A couple interesting reads I've been meaning to share lately: The Oct. 25 issue of the New Yorker had a great article about one of my biggest pet peeves, leaf blowers. (See related cartoon about blowers here; thanks to Matt for sharing his copy of the magazine with me, because he knows how much I hate them.) Only the abstract is freely available online, but if you have a digital subscription, you can find a link to the whole article here.
The gist of the story is how a well-to-do California town has become leaf blower hell, and how one couple's efforts to do something about it has earned them the animosity of their libertarian neighbors. (Apparently the right to peace and quiet in your own home doesn't count as a proper "freedom."). After reading the article to Mr. Slowpoke, he immediately went outside and started raking leaves. With, you know, a good old-fashioned rake. These days, I'm very tempted to say "thank you" to people when I see them raking the neighborly way. Except they'd probably look at me like I was some kind of weirdo.
Also worth reading, apropos of Joe Miller's defeat: this column on Alaska as welfare state. Thanks to Adam D. for the link.
Well, you wouldn’t be saying “thank you” to me. No, I don’t use a leaf blower. I’ve got 3/4 of an acre with 20 trees over 50 feet tall plus a bunch of smaller ones. Locusts, maples, walnuts, elms, oaks and mulberries. Pines and spruce, too – the spruce needles are small but the white pine needles have to be taken up. It takes days for me to rake it and it’s exhausting. So I take the grass clipping bags off the back of my rider mower, leave the chute on and tie a tarp to drag behind it. That cuts the job down from days to hours, the leaves compost a lot faster since they’ve been cut up and had some grass clippings mixed in and it’s a lot easer to drag the leaves to my compost heap by using the mower than by dragging them manually. No, I don’t burn them. You wouldn’t believe the compost heap in the back corner of my property.
What I do use a leaf blower for, on rare occasions, is cleaning out the gutters on my roof. It makes the job a lot less dangerous.
I don’t get it. How is this an ‘absolute’ type issue? If it’s between 8 and 5 i can do noisy things and not be a jerk. If there’s some particular reason you need me to be quite you’re free come over and ask me to keep it down. They’re not that loud. If I’m two doors down it’s background noise. If it’s getting late I should stop doing noisy stuff or I’m a jerk. Some places regulate this with specific hours etc. There’s got to be some give and take. Can I use power tools to fix my car? Or should I only use hand tools? Mechanic isn’t in the budget.
If you really don’t want to have to deal other people move out to country and deal with commute.
They *are* that loud. Ask the (largely people of color) gardeners who use them all day, but you’d better ask loudly because they have hearing damage.
And my problem isn’t with people using them “late.” It’s *early*. For two years I lived in an apartment that backed up on a private house where the gardeners came at 8am every Saturday morning.
Many Fridays, I don’t get home until 3am. Mowers followed by 75 dB of leaf blowers just 5 hours later was a serious issue for my quality of life.
What was particularly infuriating was that the homeowners appeared to have a couple of middle-school-aged kids. It was everything I could do not to write them a letter saying “what, are your kids too good to learn how to use a broom on your patio?” and the only thing that kept me from it was that my 11-year-old self would have bent time and space to jump forward and throttle me.
(Also – using a leaf blower for a year pollutes as much as 80 cars, not to mention the leaf mold, dirt, and animal feces they throw into the air. I worked for 3 years in a former bank building with a nature bandaid out back, which was meticulously groomed every week during the spring and summer. My asthma protested enough just from my walk along the “stream” after parking my car that I feel fairly safe saying the landscapers were certainly not working in a healthy environment.)
Yes, they are that loud. The first two times I heard them I thought there must be some huge building project going on. When I realised that it was just a machine replacing a rake and a broom I couldn’t believe it.
I suspect there is a similarity between the motivation of an adult with a leaf blower and that of a two-year-old banging a saucepan; it’s fun when you’re the one making the din.
Oh, yeah, they’re that loud all right. But using them 8 – 5 on a weekday isn’t practical if you’re the homeowner and you work 8 – 5 on a weekday.
I don’t know. I’ve been living in a house with a big yard and a driveway that’s about 120 feet long for 20+ years and I’ve never blown the leaves or grass clippings off of my driveway. The leaf density is way too heavy for a blower to do the job (especially if they get wet before I get out there) and if I even bother to blow the grass clippings off I just run the lawn mower down the middle of the driveway a couple of times. I’ve got a 70-foot tall Norway Maple whose branches hang over the driveway. Norway Maples have those big 5-lobed leaves you see depicted on the Canadian flag and are bigger than your hand.
Of course, my yard looks like an abandoned forest preserve and I am the despair of the neighborhood. When I first moved in one of my then-neighbors made so bold as to walk up my driveway and launch into a discussion of local yard maintenance standards with me. It seems that my house had been owned by an elderly woman for some years and she couldn’t keep up to this guy’s standards. As an aside, I wonder if he ever came over and offered to help here? Anyway, I quickly informed him that – and I believe this is an exact quote – “Look, this ain’t gonna be ‘House Beautiful’ over here, I’ve got other things to do with my time.” That pretty much ended a) the conversation and b) meaningful contact with that neighbor for the rest of the time he lived in the neighborhood.
