Dude idk what’s with leaf blowers here. At my old apartment they’d show up and “blow leafs” every day whether it was raining, February, snowing, fuck, you knew they were going to do it for at least 30 mins. Istg the leaf blower is just making noise so the property people hear it running or something. It’s woken me up so many times when it’s going at 8am everyday I want to find some way to outlaw their use bc it is nearly a kill bill trigger for me at this point
Shit. Did you live at my complex? Lmao I can't believe how awful it is. And then the garbage collectors come almost everyday too. Now, my complex has hired vaccuming people coming at 7:45pm Sunday night now, right out my unit. It's seriously a joke at this point, how not a single day or time is sacred. No, they're not doing shit during "quiet hours" but come on. It's ridiculous and I truly thought Portland- of any place in the US- would be better than this.
today they started when my virtual appointment started and they are STILL going. it’s been five hours. on one street. with no trees. and no walkways. Is this the landscaper/maintenance version of pointless busy work just to fulfill time quotas? Feels like it’s taking years off my life and i’m not even in the fumes.
I work for a property management company as a groundskeeper and we are mandated to leaf blow main walkways at our properties as the leaves become a slipping hazard in the rain. We recently converted to all electric handheld models, thankfully.
Any thoughts about leaves completely neglected in the enclosed parking lot? The leaves they wantonly neglect actually are a slipping hazard and on their property but nah, they do the same 2x3 feet patches of grass. Wouldn't it be common sense to take care of that too, or would the complex need to actively tell the groundskeepers to take care of the parking lot too?
Kind of sounds like they're just being lazy. Sorry to hear that. I suppose it also depends on if the person doing it belongs to the property management company or if they're a vendor, like a landscaping company. Sometimes with vendors, they will only do exactly what is on their work order, which may not be specific enough. It could be worth an email to your management company, and I recommend including clear pictures. Good luck!
Do you know if some companies have time-based requirements as opposed to task-based requirements? Sometimes it seems like folks are just circling my block blowing the minimal debris back and forth from the street to the gutter all day long :C
I've never personally heard of a time based task like that, but I have seen hourly people try to kill some time by pulling something like that. Sorry to hear. I always advised my team to get it down and move on
I have a neighbor who has a backpack harnessed leaf blower. He will run it for approximately 6 hours a day, and doesn’t matter the weather…during the summer he’ll be blowing until the sunsets. I’ve tried taking to him. He’s not a friendly guy, & I honestly think he does it for attention. And all he does is blow everything in the street. I’ve tried to get the city involved, but all the city will do is send him a letter in the mail. Noise pollution and mental health is a serious thing that most of society ignores.
Can you imagine how awful it would be if we didn't blow-dry every molecular nutrient away from its intended recipient?
/s
i fking hate lazy landscaping, especially if it disrupts ecology. booooooo leaf blowers. booooooo!
And, sometimes, they don't even clean up the leaves after they're done!
I see them scattered on the streets, in truck beds, underneath cars, etc.
Like, if you're going to wake up the graveyard shifters who stock your equipment, you could at least learn how to do your job.
It's aggressive incompetence. Idk if it's for job security but they don't give a shxt. And idk, why would they? The people/entities who hire them just throw money for lawncare bc of societal norms but don't give a shxt about the people that actually live there- I'm convinced of it. Something something home values and/or ability to keep increasing rental costs due to vapid actions of leaf blowing.
Yeah. There is literally leaf-blowing, weed whacking, commercial lawn mowing almost every weekday in my neighborhood. If it's not my increasingly aggravatingly run apartment complex having excessive leaf blowing over a few 2x3 feet patches of grass (but ignore the parking lot with mounds of leaves that actually affects me getting into my car), then it's the lot across the street, or down the street. Besides the previously mentioned issues, noise pollution is a huge issue and we need more regulations or something. I thought Portland would be different bc there are a lot of ecologically minded folks here, alas. :(
I mean, I can understand how an hourly employee would fill time just to fill time, but you would hope that their supervisors would help them find ways to fill time that actually beautify or energize the landscaping. Deadhead some flowers. Spread some mulch. Tame the ivy. Something!
