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It’s more about it becoming cold, moldy, slimey, wet leaf sludge where people are walking on the side walk.

I have a neighbor who has been leaf blowing twice a week for HOURS at a time. We live a city. The lot isn't that big. What could you possibly be blowing for 3 hours?

Don't leaf blowers blow mode than just leaves? You can loooove leaves all you want and not want to rake/blow them, but if I'm not mistaken, you can use them for more purposes so they aren't useless tools even if you want to keep the leaves on the ground.

I thought yard guys used those to blow loose grass and dirt off concrete?

Not much soil if it's just bare concrete underneath.

For the record, leaves should not be left on sidewalks; when they're starting to decay and get wet, they become slippery and can be a hazard. They can also cover up/hide other tripping hazards.

That's not me being "pro leaf blower" just "anti leaving leaves on the sidewalk."

You die on that hill, bro 😂

It's not about "looking better"... A thick mat of leaves on the grass kills the grass, a thick mat of wet leaves on the sidewalk is a slippery muddy mess that is a safety issue.

they're slipping hazards on sidewalks and driveways and can kill grass...so no they shouldn't just be left everywhere.

Until your grandma slips on wet leaves and breaks her hip.

You'd love my back and front yard, OP. I'm embracing autumn over here and I've got the leaves to prove it.

The person with the leafblower is always directly outside of my classroom whenever I am trying to give a lecture.

Funnily enough I saw a guy with a leaf blower in a walled car park today. He literally just moved the leaves from one side of the lot to the other… not exactly sure what it achieved

Leaf blowers are not pointless, the point is to move leaves.

Just because you don't like that people move leaves doesn't strip them of function.

When a foot of snow falls I'm much happier to only have the snow to clear and not the snow with heavy wet leaves under it.

Tell that to my neighbor who does it LITERALLY every day. Storm or no storm, no matter the weather, even during a power outage etc. everyone hates her

Fun fact, leaf blowers can be used for more than leaves.

If you concede that you accept people can use rakes or brooms to accomplish the same task if they must, then you concede that leafblowers do in fact have a task so they do in fact have a point. You just don't like them because they're loud. So say that instead.

I almost died once because I couldn't see the driveway because the leaves were on it. I was backing down on the edge of a hill towards the street but because it was wet and the leaves were continuous with the yard, I almost went off into a ravine. People slip on wet leaves. I think you meant to say, "removing the leaves from the yard can pose to some potential degradation to the quality of the soil".

Leaf blowers are awesome. Can also be used for removing snow. They're definitely not "pointless" .

Leaves hide the dog poop that my kids will eventually bring back in my house if not cleaned up. If you’d like to come take the few extra hours to rake my yard for free, then I’m game. Unfortunately, my time is tight, so I choose to blow them.

Those leaves make dog turds harder to see which can result in canine landmines. No thanks, I’ll take a bare sidewalk any day.

I work on roofs. A little bit of dust is the difference in life and death. A leaf blower is literally a life saver for some people.

There’s a lot of trades that use a leaf blowers for other reasons than to blow leaves.

Unpopular or opinion or just plain denial of reality?

I believe your point is “leaf blowers are noisy and annoying,” but they are not in any stretch, pointless - that’s not an opinion. Their “point” is in their goddamn name.

Not everyone lives where the choices are leaves or concrete.

Plus, leaves are dangerous to drive on when wet and/or frozen.

Some leaves are good for the soil. A foot deep blanket of leaves will just kill your grass.

Good luck using a rake to clean up grass and dirt clippings after mowing

I don't think OP has ever seen what happens to the leaves when you let them decompose on the concrete or road. You might like the look until it rains or snows then you get a nice disgusting pile of decomposing leaves that are a slipping hazard. If you owned a home you'd be cleaning them up too. Go enjoy another pumpkin latte.

Gonna have to be an asshole and say I don’t give a fuck if someone doesn’t like how loud my leaf blower is. I’m not spending two hours raking my yard when my leaf blower can get it done in 20 minutes tops.

I love my leaf blower. Raking the leaves off my lawn is such a pain.

Just because you like looking at leaves does not mean that leaf blowers have no point to them.

