whatcha think?!
lamorinda.patch.com/arti…

I thought LA county banned gas powered (2 stroke) leaf blowers a while ago.

I'm all for banning the gas ones, electric are a lot quieter and don't produce pollution.

I hate blowers, use a rake.

Call Dellums he'll do something about it

nimby nimby nimby!!

this reminds me of a time where this guy was out with his gas powered leaf blower trying to blow leaves in the pouring rain....duh dude the leaves are stuck to the ground....dumbass (oh and Troy this was in SF not some suburb)

you know the mow n' blo' guys might prefer to rake.  It certainly is less expensive to oufit yourself with simple tools.

But it is the clients that want that non-realistic looking landscape.  Blame them. Not the hard-working gardeners.

G "(keeping on the D)" L. says:

I thought LA county banned gas powered (2 stroke) leaf blowers a while ago.

I'm all for banning the gas ones, electric are a lot quieter and don't produce pollution.
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From where does electricity come?   It isn't all hydroelectric dude!

I always thought a good Onion article would be about the Earth's last drop of oil used to power a leaf blower. I thought it was hilarious.

most utilities use a combination of hydro, coal, nuclear, wind and solar

and electricity plants (even ones that are entirely coal based) are a lot more efficient and cleaner than a two stroke motor or anu gas powered motor for that matter which in general has a 20% efficiency rating.....that's right your for all you put into your car at best it is 20% efficient.....pretty shitty

I have a 120 foot driveway that I blow once a month.  Ban the blower in my area, i will still blow my driveway once a month.

GL:,  you are the one that said no pollution, not me.  

Frankly, I don't care about leaf blowers.  I leave the complaints to the eco-snobs.   Now, if you will help me ban motorcycles that give off more decibels than the average private passenger auto I will help you ban leaf blowers.  

Of course, when you ban the leaf blower I will just use the water hose to clean my drive-way.

ok GH, I give...no pollution was incorrect, so I will rephrase:

electric blowers produce only a small fraction of the pollution compared to gas powered ones.

electric motorcycles are quiet...dangerously quiet

I think they should be banned by a vote of the city members. If more than 51% say no, than make them illegal. But possibly have exceptions for electric ones, or times during the day it is OK.

What sucks, is the lady across the street, has a yard guy who starts that thing up at 7:30 AM on a Saturday. Of all the houses on his route, he picks the one right in front of my house for the first job. I talked to the lady, but she said he insists he starts at 8 AM, but that is a lie as I looked at the clock last Saturday just as I woke to it, and it was 7:31 AM.

Possibly I can call the cops this Saturday, and let them hear it on the phone, and get him a ticket. I think Sunnyvale has the start time as 8 AM.

But, than again, some just hate the sound of a steel rake on concrete....I think plastic and bamboo is quiter.
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Che "looking smart today (just looking)" D. says:

an old fashioned rake is more efficient. Quieter too

The thing that sucks about these "Blow and go" gardeners, and I use the term gardener loosely, is that many of them do as the guy across the street does, just blow the stuff into the two yards on each side and the street. This chump just leaves the cut grass and leaves in the street, and drives off. I watched him, I know.

More pollen and dust is thrown up into the air, and this is bad for those who have asthma.

Some of these gardeners, have nasty habits like just dumping old or dirty gasoline in the dirt, or spilling clean fuel when they are filling the tools.

How would you rake a big ass estate?

quickly!!

i live in a huge 500 plus outdoor complex and i see how it could be helpful but too annoying for so many people!

My hubby does gardening at these huge ol houses in Hillsborough, IDK how long it would take to rake all the tree and grass debris.. it's just not feasible. He does rake at regular sized houses though.

I lub the gubmint.

Have to agree.  Those leaf blowers are so unnecessary.

All those people who complain about having a big backyard or a big driveway and 'need' to use a leaf blower......Well, if you can't do the work with a rake, then you shouldn't have bought that house in the first place.

Ban Car Alarms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You don't get it. How the f do you rake acres of property?

trim the branches off the trees!

Or replace the landscaping.  There are plenty of native and low-water use plants, shrubs, and trees that don't shed acres  of leaves and branches.  

So fewer leaves to rake and no need for those hideous & deafening blowers.

Nanny-statists at their most asinine again. You can't rake up dust. I use a "leaf blower" to dust out my garage.

"Mike Z, you are saying a densely populated urban environment where you can walk, bike or transit around is WORSE for the environment compared to a sprawling suburb or rural area where you have to drive your SUV 3 miles just to buy a beer?"

It is safer, and given the costs of crime and other pathologies condoned by the likes of you, cheaper.

"I use a shop broom, followed by a hose."

Good luck getting behind and under the washer/dryer, and many other assorted small spaces. If I could fit my shop vac in there, I would just vacuum.

But leave it to the nanny-statists to tell me how I need to clean up my own space.

I dont know how i feel about this.  I grew up in a pretty open space but neighbors were still within earshot of my mower, weedeater and blowers.   Its a tradeoff to living in a green area that needs maintained, it beats having to listen to gunshots and trannies arguing over a weave they found on the ground.  If someone is up at 2am blowing off thier lawn I would have a problem, mostly because i would know they are cooking meth, but I kind of miss the sound of a landscaping crew while I sip on a lemonade in my rocking chair.  *cues theme song*

youtube.com/watch?v=yZ3_…

Mike: Yeah, Im talking from the perspective of someone who knows second-hand how much work it would entail to rake all properties that they are hired to do.... My hubby does those huge homes in woodsy areas like Woodside and Hillsborough where they have trees, bushes, etc. I just don't think it would be a law or ordinance that would be popular in those areas.

