WWYD -- Neighbors never takes care of fallen leaves

[LBIJim]

OP, sorry to say, but it's your responsibility to clean up your own lawn, no matter how the leaves got there. Or just let them sit there. Maybe they'll blow back to where they came from.

Years ago I lived in a wooded area. A new neighbor moved in next door and she had trees removed and put in a lawn. In fall, she was outside practically every day blowing the leaves off her lawn. Then she picked them up and stored them in trash bags. The township only collected leaves twice: one in mid-November and once in mid-December. We had to pile them loosely into the street. I raked up twice, once before each pickup. I didn't care if any of my leaves blew onto her lawn; I figured she enjoyed using that blower.

The day before collection she must have dumped 50 bags into the street. Sometimes it was comical watching her with that blower, chasing down a stray leaf. She could have easily raked up in 10 minutes what it took her an hour to do with the blower.

She was equally meticulous about the lawn in spring and summer. Almost every day searching for the most minute weed or blade of crabgrass.

Jim

 

[HelenePA]

My lawnmower is also a leave mulcher. so I just mow them away into nothing. my neighbor has lots large old oak trees! they are very pretty, and very leafy! No killing of grass, no raking leaves to put into bags, just make a pile and zip. they are now plant food...

 

[NHdisneylover]

I would do absolutely nothing.

Your husband is right; do not ruin a good neighborly relationship over some leaves. Even lots of leaves.

Honestly, I would be like your neighbor. Leaves don't kill rocks if they pile up on them, so it would never cross my mind to go to the trouble of getting them off. I wouldn't care if they break down into the rocks either--I'd think that goes hand in hand with the more natural look you are going for in your landscaping. I wouldn't think to care if leaves from my own or any one else's tree were in my yard. Nor, would it ever occur to me that I should be responsible for LEAVES if they blow elsewhere. That is called nature. If I happened to notice how much work you put into keeping the leaves out of your yard, I would probably chuckle a little to myself about my fanatical neighbor and feel kind of sorry for you that you felt you could not enjoy the fall without all that unnecessary work, but that would be it.

I DO think you had a right, at the time, to have asked that the broken leaf blower be repaired. There is no excuse for borrowing an item and returning it broken. However, since you did not ask then, I think you need to let that go.

 

[aprilgail2]

Our neighbors have a tree that drops a ton of leaves in our backyard. We don't say anything, we clean up our yard. I wouldn't risk an otherwise amiable relationship with my neighbors over some yard work.

I got rid of all the trees in my yard because I hate when leaves fall all over it--unfortunatly my neighbor has a tree close to the fence in my backyard that drops leaves all over my backyard and into my pool- it drives me nuts but we are friends with them and certainly wouldn't say anything to them about it. This year they were nice enough to allow tree guys that I hired onto their side to make it easier for them to get up and trim the tree branches back from my property line-in fact they let them cut it right back to the tree base so it won't grow again!
I won't rake up my front yard because I don't have any trees so any leaves that blow there can feel free to blow someplace else! In the spring my landscaper comes and cleans up the whole front and back yard of anything left there.
My friend from work came to work telling us about a neighbor of his mother- the tree is on his moms side (she is in her midi 80's) and he gets so pissed that the leaves fall on his side he fills up garbage pails with the leaves and dumps them back over the fence onto her side!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I think you should clean up the leaves that are in your yard and not ask the neighbors. Chalk it up as just a once a year inconvenience. They could be having late night parties, raging alcoholics or worse...

Blow away. I am having a hard time understanding why you can't just blow their leaves into their yard.

Funny... yesterday I was raking leaves and also raked my neighbors yard to because they are my leaves.

 

[Gigi22]

I feel your pain OP. We have neighbours with large maples who may, or may not, rake them in a timely fashion. If the leaves sit long enough, along comes a breeze, and blows the leaves all over. I would say the random leaf distribution is fairly equal. Nothing we can do about it--but when winter comes along, guess whose driveways my DH doesn't offer to clear out with our snowblower?

 

[The Mystery Machine]

OP, sorry to say, but it's your responsibility to clean up your own lawn, no matter how the leaves got there. Or just let them sit there. Maybe they'll blow back to where they came from.

Years ago I lived in a wooded area. A new neighbor moved in next door and she had trees removed and put in a lawn. In fall, she was outside practically every day blowing the leaves off her lawn. Then she picked them up and stored them in trash bags. The township only collected leaves twice: one in mid-November and once in mid-December. We had to pile them loosely into the street. I raked up twice, once before each pickup. I didn't care if any of my leaves blew onto her lawn; I figured she enjoyed using that blower.

