Neighborly Leaf Etiquette (house, school, maintenance)

[newenglandgal123]

For those of you with SFH that do your own property maintenance, what are your thoughts on raking/blowing leaves when you have a neighbor or neighbors that don't seem to know what a rake is? Do you continue raking all the leaves that have clearly made it over from their yard or do you use your blower and keep blowing them back over the property line where they came from? I hate putting in the effort to do my share of leaf clean up consistently each week and keep my property looking nice/cleaned up only to have a neighbor that doesn't even have the courtesy to do a quick mulch/bag up on a regular basis of their leaves (I'm talking a lot of leaves, not the occasional handful that might blow over in the wind more like enough to fill about 5-10 of those leaf barrels every other day!).

[simplexsimon]

Do they eventually do a clean up at the end of the season?

There is a massive maple that is on a neighbor's property that I had tastefully trimmed back on my side. Since the owner is an elderly widow, her sons don't come do the leaves until the end of the season. I have woods in the back, so I do a little bit of both...some blown back to their side and some blown into the woods.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by newenglandgal123

For those of you with SFH that do your own property maintenance, what are your thoughts on raking/blowing leaves when you have a neighbor or neighbors that don't seem to know what a rake is? Do you continue raking all the leaves that have clearly made it over from their yard or do you use your blower and keep blowing them back over the property line where they came from? I hate putting in the effort to do my share of leaf clean up consistently each week and keep my property looking nice/cleaned up only to have a neighbor that doesn't even have the courtesy to do a quick mulch/bag up on a regular basis of their leaves (I'm talking a lot of leaves, not the occasional handful that might blow over in the wind more like enough to fill about 5-10 of those leaf barrels every other day!).

Tall fences make good neighbors.

I abide by the "if it's on my lawn it's my problem" school of leaf disposal. I would never blow leaves onto someone else's property, even if it's blowing them "back" to where they may have been at one point. I'm also no fastidious about having a leaf free lawn (I mostly want to avoid killing my lawn in the spring), so that's a lower bar to clear than someone who needs perfect order in their yard.

[OutdoorLover]

I am a leaf slacker. I do rake them up, but I do it once, after all the leaves have fallen, in November with a rake. To be honest, I don't see leaves as unsightly - to me it's beautiful autumn nature. I do rake them up before winter because they can suffocate plants underneath after they become wet and matted over time.

[msRB311]

We had a neighbor blowing leaves from the street onto our property.

In our old house the homes were pretty close together and our neighbor would literally blow leaves from his house to our sidewalk. He would do the same with the snow. He was a nice guy, I think he was just dumb.

[porterhouse]

Originally Posted by newenglandgal123

do you use your blower and keep blowing them back over the property line where they came from?

Um, no.

[GeoffD]

The neighbor across the lane is out there with his John Deere 3 days per week from April to November. At this time of year, there isn't a leaf on his lawn after he's done. He hauls dozens of paper lawn bags to the town yard waste/brush disposal site. I have another neighbor on the lane with a bunch of mature oak trees so the leaves don't come down until December so leaves are a 3 month thing.



We rake all of our leaves into the garden beds after I lightly mulch them with a gasoline push mower. We don't get rid of the leaves until April. On the South Coast with the mild winter, doing this saves a lot of plants and we have tons of pollinators like salvia that wouldn't make it otherwise.

[BostonMike7]

If it's on my lawn it's my problem, but i also don't have neighbors that actively blow leaves into my yard. I do have some that blow them into the street but at that point they blow around to wherever they need to go.

There have been days where i look at my yard, see the huge piles of leaves and set some time aside Sat Am to rake, only to find we had a windy night and all my leaves blew over to the neighbor's yard. And then a week later, they blow back. I rake what i can on my property.

Usually when the leaves begin to drop the grass is also going dormant. I put the mower down another notch just to shorten the height within reason. This really helps with keeping leaves from clumping up on the grass and allows they to blow across easily. When there aren't many leaves on the lawn, i usually use the mower to mulch them into the grass. I only break out the rake when it's just too much

But all my neighbors do some form of leaf pickup. My 80-something year old neighbor across the street it outside at 8AM on hide ride on mowing up leaves and bagging. His house is spotless and he does everything himself.

[simplexsimon]

My front lawn gets dominated by the mature oaks across the street. I mow the lawn every 5-7 days or so and just get those then.

[newenglandgal123]

Originally Posted by simplexsimon

Do they eventually do a clean up at the end of the season?

There is a massive maple that is on a neighbor's property that I had tastefully trimmed back on my side. Since the owner is an elderly widow, her sons don't come do the leaves until the end of the season. I have woods in the back, so I do a little bit of both...some blown back to their side and some blown into the woods.

They never do a clean up! I've seen the guy break out his mower a total of 3 times since April! They aren't elderly either, I'd guess 33-35 year olds. I get not everyone is a yard fanatic but to me that is just plain being a lazy a**