WWYD -- Neighbors never takes care of fallen leaves

[quigs3]

OP, it sounds like you are a good neighbor. You helped your neighbor who was a single parent, and it's too bad she didn't appreciate you. The least she could do is keep the leaves in her front yard from blowing into yours, especially now that she is married and has help with the yardwork. I am a single parent, and every year with great frustration tackled the task of raking my leaves. I have NO trees in my yard, but the neighbor on my right has a huge oak tree that hangs 75% in my yard, and the neighbor to my left has a giant maple that right at the edge of their property. In fact it, it is so huge now that I'm pretty sure the roots have gotten so big and deep that I'm having plumbing problems, but that's a story for another day. Neither neighbor maintains their leaves, and my yard is always covered and leaves. Their trees loose their leaves until at least the end if November, so I would always wait to rake until they were mostly done dropping and cross my fingers that I could get to them before the first snow hit. Never once did either of them ever offer to help with my leaves, even though all of the leaves belong to their trees, and I would never have dreamed of expecting it. It was just always a secret little fantasy I had that one of them would actually be neighborly just once and offer to help me rake when they saw me tackling the job while my two little tots were running around the yard. Finally one year, one of them actually did come knocking on my door to ask if i could please sooner than I usually do because he was tired of my leaves blowing in his yard. Let my remind you again that I have NO trees in my yard! After that point, I decided I was done raking. I haven't raked in several years. I feel a little guilty when the leaves blow into their yards, but that guilt is short-lived when I'm reminded of how rude he was when he knocked on my door.

 

[golfgal]

I agree! And slap me hard.


I also never got bare spots from not raking the leaves. the ones that have fallen while the grass is still being cut they get mulched with the mower but all the ones that have fallen since then will stay there till spring and we don't have bare spots.

Mulching leaves into the grass in the fall is a GOOD idea, it is free fertilizer. Our lawn guy suggests that everyone do this in the fall. We mulch some of the leaves, DH burns the rest. We have too many to mulch all of them.

 

[C.Ann]

OP - I see your location is NM.. Is this type of front yard a regional thing - with the rocks and such? Could you possibly post a link to what this type of front yard looks like? I've never seen one (or even heard of it, for that matter), so maybe if we could see what one looks like some of us might get a better understanding of why it's important to you for the leaves to be cleared away..

 

[IDoDis]

OP - I see your location is NM.. Is this type of front yard a regional thing - with the rocks and such? Could you possibly post a link to what this type of front yard looks like? I've never seen one (or even heard of it, for that matter), so maybe if we could see what one looks like some of us might get a better understanding of why it's important to you for the leaves to be cleared away..

Yes, it is a regional thing. We are very dry here so there are watering restrictions and the cost to water is quite high. Only 30% of the entire property (regarding homes built within the last 15 years) can be covered with grass which is why most newer neighborhoods don't have grass in the front.

Here is a good rendition of what our front yard is like. We have the same smaller rocks and then a pattern of large boulders. We also have some of the same shrubs. The purple one on the upper left of the picture is very bare this time of year and right now it's just full of leaves. Watering it would be a waste of money because the leaves get stuck in the bush (as they do in all of our bushes) and are hard to get out because the bush is very prickly.

There were neighbors outside today blowing their leaves -- just not the right neighbors.

One can't rake leaves over the rocks and sucking them up in a blower to mulch them breaks the blower. We blow them into a corner, mulch the ones that aren't touching the ground, and then have to bag the rest.

 

[DVC-Don]

Leafs don't upset me, I just mow them with the mulcher mower. My wife on the other hand will going storming outside, slamming the door and spend hours just to get a wheelbarrow of leaves that blow from other yards. Couple more years and I can get away from her moods when the kids are out. (leafs are not the only thing to set her off).

 

[C.Ann]

Yes, it is a regional thing. We are very dry here so there are watering restrictions and the cost to water is quite high. Only 30% of the entire property (regarding homes built within the last 15 years) can be covered with grass which is why most newer neighborhoods don't have grass in the front.

Here is a good rendition of what our front yard is like. We have the same smaller rocks and then a pattern of large boulders. We also have some of the same shrubs. The purple one on the upper left of the picture is very bare this time of year and right now it's just full of leaves. Watering it would be a waste of money because the leaves get stuck in the bush (as they do in all of our bushes) and are hard to get out because the bush is very prickly.

There were neighbors outside today blowing their leaves -- just not the right neighbors.