The day before collection she must have dumped 50 bags into the street. Sometimes it was comical watching her with that blower, chasing down a stray leaf. She could have easily raked up in 10 minutes what it took her an hour to do with the blower.

She was equally meticulous about the lawn in spring and summer. Almost every day searching for the most minute weed or blade of crabgrass.

Jim

I see nothing wrong with that. That is how you keep weeds out of your yard without chemicals.

 

[golfgal]

I love the note! Maybe I'll do that! I wish we were neighbors! Then I could come over for one of your wonderful meals!



By the time they are all in our yard, it's a mess. They get in the bushes and on the side of the house. They have to be blown into a corner, sucked up, mulched, and bagged. If we wait for all of the leave to fall, many are already dried & crunched up. It takes hours to clean up, plus the cost of the trash bags and running our blower on and off for a few hours.

It's not just in the fall though. They also have a very large bush that never gets trimmed. It drops leaves in the spring & summer. That bush is right in line to our porch & front door (or front door is on a side wall that faces their yard). So our porch has leaves on it all year. I'm constantly sweeping up their leaves all summer. It's just a thousand times worse in the fall.

Last year the leaves that never blew from their yard stayed there all year. There weren't many since we cleaned up 95% of them. It's kind of a pet-peeve that has been irritating me more and more each year. DH says, "Ah, they are good neighbors, so don't push it." But then I have to nag him over and over to clean up the leaves and sometimes I end up doing it myself.

Aren't you out there taking care of your own leaves too though? Does it really add any more time? If their leaves blow into your yard, don't your leaves blow into another neighbor's yard? Do you go clean those up? Then you have to nag your DH. It doesn't sound like it bothers him to do the extra work?? I guess I just don't get the issue. We have lots of trees in our yard, our neighbors do too. I have no idea if the leaves we rake are our leaves or theirs, you just rake them up .

 

[Nancyg56]

Leaves and me get along so I would never bother a neighbor over them. We live in a heavily treed neighborhood and so there are plenty of leaves blowing around. My DH rakes a few times but he will not spend the last 30 minutes of daylight out there every night. The neighbors on either side of us are out there every day. I mean every day. That is their prerogative but I don't feel we need to mirror their zeal to capture every last leaf that drops as they fall from the trees. I figure that we all can tend our yards the way we like and that when you purchase a home you are agreeing to your own upkeep.

I have had some wild neighbors so I'll keep the two who have their lawn mowers and leaf blowers going 24/7 over some of the doozies we have had.

 

[torinsmom]

I have never understood why people do anything with leaves. We don't do anything with our leaves, I guess our neighbors must hates us

Me either. Well, I do a little some years, but I have so many trees and so little time. I always hope for a few good snows, as that will get the leaves decomposing

Because if you don't do anything, it kills the grass underneath and you have bare patches come spring. At least in most cases. I suppose if most of the leaves blow into someone else's yard, or if your tree is a species with thinner leaves, you might not have that problem.

Good for me, as that is less grass for me to mow I HATE yard work. All my neighbors have lots of trees too, so I get their leaves in my yard as well. I am very courteous when I mow the grass though. My neighbor on one side has real grass, so I always make sure my mower blows away from their yard, so they don't get weeds from me. My other neighbor feels like me--if you cut the weeds often, they LOOK like grass, LOL

 

[luvmy3]

My yard is covered in leaves, and some of the trees in my yard and surrounding it haven't dropped all of them yet. I have raked some everyday for the last week, but took yesterday off. It was pretty windy here too, and if any of my neighbors came to me asking me to clean up my yard I'd just tell them politely that I'm not going to until all the leaves drop. I'm sorry if they have a problem with that, but it is what it is.

 

[C.Ann]

I would do absolutely nothing.

Your husband is right; do not ruin a good neighborly relationship over some leaves. Even lots of leaves.

Honestly, I would be like your neighbor. Leaves don't kill rocks if they pile up on them, so it would never cross my mind to go to the trouble of getting them off. I wouldn't care if they break down into the rocks either--I'd think that goes hand in hand with the more natural look you are going for in your landscaping. I wouldn't think to care if leaves from my own or any one else's tree were in my yard. Nor, would it ever occur to me that I should be responsible for LEAVES if they blow elsewhere. That is called nature. If I happened to notice how much work you put into keeping the leaves out of your yard, I would probably chuckle a little to myself about my fanatical neighbor and feel kind of sorry for you that you felt you could not enjoy the fall without all that unnecessary work, but that would be it.

I DO think you had a right, at the time, to have asked that the broken leaf blower be repaired. There is no excuse for borrowing an item and returning it broken. However, since you did not ask then, I think you need to let that go.

Best response on this thread.. I can't imagine making an enemy out of a neighbor over leaves.. Where there are trees, there are leaves..

