We have a few so called gardeners here that do that. Most are better, some not by much. I have talked with the neighbor's gardeners and they complied.

I'm for outlawing blowers. Leaf gathering is the only way. And, the street sweeper will go around too many leaves in the gutter IF they are concentrated at one house indicating they were blown there. When trees are naturally dropping leaves the sweeper will actually run the block 2wice to pick them up.

Technically, the city code makes the resident responsible for keeping the parkway and gutters clean in front of the house. It's much worse in the alleys where anything goes. Few comply expecting the sweeper to maintain the streets which they do.

But, yeah, I think I'd dial back the initial response and just make a couple calls, one to the neighbor being respectful of the elderly lady and another to city works.

BTW, here the gardeners are required to have a city business license. It's not enforced that I know of but I do know the difference is if the gardener's truck has a name and phone no. on it, we can check the city records. Getting someone out at the time of an infraction would be futile. But in case they do need a license and do not have one, maybe a video of work and the license plate could result in a letter mailed to the truck owner. YMMV, but we do have a pretty active business license bureau here. They comb the ads. You don't have to live here to need the license. If you work here you do. That's the same throughout cities in SoCal.

Well, I slept on it, and decided that I was overreacting. I'm just going to get his number from my neighbor and call the guy. I mean, after all, they have done this in the past and all I did was sweep them up myself and put them in my yard waste bin. Not that big of a deal. I've never even brought it up with my neighbor when they had done it before. Just never wanted to get her upset about it. After all, she is 84 years old, and just a sweetheart.

I guess I just got mad this time because I won't be able to follow behind them and just quietly clean up their mess. Someone has to, though, and at 84 my neighbor sure can't, and I would never expect her to do that. That leaves my wife. Maybe that's what pissed me off.

No, I'm not going to call the city. I don't want to get them into that kind of trouble. But, yes, the leaves do clog the storm drains, and yes, it rains this time of year around the Seattle area. Until about June...

I love this forum. Before I even checked, I knew what the level headed adults around here would have to say. I knew we would all be on the same page. The rest of the knuckleheads around here? That's just the expected background noise at this point. Entertaining as always, though.

Are there any storm drain inlets in the vicinity? If so, I would consider calling the city code enforcement, or sewer maintenance group. Leaves entering the storm system inhibits flow, can cause blockages and flooding that ultimately the local agency can be held liable for. The City I worked for was very cognizant of this and would warn residents against this and cite them if the activity continued even if it was a city "owned" tree. The maintenance cost to clear the lines was significant for the city and a year around endeavor.

The city chose horrible street trees to begin with 60 or so years ago, Magnolias which have a very sturdy leaf that never really goes away, and root systems that were from swampy regions, so their roots were spider web like of the main shoots that would turn into giant mats that would lift the sidewalk, curb & gutter. Another tree they chose was the Liquid Amber that are a beautiful tree in the fall but have roots that invade sanitary sewer lines/laterals at the joints clogging and crushing the clay pipe. They also were a species that dropped these golf ball sized, stickery balls that would accumulate in the gutters and put anyone who walked on them was like being on roller skates... A number of suits were brought against the city over the years for slip and falls.

Siberian Elm and Silver Maple were planted around here. One directly over my sewer line. My driveway is buckled from a neighbor's group of trees planted five feet apart and competing with each other for height. Magnolias are gorgeous for about three days here and then drop all at once.

I did have get rid of a Black Walnut, which nothing grows under but is great for the squirrels. Too close to a couple foundations. Bad location.

About a week ago I saw a pro lawn service using those industrial roll-around blowers to pump a cloud into a busy street middle of the day. Looked again and noticed it was federal property. huh. Maybe they ordered a special street sweeper. Or were just idiots.

I agree with Juan. There is a bit more to this than just leaves you were able to pick up beforehand. Remember, this is just one account for these idiots. They are in total doing a great disservice.

Really don't think you're overreacting to a point.

There's a pos on my block that has about an acre of trees. He blows all his leaves out into the middle of the road. So it all ends up on the property of everyone downwind of him. He's been spoken to , laughs, says its not his problem. Neighbors want to lynch him.
Town says nothing they can do.

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Every situation different....I'm lucky. Have a neighbor who welcomes my Maple leaves for his composting, my yard service gathers & takes them to him.

Yeah, this is very clearly their "business model", as evidenced by the lack of any means through which they could actually remove the leaves and take them away with them. They arrive with a truck and trailer full of lawn and garden equipment, with no room whatsoever for bags of leaves or anything. When they mow, they just fill up her yard waste bin. It's nowhere near big enough for all of the leaves, though. And that is just her leaves, not to mention all of their other customers. They would need a dedicated truck, towing one of those leaf mulchers or whatever they are. Lacking any of that, and likely serving a couple dozen customers a day, it's pretty obvious how they deal with the leaves, not just my neighbor's, but all of their other customers as well.

