, rearrange, endlessly, the gravel in his driveway. Daily. The gravel. In his driveway. Had to be sorted by color and size. Every time someone drove in and out of his driveway he was compelled to go out and make the gravel look perfect. Very nice guy but a complete fucking nutcase and thankfully quiet. His wife left him and he moved shortly thereafter (she was the main breadwinner) and the neighborhood heaved a sigh of relief.
Well, not to keep hogging the mike here, but we had a worse one down the street in California. The guy LIVED in his front yard with his little yappy Sheltie. Morning, noon, evening the guy was in his front yard. Only in the worst weather would he be gone from his post.
What made it peculiar was that he was an older retired professional, quite well off, and the trades never stopped working on the interior and back yard. From what I could see of the interior and through the gates, we’re talking about Park Avenue immaculate and sculpted… but the only thing we can figure is that his wife wouldn’t let him or the dog in any of her nice territory. Or something. This wasn’t a transient thing - it went on for at least ten years, and his adjacent neighbor, another older guy who was as nice and ingratiating as you can be, came to completely loathe his perpetual presence and minor bickering over things like leaves blowing into his yard.
Anyway…
You need a sound meter. Not a terribly easy thing to find, but you can buy them fairly cheaply online. I have an old RatShack model that’s worked well for me. There might be smartphone apps that can do a reasonable job, too. ETA: Here.
Or just record him and see if you can get some more standard-level sounds in the mix for reference.
There is no reason a modern leaf blower, even a backpack model, should sound louder than a car accelerating past the house. If it’s really screaming and howling, it’s either broken or has been modified.
Our next-door neighbor, a really nice guy, used to do that. Because we’re in Florida and you know, heat, everybody starts mowing their lawns and cutting down trees etc. at 7:30am and often he started the leaf blower up. Other times during the day, too. (How many falling leaves can there be here?) But because his wife was such a total bitch (I’ve posted about her before in Neighbor From Hell threads) we figured she either ordered him to or he was doing it just to get away from her, so we gritted our teeth and learned to live with it.
We have a blower/sucker that we use in the fall for a few weekends each year. We don’t have any really close neighbors, but the two we do have also use leaf blowers in the fall. If the noise bothers me I take out my hearing aid and enjoy the silence.
I once had an apartment complex out my window across the stree, that suddenly decided to hire a grouindsman, who literally walked around 8 hours a day wearing an idling leaf blower,and every time he saw a single leaf, he would rev up the blower and move it somewhere else. I phoned the apartment manager and complained,and it stopped immediately. I hope I didn’t cost the poor guy his job.
Another time, the same apartment complex, which mowed the lawn a tolerable once a week, suddenly turned up with a new lawn mower that sounded like an airplane. I called city hall to see if there was a noise ordinance, and they checked into it. Reported back to me that a machinery company had given them the new mower in a trial basis to see if they wanted to buy it. They didn’t, and that was he end of that.
This is my complaint with leaf blowers and snow blowers;
Yes, they can be useful machines, do a fine job and ease people’s work load, I’ll willingly grant all of that. The problem is the job is done swiftly and so cleanly it is well nigh impossible, it seems, to resist the urge or chase every last leaf or bit of snow, in search of some pristine, spotless ideal. So no real time is saved and the last twenty minutes are inevitably spent bouncing the last leaf around the drive or making the eges of the snow drifts well balanced!
People need to step back from that shit. Your power tool should be used discreetly and for a minimum period only!
After all, when you were shovelling or raking you didn’t care if one leaf remained or if the snow banks were balanced!
I feel you pain OP. The guy behind us runs his leaf blower at least 3 hours a day, the rest of his day he runs his power washer. Now, I think his neighbors are trying to counter him by running their leaf blowers constantly, as if it would bother the guy.
On the other hand, I looked out my window the other day and my neighbor was blowing leaves with his Shopvac. He’d reversed flow and was blowing around leaves efficiently and perfectly quietly. So, it is possible to blow leaves without piercing the ears of all your neighbors. I have to assume those who use the especially noisy ones do it on purpose.