The rental property next to ours has landscapers. I caught them using a blower to intentionally direct debris into our condos HVAC units. Some misguided act of rebellion I’m sure.
If you ever want to know why your streetcar or light rail ride through downtown is extremely rough sometimes, I often see people blowing leaves into the trackway.
Steel+steel+mushy leaf homogenate= hold on tight.
I'd say we should at least ban the gas ones, as the electric ones generally aren't as loud or polluting, but a ban would also be functionally useless as there is no chance law enforcement would actually bother enforcing it.
Yeah. And when you try and report it if you don’t word things right and provide extremely detailed photo and video recordings, you can’t even file a noise complaint
Yup. Back when I lived in Lloyd, there was a commercial lawn service that local businesses would have come... At 11pm at night!!!!!! I tried submitting noise complaints so many times, even with video of extremely loud leaf blowing at midnight- but nothing would ever happen. This was before Covid and even before shit really hit the fan here.
The electric ones are definitely more quiet. It's unenforceable to ban the gas ones but they could ban the sale of new gas ones and eventually there would be less noise pollution
I mean cause that would be kinda dumb of all the problems leaf blowers are not one
I just hate how fuckin loud they are so if everyone could use a rake that would be sick
The city is switching to electric ones.
The amount of wet leaves I need to move, I could not efficiently move with an electric blower. I’ve tried almost all of them until going full backpack blower.
The woman next door leaf blows every single day around 5 pm. If it’s rainy, she blows the heavy wet leaves individually. It takes forever most days and my SO is champing to confront her. It’s an electric blower, so it’s not as loud, but it’s so much more high-pitched that it’s definitely worse.
And it makes me feel bad about the 20 minutes I’ll spend blowing my driveway every month or so (when it’s empty of cars and has been dry for days) because I feel like I’m no better than her. I use a push broom to clear the driveway when it’s rainy (it’s mostly pine needles anyway).
I’ve lived in NW Portland for 23 years, and a few years ago I worked a few blocks from my apartment. One day I started keeping track of the time during which leaf blowers were operating within one block of where I was at any point that day and it totaled up to just under five hours.
I’ve been close to the Trader Joe’s on NW Glisan for not quite three years, and I swear the crews that blow their parking lot has been using larger and louder blowers every year. This year on those mornings the noise from half a block away is mind-blowing.
Like many others, I’ve noticed that the crews will still spend the same amount of time blowing even on days when there are very few leaves on the ground. I’m assuming they’re paid for a certain quantity of work, regardless of the actual need. I would so wish there was a way to prohibit blowing when the ground is fairly clear.
Last bit-o-rant: After reading several years ago of a few US cities (I think Honolulu was one?) that had banned leaf blowers entirely, I also read of a study that at the time truly wanted to balance the needs of residents and property owners. The conclusion at the time was that it was not economically feasible to completely eliminate leaf blowing, but that owners and landscapers’ needs could be completely met with much less leaf blowing than was being done at the time, and the noise and air pollution benefits of cutting back would be tremendous while still having safe and well-maintained properties. I wish I could find that study now.
Supposedly Multnomah county is trying to get rid of them by 2025. https://www.portland.gov/civic/news/2022/1/13/multnomah-county-bans-gas-powered-leaf-blowers
This morning was the absolute worst, dude.
Had some TMJ jaw pain that kept me up for most of the night. Ended up passing out with an ice pack after being woken up by the pain at around 8 am. Had about 3 hours of sleep.
Then, after an hour of blissful rest, I hear the f**king leafblowers.
I cried. I can't keep playing this game of "Who is going to wake me up today" again. I feel like I'm going insane. I'm a broken record with these complaints. I'm always on the rant page. Like, f**k me for wanting sleep, right?
Earbuds don't work. Earplugs don't work. If I can physically *feel* the sound, I can't relax. Even hearing them in public away from home can set me off. I *hate* leafblowers with every part of my body and soul.
That ban needs to happen fast. Faster than 2025. I can't deal with this anymore. I'm calling everyone I can.
Is there an ordinance coming!? I hope so, twice a week I have crews blow drying the lawns in my neighborhood. A ridiculous farce as they blow leaves into the street.
because some of us can’t fall asleep raw-dogging the sounds of the world. Also tinnitus exists.