 

[Goofyluver]

So, IDoDis, are you aware of my lovely wife's love for QVC? No? Well, she's gotten me addicted too.

Anyways, we clicked it on this morning because they're doing a Christmas wish list sorta thing, and guess what they had on? It made me think of you...

Worx TriVac 13 amp Multiple Speed Leaf Blower, Vacuum & Mulcher

It sucks up the leaves and mulches them for you. Plus, it's on a payment plan, so it'll only cost ya' $20 per month. Maybe a Christmas present for you...or even your neighbor.

I still don't find anything wrong with simply mentioning the dilemna to your neighbors, though. Clearly, folks here don't know you're sweet as pie and that you'd never approach your neighbor in a rude manner. Good luck, honey! Let me know if you get addicted to QVC.

Oh, and P.S.- We'd love to have you as a neighbor. And we'd invite you over all the time for yummy stuffs.

 

[Coconut36]

Because if you don't do anything, it kills the grass underneath and you have bare patches come spring. At least in most cases. I suppose if most of the leaves blow into someone else's yard, or if your tree is a species with thinner leaves, you might not have that problem.

The OP mentioned their yards are rock/gravel so a non issue and likely why the neighbor doesn't care/do anything about it. They will break down into the rocks over time and there is no grass to kill.

 

[LilyWDW]

I wouldn't say anything to the neighbors, mostly because I really can't imagine ever being that irritated over leaves.

I agree...

They are leaves. They are something natural. What is the neighbor going to do about which way the wind blows? It's not like they come out and move the leaves into your yard on purpose.

 

[DisneyMim]

Ah falling leaves. We live in NE and have this problem every year. For 25 years now we have been dealing with our neighbors leaves. We have landscapers who do our yard work, so yes we take care of their leaves and have never said anything to them until this year. During our "wonderful" Halloween storm we lost power and about five minutes later I was sitting in our family room and heard a horrible crash. You guessed it, branches were breaking off of one of our neighbors HUGE trees and crashed into a window of our family room just inches away from where I was sitting!! That did it. Luckily the window did not break completely, but there was damaged to our property. The next day I did speak with our neighbors (not very friendly people by the way) and told her that I was very nervous about their trees and was scared that the next time someone could get hurt as the two trees in question are very old and weak. She basically told me that they could not afford to do anything and that was that. What wonderful neighbors huh? So, OP I feel your pain and wanted you to know that you are not alone!!

 

[I loveStitchnippyjon]

My lawnmower is also a leave mulcher. so I just mow them away into nothing. my neighbor has lots large old oak trees! they are very pretty, and very leafy! No killing of grass, no raking leaves to put into bags, just make a pile and zip. they are now plant food...

Love that mulcher! We used to spend endless hours raking leaves from 10 huge 100-year-old maples, but no more!

Personally, if I were OP and the leaves were such a headache, I would put up a fence along the property line to sift out the invaders!

 

[mrodgers]

Last weekend I ran into my mother's to help her with the yardwork. You city folks crack me up. I had to rake all the leaves (leaf blower), mulch them up (leaf blower in reverse), bag them all (9 giant bags) and leave them up for the garbage. Then I had to mow and bag the grass from that (4 bags from that.)

All that natural fertilizer and I had to bag it all up and toss it in the garbage. Now in 5 months, my mother will be paying someone a couple hundred dollars to come and spray fertilizer on the lawn. Hilarious.

We mow them up and it spreads all over the lawn. All year the lawn is green. The city folks, by halfway through July, their lawns are all brown and dead from the heat and all the fertilizing they pay for that is suppose to keep their lawns green.

 

[torinsmom]

Last year, I bought a blower/mulcher. I never did figure out how to blow the leaves where I wanted them. They just blew all over the yard, LOL. So I ended up raking and then mulching them. Then I spread them over the front of my house where my bushes are. I bought one layer of dark pine bark and covered the leaves up. They are great compost! Next mower, I will get one that mulches and just mulch them in the yard. Seems a lot simpler.

 

[charming23]

I wouldn't say anything. I have been on the recieving end of someone's conversation about leaves and it is not worth it.

We have three large maple trees in our backyard and the leaves never fall off until Early November unlike the other trees in the neighborhood that start earlier. I am not going to go out and spen hours raking when I can wait until the first weekend in November and get the biggest chunk done and then do a smaller clean up later in the month.

Apparently this is not up to a nieghbors standards (they moved in a few houses down a few years ago). He came over and was raking our yard one day. I came home from a class and as soon as I got out of the car he started yelling at me about our leaves. I asked him to leave our property and that I would take care of them in my own time. He left in quite a huff and has been complaining to all the other neighbors since.