Where I live there’s an ordinance that work outdoors that makes ‘x’ amount of noise cannot commence until 8 AM and must end by … some particular time that I don’t have time to look up right now. This affects not only landscapers but (the main target) construction workers. All the towns in the area have a similar ordinance. I realize that for someone who works 2nd or 3rd shift that’s an issue, but you’re in the minority and the rest of us have work to do and that’s the only time we can do it. While a later start would be nice for you, out here in Chicago in the summer you want an early start because after about 11 AM or so it can get ridiculously hot mid-day. I can’t deal with being out there mowing the yard or digging or hauling or pounding in 90+ degree heat. That’s why they put in the ordinance. Otherwise, if you are (for example) putting a new roof on the house you’ll get up there as soon as you can see at sunup and be off the roof before you start getting roasted.
10-4 on “get those middle school kids out there with a couple of brooms”. Of course, I’m way old school on that. Parents tell me that they can’t tear their kids away from the video games to go outside. I give them a foolproof solution, but they don’t use it. Perhaps they don’t OWN a sledgehammer. I’d lend them mine ….
It’s worth remembering that a lot of people work late shifts or overnight shifts and need to sleep during the day. And that blowers do often violate noise ordinances, which are almost never enforced.
Well, and also, let’s point out the class and age bias of this particular sort of noise being acceptable. Wealthier and older people use leaf blowers. Poorer and younger people work nights*. For those of you who are all like “Yay Leaf Blowers!” consider whether or not you’d be okay with 75dB gangster rap every Saturday morning at 8AM for several hours.
—Myca
* Generally.
As someone who’s tried to sleep through both, leaf blowers are a lot more white-noisey than rap. My body, at least when sufficiently tired, can filter out leaf blowers as part of the Background, whereas something like rap with more design behind it pings my body’s “this is important and needs paying attention to.”
The first, and almost only, time I ever called in a noise complaint was when I had my first job as a police officer and I was trying to work swing shifts which included nights, and evenings, and days, in essentially random order. My commute to get to this job, which paid a small hourly wage, and no benefits, and no uniforms, was over an hour.
I was living in a small apartment in the country.
Across the road from me was another lovely house, the image of clean, wholesome country living. It was a bit farther away than two doors down would be on a city street. It even had stucco on the walls. It also had a dog, and the people who lived there would put the dog out in the yard, and it would bark, all day, constantly, like a metronome which couldn’t keep time.
I was desperately tired. I could not sleep. I was going to be on patrol, driving around at midnight, making decisions irrelevant to world peace but very important to the people I would be serving.
So I called the department where I lived, and the officer swung by, and the neighbors did the responsible thing and looked after their dog.
When I talk about shift work, the standard reply from pretty much everyone is that, well, 99% of people sleep at night, so that’s just the way things are, and yes, it’s hard. Even shift workers take that attitude toward it, because if they didn’t, they’d very angry or go very insane, or both.
And wow. Let’s think about what that’s saying, when someone who’s not working late shifts says it. “I already work awesome hours, and get to sleep at times which work pretty well for me, but hey, there has to be some give and take, so I think that in addition to working your shitty night shift job you should just shut up and eat it when I find it more convenient to use a really loud tool, or I want to abandon my dog outside on a line, or I just can’t be troubled to think about how what I do might affect my neighbors. Oh, and don’t forget to be grateful. And smile. You can hear the gratitude in the smile.”
And never mind doctors’ offices which tell you that the only slot they have to see you for your medical problem is at 1 PM, right in the middle of when you try to sleep, unless you want to wait three months.
And I could go on.
When it comes to their right to generate noise, my level of sympathy for people who get to sleep at night is so low that it’s hard to measure.
Grace
Sure, but that cuts the other way too. I’ve enjoyed listening to loud music in my life. No matter how much I listen to leaf blowers, they’re still just annoying.
The larger point, though, is that whether you prefer one or the other, as far as noise ordinances go, they’re both just 75dB noises at 8 AM. If you think one is okayfine, not rude, and legal, then the other is okayfine, not rude, and legal.
—Myca
You know, leaf blowers aside, I’m not going to spend my daylight hours sitting very quietly in the middle of my living room on the off chance that a neighbor might work the night shift. And I say that as somebody who HAS worked graveyard.
So I called the department where I lived, and the officer swung by, and the neighbors did the responsible thing and looked after their dog.
O.K. This kind of bugs me. Why wouldn’t you go knock on their door, give them a call or put a note in their mailbox before calling the cops?
Grace,
Based on what you posted your neighbors don’t sound too bad. They let their dog out to exercise and when they found out it was disturbing you they brought it back in. Good for them. That’s what give and take means.
Some activities make noise. Some people like/need to do these activities. There are usually laws that limit these activities. If those laws don’t work for you ask the people doing the whatever to keep it down. Hopefully they will.
joe wrote:
Sure. I never said they were evil incarnate. I don’t think they were as responsible as they could have been, but tomayto/tomahto. Perhaps my original post didn’t make it clear, but they did put their dog out on a line for long periods of time, to the point where it got bored and amused itself by saying, over and over, “Hey!” I’m a dog owner and dog lover, and in my book, that’s not good dog care.