Even at that, I've decided that I'm not going to make a big fuss over this (it's amazing what just sleeping on it can do). I've already called the guy. All I said was "hey, I'm a neighbor of one of your customers. Your guys were out blowing her leaves yesterday and left them at the end of my driveway, out in the road. I'm sure they meant to pick them up and just forgot. Could you gimme a call? Thanks ..." and left my name and number.

We'll see what (if anything) he does. I mean, this was not a "mistake", they didn't "forget" - they have no means to haul them off even if they wanted to.

This just happened yesterday, neighborhood mowers behind us were riding through the easement and blowing leaves back through our wrought iron fence (wish it was wood privacy). Wife yelled from our back deck and they ignored her, so she grabbed our leaf blower and started blowing them back.:D That got his attention and he came over, claimed he always comes into our yard through our gate to blow them back. Sorry buddy but the concrete shifted years ago, that gate ain’t opening for anyone. On the upside hopefully he remembers this next time and just picks them up with his big ZTR, not like it’s hard for them. I swear we are the only people in our neighborhood that actually bag our leaves. I hate neighbors…

The good crews around here have commercial leaf vac's and plywood boxes on their trailers.
There's no way you can "bag" leaves in a commercial setting.
Blowers are for moving the leaves to where the vac can get them.
I have my own non-commercial version, a tracvac, but its still a big job behind a small zero turn.
Jeff, I don't blame you for your reaction. Lack of exercise and being cooped up does it to all of us.

I’m sure you all know this, but if you mow your leaves first they are a hell of a lot easier to blow or bag. Top tip - a zero turn running in reverse - driven backwards, not literally reversed - moves an insane amount of plant material.

Blowing my back yard with a backpack blower was a 4 hour job and I loathed it. It’s 20 minutes total when I run the mower round first and I’m sitting down for most of it.

There really is - but it requires coordination and a willing upwind neighbor. Get enough biomass into his yard and he will get the message…

We mulch ours first and then bag it. Probably 25% of the bag volume, and it doesn’t take much longer because you don’t have to empty that much.

With all the flower gardens my wife has now our yard has a lot less to mow. She has 4 trees in the back yard that all shed a lot of leaves. Once they are all off, I mow - mulch them. And dump the chopped up leaves and grass in the compost. The worms love the food.

Wow, I am really glad we have the woods here at my backyard. When I blow leaves, I just blow them into the woods. Any other yard debris gets piled up into my fire pit to be burned later. For the front yard, I just ride around on my mower and mulch up the grass and leaves.

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Even though the grass has stopped growing, I do my cutting routine every week to mulch the leaves. No bagging required. Pretty hard now that I have 2" of snow though.

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That was always my routine. The grass looks like trash for a couple days after but it's amazing how quickly the leaves break down, even right under the trees where they're the heaviest.

Rant. see all those leaves….all from my front yard. These are 100% from my neighbor’s trees in her front yard. she is west of me so they blow into my yard. she is 75 and lives with her 40 yo son who I have never even seen mow the lawn or do anything.

i have been clearing these leaves for 13 years. not once has my neighbor asked to help or suggest we pay for a service to clear them.

this pile took 11 50 gallon bags. my town does not pick up leaves and waste management will only take 5 bags per week so this is a real pain in the azz. she has never even offered to put 5 bags out with her garbage.

below that, is a photo of my one tree in the front on the day I blew all these leaves, still with all of its leaves.

as of today, my leaves are all down so i just went out and blew them into a pile and have to repeat this process again.

back yard is same story but much worse.

every year I think to my nasty self, I should just blow all these leaves back into the old lady’s yard…….but I don’t

this is surely way better than cleaning up after a hurricane and it gets me doing some exercise, so…I just do it and and usually silently ***** and moan about it until now.

rant done. I feel better.


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You and me both. I just a have a few small trees and my neighbor has two huge maples and the way my yard is setup, leaves blow in and never blow out.

It sucks, but I just tell myself that big trees are a neighborhood treasure and I think tree law puts the removal of leaves on the land owners where the leaves fall not on who owns the tree.

One year I had started a pile in my yard and they must have bagged them up and removed them before I got back.

Another year, the nice young guy who wasn’t super sharp thought he would game the system and rake the leaves from their yard into the street so the sweeper would pick them up, only problem was they had already gone by, so when the snow fell and the plow came by, it left this huge pile of wet frozen leaves into my driveway- it took a ton of back breaking work to clear them into my front yard. I planned on talking with him that spring and ask him to remove them, but surprise of all surprises, he cleaned them up before I said anything!