Back in February I called bullshit on a neighbor, who for whatever reason rather than during a day during the workweek, purposefully schedules his gardening crew to come do their yardwork on Saturday mornings and on that particular one they spent a combined bunch of hours with an illegal gas-powered leafblower going full blast and I had enough.
The compromise achieved since is that the gardeners still come Saturdays (WTF’s up with that?) but at least they use an entirely legal electric leafblower that he’s provided them. Small victory.
At around that same time our gardeners (whose regular day is Friday) came on a Saturday with their own gas-powered leafblower I guess because they’d been unable to make their regular appoinment and Susan shut them down and sent them packing — and then followed it up with a call to the head of the crew strictly forbidding the future use of the heinous devices.
Fast forward to yesterday morning when the crew came earlier than usual. They set upon trimming the shrubbery in the front yard and just as I was coming out the front door with my bike to head to work they powered up a fucking gas-powered leafblower and the kid manning it came up onto the porch to use every last bit of overtorqued horsepower to blow the six leaves that were there off it.
I can only wonder how long or short our “ban” had lasted and imagine the disdain from next door if my neighbors heard this coming from our property. Gah!
I wasted no time telling the kid to shut the thing down and then told him that we had made it clear back in February that those machines were not to be used here. That they’re against the law. Whether he knew or not, I don’t know. I don’t care, and as I left for work he and another worker with him reluctantly had rakes in their hands to clean up.
At various points throughout the day I made bets with myself as to how long this latest “moratorium” would last and I decided to make it permanent by telling Susan last night that it was time for them to go and for me to take over the semi-monthly duties. Hell, the backyard’s already been my domain for a couple years since we no longer allow them in there because they had proved on a couple occasions that closing gates they opened was a difficult task. And the $100 a month saved will pay for any hedging/trimming equipment I might need.
But no blowers.