Especially gas powered ones. If you are going to blow refuse in the street, can’t you at least do it quietly?
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.
Relevant podcast episode. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-los-angeles-leaf-blower-wars/
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?”
It goes against the perfect manicured lawn narrative.
And perfect lawns are horrible for the environment!
Won’t someone please think of the property values‽
Fuck leaf blowers and whoever invented them. Should be illegal along with ultra bright headlights
I always think about something along these lines about cars.
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)!
Or you could just use a leaf rake.
I tend to for leaf removal. The mounds of leaves get too large for a blower to handle.
The blower is more for gutter-cleaning, blowing random woods-generated debris off the porch and deck, and blowing lawn clippings off the sidewalk/street/driveway/walkway back into my lawn.
Dang. Quite a multitool.
And uses the same battery as my pressure washer, lawn mower, weed eater, edger (giggity), misting fan, and chainsaw. It really is a great line of products.
Leaf blowers piss me the fuck offffff VvRrrmmmm Five seconds later… VRRRMMMMMM Sound gets closer… VRRRRRrrrMmmmmmMMMMM!!!
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.
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.
Peiple just use “rastelos” here (is there even a translation?)
A rake?
Theyre banning them where I live. Good riddance.
Even battery powered ones? I’d only heard of bans on gas ones.
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.
Have you ever used one to stoke a fire?
Or bring a woman to orgasm?
Or clean your gutters?
The female orgasm is a myth.
Counterpoint: your mom
Ditto. Primarily mine is used to “sweep” the shop and dry off motorcycles after washing.
If on the scale of annoyance gas leaf blowers are 10/10, electric are 3/10.
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?
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 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.
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.🤣
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.