One can't rake leaves over the rocks and sucking them up in a blower to mulch them breaks the blower. We blow them into a corner, mulch the ones that aren't touching the ground, and then have to bag the rest.

Okay - now I understand.. I've never seen anything like that.. It looks pretty without leaves - I'm thinking not too pretty covered in leaves (and hard to get rid of)..

Looking at that photo I can see why it's an issue for you.. Wouldn't be "pretty" like the leaves all over the ground here in the northeast.. I wish I'd asked for a photo sooner - my response would have been different..

Good luck trying to get your neighbors to cooperate..

 

[SandrA9810]

It looks similar to luvsflorida's new home that was just built. And being out here in California, I can attest to the wind always blowing in the same direction. It's weird, but it's pretty constant to come from the west and blow east.

Most drought resistant plants have more prickly stems and leaves. It's their natural defense to keep some animals from munching on them. Unlike up north or rainy areas, where plants can grow and grow (and in nature's cycle, animals naturally keep them in check), drought plants have natural resistant to animals/bugs so they can continue to grow with little water.

Florida has a mix of drought resistant plants, just because there's not a lot of fresh clean water, just a lot of salt and brackish water which is a whole different beast of it's own when it comes to landscaping near the water.

 

[camlace]

You would never survive in my neck of the woods if you are concerned about whose leaf is whose... We have many many many large oaks in my neighborhood, obviously no way to determine if it is my oak leaf or my neighbors. So if there is a leaf on my lawn then I "own" it. I say its your property, if you chose to pick up the leaves (wherever they came from) then that is your choice, if your neighbor chooses to not pick up the leaves then they also have that choice. I understand you can specifically tell which ones are the neighbor's due to the different color, but really when you think of my situation you see how it really doesn't matter where they come from, they are on your property, if you don't want them there, pick them up.

 

[LilyWDW]

I still say worrying about whose leaves are in your yard is just simply not worth it. You would HATE us then! It's leaves... they are natural... they will fall on the ground and be blown around by the wind. Just clean them up if you want then cleaned.

 

[Bob NC]

Almost every leaf from my neighbors front yard trees land in my yard. We kind of make a joke about it, but, no I would never ask my neighbor to rake his yard......or mine.

Good luck. In our last house, we had this exact same problem. Talking resulted in the husband telling us the leaves didn't bother them. And after that he sat in a lawnchair and videotaped my son and I every time we did yardwork. I made sure we never stepped onto their property. We took care of those leaves every year until they moved and the new owner pulled out the trees.

We were on friendly terms until we suggested they might want to rake their own leaves. The husband never spoke to us after that; the wife still said hi.

You had relationship ending leaf issues with TWO different neighbors? Hmmmm, let's try to find the common denominator here.

 

[saradela]

The authorities? HOA people? We don't have one and there are no leaf police in my town.

I live in the City. Here, you have to mantaine a certain look in the houses, its a residential area , the houses depreciates . Also I hate spiders, and ants ,and scorpions, and all kinds of crawling things, and they can hide really well on the leafs. Specially scorpions....... and I have children and dogs, I dont want anything happen to them just because a lazy neighbor, in fact , everybody here have maids and driver, and usually drivers are the one who clean cars, and front yards, so I dont know why is that they dont want to pick up their mess.

 

[Christopher Robin]

I live in the City. Here, you have to mantaine a certain look in the houses, its a residential area , the houses depreciates . Also I hate spiders, and ants ,and scorpions, and all kinds of crawling things, and they can hide really well on the leafs. Specially scorpions....... and I have children and dogs, I dont want anything happen to them just because a lazy neighbor, in fact , everybody here have maids and driver, and usually drivers are the one who clean cars, and front yards, so I dont know why is that they dont want to pick up their mess.

Some neighbors allow all sorts of things to cross the border onto thier neighbors land, and they don't seem to be bothered by it at all. In fact, they tend to fight against taking back what is thiers, and even fight against stopping the flow of things onto others property in the first place.

 

[SaraJayne]

They're leaves. They fall off trees and blow around. That is what they are supposed to do.

Our neighbor has his property lined with trees...every 3-4 feet, he has a tree. The trees were planted by the previous owners, not current owners.

These trees are probably 75-80 feet high, so they have a lot of leaves. Our subdivision has no fences. See where I'm going with this?

As I'm looking outside, our yard is covered in their leaves. Do we care? Nope, not a whit.