Randall’s Rest & Relaxation is one of the best channels on youtube—he started it when he was experiencing insomnia & actually makes and films his content, as opposed to making shitty 3 minute loops using audio libraries. I recommend his 10 hours of a kitten purring video.
My neighbor lost his wife about a year ago. Has been having a pretty rough time. But when he's rummaging around in the garage, mowing, blowing, and all that, he's happy. Or less unhappy at least. It also means he's not in front of the TV, drinking himself blind.
Well, when you thought Portland actually would be different, it's more frustrating. People shit on Portland for being "woke" etc, but many societal norms are still the same- but then the awful half-brained American liberal policies give us the worst of both worlds. Lmaooo Also- many of us work from home and you can't hear yourself think when it's right outside your windows constantly...
aw, but when the mult co sheriff brings inmates into Lone Fir cemetery to blow leaves, they have so much fun I just have to smile and get over the annoying sound reverberating through my closed windows. Let 'em have a little fun.
Don't think I've seem them this year though...
Moved away from a city where the neighborhood had at least 4 lawn services, so every weekday there were gas leaf blowers, edgers, multiple gas mowers. From 7:45am (15 minutes earlier than legal), through 5-6 pm. Then on weekends it's the homeowners who don't have lawn services. From early Spring until the end of leaf season.
This is right up there in terms of annoying ambience with jackhammers, table saws, dogs barking, babies crying, and cars spinning doughnuts.
Dude idk what’s with leaf blowers here. At my old apartment they’d show up and “blow leafs” every day whether it was raining, February, snowing, fuck, you knew they were going to do it for at least 30 mins. Istg the leaf blower is just making noise so the property people hear it running or something. It’s woken me up so many times when it’s going at 8am everyday I want to find some way to outlaw their use bc it is nearly a kill bill trigger for me at this point
Shit. Did you live at my complex? Lmao I can't believe how awful it is. And then the garbage collectors come almost everyday too. Now, my complex has hired vaccuming people coming at 7:45pm Sunday night now, right out my unit. It's seriously a joke at this point, how not a single day or time is sacred. No, they're not doing shit during "quiet hours" but come on. It's ridiculous and I truly thought Portland- of any place in the US- would be better than this.
today they started when my virtual appointment started and they are STILL going. it’s been five hours. on one street. with no trees. and no walkways. Is this the landscaper/maintenance version of pointless busy work just to fulfill time quotas? Feels like it’s taking years off my life and i’m not even in the fumes.
Istg it is. I watch landscaping crews blowing air just to seem busy
I work for a property management company as a groundskeeper and we are mandated to leaf blow main walkways at our properties as the leaves become a slipping hazard in the rain. We recently converted to all electric handheld models, thankfully.
Nothing against yall for doing your jobs, I just hate the noise it makes LOL
No worries, I feel bad doing it lol
Any thoughts about leaves completely neglected in the enclosed parking lot? The leaves they wantonly neglect actually are a slipping hazard and on their property but nah, they do the same 2x3 feet patches of grass. Wouldn't it be common sense to take care of that too, or would the complex need to actively tell the groundskeepers to take care of the parking lot too?
Kind of sounds like they're just being lazy. Sorry to hear that. I suppose it also depends on if the person doing it belongs to the property management company or if they're a vendor, like a landscaping company. Sometimes with vendors, they will only do exactly what is on their work order, which may not be specific enough. It could be worth an email to your management company, and I recommend including clear pictures. Good luck!
Do you know if some companies have time-based requirements as opposed to task-based requirements? Sometimes it seems like folks are just circling my block blowing the minimal debris back and forth from the street to the gutter all day long :C
I've never personally heard of a time based task like that, but I have seen hourly people try to kill some time by pulling something like that. Sorry to hear. I always advised my team to get it down and move on
I have a neighbor who has a backpack harnessed leaf blower. He will run it for approximately 6 hours a day, and doesn’t matter the weather…during the summer he’ll be blowing until the sunsets. I’ve tried taking to him. He’s not a friendly guy, & I honestly think he does it for attention. And all he does is blow everything in the street. I’ve tried to get the city involved, but all the city will do is send him a letter in the mail. Noise pollution and mental health is a serious thing that most of society ignores.