But I understand give and take. I often have to explain it, in my capacity as a police officer, to people who don’t understand it, and sometimes on this very issue. More often, I’m explaining to people that I understand that it’s not their fault that the apartment walls are thin, but they still can’t crank the tunes to 11 at 2 AM. But sometimes I’m doing exactly what the officer did for me: explaining that a neighbor was disturbed and asking if they can keep it down. And you’re right; generally it works.
RonF wrote:
This is all getting a bit beside the point, both of the original post and of my side-story. I feel a little weird being asked to defend a choice I made while sleep-deprived and irritable many years ago, and several houses ago, when I was a very different person. There could be many reasons. Perhaps I had tried before and it hadn’t worked. Perhaps I suspected criminal activity at the house and would rather a duty officer deal with it than I, in my bathrobe. Perhaps I am simply not at my best when sleep-deprived and irritated, and I judged that a friendly small-town officer stopping by and impersonally asking if they could keep their dog quieter was going to be better than me showing up on the doorstep cranky, and possibly losing my temper. Perhaps I judged that I would get back to sleep that much faster this way. I could tell you some things it wasn’t, but at this long distance, I am unable to recall for you exactly what it was.
I see your implication, that what I did was not neighborly. In many circumstances I would agree with you. In others, not. Customs vary. Circumstances vary.
What I did in response to my particular annoyance is not the point. The point is noise pollution generally, and leaf-blowers specifically. Which is a manifestation of the tragedy of the commons. Peace and quiet in our environment is a valuable thing to many, and it takes only thoughtlessness to take it away from them. There’s a good reason it’s called noise pollution. It’s like light pollution, and littering, and all sorts of things where members of society can say, “This is convenient for me, so I don’t have to think about others, or I can consciously disregard the impact.”
I like having the freedom to do what I like on my own property, and also in public, insofar as it is legal and does not unduly alarm others, or injure them. But I also acknowledge that silence is golden, and often hard to come by, and so I try not to contribute to background noise.
One of the most egregious violations of that notion is the leaf-blower, which is exceptionally loud and exceptionally polluting, and has quiet non-polluting alternatives.
Grace
Mythago:
Grace:
I think that Grace’s answer is the best one here. Nobody expects their neighbors to sit very quietly in the middle of their living rooms or anything, just refrain from gratuitous and awful stuff. I think of it is as the difference between driving your car (OKAY!) and ripping the muffler off your Harley and spending several hours gunning it up and down the street for the sheer joy of it (not okay).
—Myca
Several points
1. Many people can’t do their own yard work for very good reasons. Health, work related travel, allergies etc. Other can do it, but it’s really hard. I can rake leaves even when my back is out. But it’s a much bigger chore. Finally there are those that can do it, but hate it. Some of these people can afford to buy tools to make it easier / hire people to do it for them. There’s nothing morally wrong with this.
2. Some leaf blowers, like mine, plug into the wall. No more polluting than a hair dryer. Most yard crews use a gas powered model for a lot of reasons. But even my little electric one will shave 15-30 minutes from cleaning the driveway. I don’t have a lot of free time, I don’t want to spend it trying to broom pine needles from the walk if I can avoid it.
3. Gratuitous is pretty subjective.
4. Sorry if I was jerk about Grace’s story. We seem to be pretty much on the same page. I just think leaf blowers are getting unfairly singled out here. I don’t see any real difference between them and any other type of noise.
The difference, I think, is that leaf blowers are both ubiquitous and interminable. They’re no worse than neighbors blasting music so loudly that I can hear it from my basement or running power tools all day every day. But they are more common and, ime, are run a lot longer than gas mowers.
joe wrote:
I don’t think you were a jerk about it, for what it’s worth.
Your point number one is beside the point. No one’s saying that it’s morally wrong to do work in an easier way, or to hire it done. The devil is in the details.
I doubt that I would object to your electric leaf blower. I suspect that it’s a lot quieter than a two-stroke gas engine.
Subjectivity is actually a lot of the point, here. Some people are like Vinnie in _My Cousin Vinnie_; they sleep like babies in a cacophony. And personally, in a city environment, I’m like that. It’s when I get out of the city that I want things to average a lot quieter and I become aware of things like the refrigerator. And, that’s one of the reasons I don’t live in a city.
And I agree that there isn’t much difference. I also dislike:
Vehicles with loud exhaust (usually, but not always, motorcycles).
Snowmobiles, which are enough more annoying to have a class of their own.
Power generators.
Frankly, I don’t think much about leaf blowers, because I haven’t heard one used in months. Around here, people don’t seem to use them much. Lots of raking going on, though. And a fair amount of leaving the mulch layer right where it is.
But, I have lived where they are used, and they are a blight. Here’s the main distinction, I think: broadly, their effects are felt most by the people who benefit from them the least. It’s a type of injustice, and I don’t like it.
Grace