18 hours ago troy s. says:

Mike Z, you are saying a densely populated urban environment where you can walk, bike or transit around is WORSE for the environment compared to a sprawling suburb or rural area where you have to drive your SUV 3 miles just to buy a beer?

I'd love to hear more on this.
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You honestly think that piling a million people on top of each other like a scab on mother earth is better with all of the compounded emissions, waste and pollution to the water supply?   Have you ever noticed those huge dark smog clouds that linger above every large city?     To answer your question, YES having a mass amount of people is worse. Far worse.

"You honestly think that piling a million people on top of each other like a scab on mother earth is better with all of the compounded emissions, waste and pollution to the water supply?   Have you ever noticed those huge dark smog clouds that linger above every large city?     To answer your question, YES having a mass amount of people is worse. Far worse."

Thank You! It is the message of someone who actually has *lived* in the reality of inner cities, as opposed to some naive suburban pup who just thinks how cool and hip his own loft might be.

The guy across the street from me uses a mow and blow service. For some reason, they blow *dirt from the street,* that's not even on his property, or even visible across his 12-foot hedge! RIGHT INTO MY WINDOWS. I always run to close the windows when they're doing their thing. HATE those effin' blowers.

Just checked and the biggest home he does is 4 acres....

Leaf blowing is not an art, just as wheed whacking and destroying irrigation systems is not.  these are laborers, not gardeners and they destroy the landscaping and butcher the flowers.  The landscaping crew should be trained to grow plants not just to butcher them.

I try to have a phone conversation while they are leaf blowing and it is impossible.  They leave candy wrappers and flattened soda cans because they are too lazy to sweep them up.  they ignore the broken irrigation system and the brow spots in the lawn because they are the ones who break the sprinkler heads and they don't want to ask for money to replace them. Does sweeping and raking take that much more time and labor?  When all you are is a laborer, not a gardner, I think that you should at least use the tool that disturbs your customers less. It's pure laziness that they are using the leaf blower.  They have head gear to wipe out the noise, but we dont.

I'm living in Walnut Creek by the way, are gas leaf blowers banned here as well?

After a night of drinking the last thing you want to hear is a leaf blower at 8am on a Sunday morning.
If they can pass a law in the Bay Area saying when you can use your own fireplace I am sure they will come up with something about leaf blowers.

I hate those f*cking leaf blowers. HATE.

Brilliant!!!! I HATE HATE HATE DESPISE and ABHOR those things.  (I think I have expressed how I feel about leaf blowers)
Use a rake, to gather and compost leaves it works better and doesnt make pollution, noise or otherwise.

Is there a way to put a goddamn muffler on those loud -ass leaf blowers? That would solve 99% of the problems people have with them.

"Approximately 20 California cities have banned leaf blowers..."

nonoise.org/quietnet/cqs…

*blows leaves up Mike Z.'s ass*

Blowers, as well as the owners who find it perfectly okay to use them at 7am on a Sunday before coffee and pancakes, are tardo.  They should indeed be banned.

And the owners subjected to a minute of having the blower used in their face by each aggravated neighbor.

Why is it so important to these idiots to move the leaves anyway? Leaves won't hurt you.

I'm on the side of the full-time gardeners who are out from sun up to sun set making a living.  These guys don't get paid much and to expect them to complete the amount of lawns needed to make a living with rake is insane.  

If a leaf blower wakes me up I'm happy as hell that I'm in bed and someone else is outside getting dirty so my neighborhood looks nice.

Bonnie, you need to put down the crack pipe. If somebody can't earn a living without destroying the quality of life in my neighborhood, then they'll just have to starve to death, and I really don't care.

If leaves posed some hazard, if there was something useful accomplished by blowing them around, I might modify my stance. But they don't. Society benefits in no way whatsoever from leaf blowers, yet we all pay a huge price for the idiots who use them.

I talked to a guy who hated the sound of a metal rake on concrete. So I would suggest Bamboo or plastic rakes.

There is just no pleasing some people. The guy said a metal rake was like fingernails on a chalk board to him.

SF is seriously a different world.

Brendan "FlightSuit" B. says: "...we all pay a huge price for the idiots who use [leafblowers]."

Lmao. Seriously?

Yes, seriously.

My mother, for one, is hypersensitive to noise. Always has been. That shit drives her crazy.

Drives me crazy too, and I'm not hypersensitive to noise.

Noise pollution raises people's stress levels, hurts people's health, and its cumulative effect can cause hearing loss over time.

Plus those damned things burn fossil fuels, thus harming our environment and contributing to our dependence on oil.

So yes, really.

But I'm guessing your mother's basement doesn't get a lot of street noise, so I'm guessing you don' have to worry about it, right Brendan?

Hey Cally, your father's down here with me.

Too bad my father is in The Texas Pen!

No, that's where we met. But we busted out. I must say your dad is the most romantic husband I've ever had.

Lolll. He has failed to mention you in his letters.

OMG, I thought I was important to him!

Has he just been playing me?

Idk. He is the one living with you in your basement???

Well we *were* living together down here, but I've just informed him that I'm moving back upstairs to mother's place, and I shall remain there until he can make me important enough to introduce to his family and friends!

*breaks down crying, gorges self on Oreo cookies*