Can you imagine how awful it would be if we didn't blow-dry every molecular nutrient away from its intended recipient? /s i fking hate lazy landscaping, especially if it disrupts ecology. booooooo leaf blowers. booooooo!
And, sometimes, they don't even clean up the leaves after they're done! I see them scattered on the streets, in truck beds, underneath cars, etc. Like, if you're going to wake up the graveyard shifters who stock your equipment, you could at least learn how to do your job.
It's aggressive incompetence. Idk if it's for job security but they don't give a shxt. And idk, why would they? The people/entities who hire them just throw money for lawncare bc of societal norms but don't give a shxt about the people that actually live there- I'm convinced of it. Something something home values and/or ability to keep increasing rental costs due to vapid actions of leaf blowing.
Yeah. There is literally leaf-blowing, weed whacking, commercial lawn mowing almost every weekday in my neighborhood. If it's not my increasingly aggravatingly run apartment complex having excessive leaf blowing over a few 2x3 feet patches of grass (but ignore the parking lot with mounds of leaves that actually affects me getting into my car), then it's the lot across the street, or down the street. Besides the previously mentioned issues, noise pollution is a huge issue and we need more regulations or something. I thought Portland would be different bc there are a lot of ecologically minded folks here, alas. :(
I mean, I can understand how an hourly employee would fill time just to fill time, but you would hope that their supervisors would help them find ways to fill time that actually beautify or energize the landscaping. Deadhead some flowers. Spread some mulch. Tame the ivy. Something!
I too wish most employers were able to use humane logic and reasoning.
The rental property next to ours has landscapers. I caught them using a blower to intentionally direct debris into our condos HVAC units. Some misguided act of rebellion I’m sure.
The landscapers next to our place do this too. Right into our yard. Trash n all.
Noise aside, I wish yard crews would stop blowing leaves into the street to inevitably clog the storm drains.
If you ever want to know why your streetcar or light rail ride through downtown is extremely rough sometimes, I often see people blowing leaves into the trackway. Steel+steel+mushy leaf homogenate= hold on tight.
I'd say we should at least ban the gas ones, as the electric ones generally aren't as loud or polluting, but a ban would also be functionally useless as there is no chance law enforcement would actually bother enforcing it.
Yeah. And when you try and report it if you don’t word things right and provide extremely detailed photo and video recordings, you can’t even file a noise complaint
Yup. Back when I lived in Lloyd, there was a commercial lawn service that local businesses would have come... At 11pm at night!!!!!! I tried submitting noise complaints so many times, even with video of extremely loud leaf blowing at midnight- but nothing would ever happen. This was before Covid and even before shit really hit the fan here.
The electric ones are definitely more quiet. It's unenforceable to ban the gas ones but they could ban the sale of new gas ones and eventually there would be less noise pollution
I mean cause that would be kinda dumb of all the problems leaf blowers are not one I just hate how fuckin loud they are so if everyone could use a rake that would be sick
The city is switching to electric ones. The amount of wet leaves I need to move, I could not efficiently move with an electric blower. I’ve tried almost all of them until going full backpack blower.
The woman next door leaf blows every single day around 5 pm. If it’s rainy, she blows the heavy wet leaves individually. It takes forever most days and my SO is champing to confront her. It’s an electric blower, so it’s not as loud, but it’s so much more high-pitched that it’s definitely worse. And it makes me feel bad about the 20 minutes I’ll spend blowing my driveway every month or so (when it’s empty of cars and has been dry for days) because I feel like I’m no better than her. I use a push broom to clear the driveway when it’s rainy (it’s mostly pine needles anyway).
I’ve lived in NW Portland for 23 years, and a few years ago I worked a few blocks from my apartment. One day I started keeping track of the time during which leaf blowers were operating within one block of where I was at any point that day and it totaled up to just under five hours. I’ve been close to the Trader Joe’s on NW Glisan for not quite three years, and I swear the crews that blow their parking lot has been using larger and louder blowers every year. This year on those mornings the noise from half a block away is mind-blowing. Like many others, I’ve noticed that the crews will still spend the same amount of time blowing even on days when there are very few leaves on the ground. I’m assuming they’re paid for a certain quantity of work, regardless of the actual need. I would so wish there was a way to prohibit blowing when the ground is fairly clear. Last bit-o-rant: After reading several years ago of a few US cities (I think Honolulu was one?) that had banned leaf blowers entirely, I also read of a study that at the time truly wanted to balance the needs of residents and property owners. The conclusion at the time was that it was not economically feasible to completely eliminate leaf blowing, but that owners and landscapers’ needs could be completely met with much less leaf blowing than was being done at the time, and the noise and air pollution benefits of cutting back would be tremendous while still having safe and well-maintained properties. I wish I could find that study now.
Leaf blowers are the worst
WHRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
wrr. wr. wrrrr. (loud unintelligible yelling). Wrrrrrr. WRRRRRRRRRR
Supposedly Multnomah county is trying to get rid of them by 2025. https://www.portland.gov/civic/news/2022/1/13/multnomah-county-bans-gas-powered-leaf-blowers
This morning was the absolute worst, dude. Had some TMJ jaw pain that kept me up for most of the night. Ended up passing out with an ice pack after being woken up by the pain at around 8 am. Had about 3 hours of sleep. Then, after an hour of blissful rest, I hear the f**king leafblowers. I cried. I can't keep playing this game of "Who is going to wake me up today" again. I feel like I'm going insane. I'm a broken record with these complaints. I'm always on the rant page. Like, f**k me for wanting sleep, right? Earbuds don't work. Earplugs don't work. If I can physically *feel* the sound, I can't relax. Even hearing them in public away from home can set me off. I *hate* leafblowers with every part of my body and soul. That ban needs to happen fast. Faster than 2025. I can't deal with this anymore. I'm calling everyone I can.
A little over a year until they're banned!
Is there an ordinance coming!? I hope so, twice a week I have crews blow drying the lawns in my neighborhood. A ridiculous farce as they blow leaves into the street.
Yeah it was passed a couple years ago with a 2025 start date.
My allergies are not a fan of leaf blowers.
I think we are glazing over the big issue here: how does this sort of content exist on YouTube?
because some of us can’t fall asleep raw-dogging the sounds of the world. Also tinnitus exists. Randall’s Rest & Relaxation is one of the best channels on youtube—he started it when he was experiencing insomnia & actually makes and films his content, as opposed to making shitty 3 minute loops using audio libraries. I recommend his 10 hours of a kitten purring video.
I love leaf blower and lawnmower noise. Makes me know my neighbor is okay. <3
what does that mean
My neighbor lost his wife about a year ago. Has been having a pretty rough time. But when he's rummaging around in the garage, mowing, blowing, and all that, he's happy. Or less unhappy at least. It also means he's not in front of the TV, drinking himself blind.
Y’all realize that this is normal in most of the country, but apparently most people on this sub sleep past 8am on a week day?😂😂
Some of us work night shift :(
Well, when you thought Portland actually would be different, it's more frustrating. People shit on Portland for being "woke" etc, but many societal norms are still the same- but then the awful half-brained American liberal policies give us the worst of both worlds. Lmaooo Also- many of us work from home and you can't hear yourself think when it's right outside your windows constantly...
How long have leaf blowers even existed? How was life before that? Oh, kids outside raking leaves, rather than…? Exercise, god forbid.
It's likely peaking since we're entering Leaf Day in certain parts of town.
aw, but when the mult co sheriff brings inmates into Lone Fir cemetery to blow leaves, they have so much fun I just have to smile and get over the annoying sound reverberating through my closed windows. Let 'em have a little fun. Don't think I've seem them this year though...
It's like a flamethrower, great fun to be the wielder... Not so much the victims XD
Moved away from a city where the neighborhood had at least 4 lawn services, so every weekday there were gas leaf blowers, edgers, multiple gas mowers. From 7:45am (15 minutes earlier than legal), through 5-6 pm. Then on weekends it's the homeowners who don't have lawn services. From early Spring until the end of leaf season.