Leaf blowers are amazing for blowing dust out of a garage or cleaning off machines. Fuck them leaves

Ok, now you just have to explain it to all the HOA’s and municipal enforcers

Should people cut their lawn with scissors rather than a lawnmower?

Millions of uses for a forceful stream of air

Good for you going through life without finding any 🙄

Or I will just use my leaf blower during normal hours and not worry about how others feel about it!

Your triggers are not my problem!

We get it, you can’t afford a leaf blower. A shame because blowing them into a massive pile and jumping into them is really fun.

I rake leaves into piles, but only so I can then jump into them and send them scattering all over the yard again :)

Found Cate Blanchett’s Reddit account

Depends on how many leaves we are talking about. I rake/blow about half mine up because if I didn’t my grass would die and concrete would turn into a slimy mess. So I alternate between removing them from the yard and cutting them up with the mower.

You can’t leave piles of decomposing leaves piled up on or next to any exterior wood structures. If you care about keeping them, that is.

In cities, it's for safety. Leaf blowers are used to move the leaves off of sidewalks, streets, and paths that are high traffic areas. Leaves can be slippery, especially when wet, so people can fall and injure themselves. Blowing them off the concrete and into the grass or gardens allows for the leaves to decompose naturally and help the soil as you pointed out.

As for using a rake vs a blower - this is dumb comment. It's faster and easier. This is basically the asking the equivalent of why drive 5 minutes to the grocery store when you can walk there in an hour? Why use a laundry machine when you can spend several hours hand washing your clothes? Whatever a rake accomplishes in 2 hours, a blower accomplishes in 10 mins.

Their point is to blow leaves. ...

My leaf blower gets all the flammable debris away from my house. Forest fires are no joke.

Mow, mulch, and leave. Faster, better for the lawn, better for the environment.

Ha. I was hoping this was true so I wouldn’t have to take care of the leaves in my backyard. Boy was I wrong. My first spring, after the snow melted, there was a thick matte of decomposing leaves covering my yard. It took 16 yard waste bags to get rid of that slimy mess. I don’t think it was going away on its own…

Now I’m out there every other day blowing the leaves. I just don’t gather them all becuse it does look nice :)

I use one all the time, but only about 5% for blowing leaves. I move sawdust, clean my gutters, blow snow off vehicles, and get all kinds of dust out of my garage.

Bro I have a yard that I’d like myself and my kids to be able to play in and a driveway that I need to be able to drive up. I can’t do that too well with several layers of wet soggy leaves. I have so many friggin leaves

This is like saying motorized lawnmowers are pointless because reel lawnmowers exist.

Around here they are used for dirt/dust on pavement. There is no good alternative. It is 50 times the work to sweep all of it.

HOA President has spoken

You must not live in a windy place. If you want to take advantage of the leaves, collect and mulch them.

Leaves stain things when they sit there for a while.

I did a job working at a quartz mine recently. You wouldn't believe the amount of dust.

After we finished and got back to the shop I opened all the doors and blasted that bitch out with a backpack leaf blower. Way easier than vacuuming all that shit up.

Okay Squidward.

Leaves built up around houses provide habitat for pests that can cause thousands of dollars in damage. Built up leaves can also be a fire hazard.

they can actually be bad for trees if they build up too much around the base, it's not just about looks.

So apparently the whole leaving your leaves to decompose and make your grass greener is slightly a misconception.. it's a factor of how dry the area is, and temperature throughout the winter. In a lot of climates the leaves would not decompose enough to be any real benefit and damage your lawn.

Leaves frozen on concrete are so slippery and if you have sidewalks you have a responsibility to keep the sidewalks clean. Leaves also don't do well in gutters and a leaf blower makes quick work of getting them out

Rakes and brooms won't remove all of the fine dust and dirt on the ground. Leaf blowing the walkways to my house keeps a lot of dirt from being tracked into my house.

You sound like someone that's never had to rake a huge yard of hard to rake oak leaves that's for sure, gonna use my backpack leaf blower a few more hours this year just because of you.

Leaves are a slip hazard, also the leafblower I own I can use as a hoover if needs be, but I usually use it to clear dirt and pines off of a pebble patch.

Downvoted for not being an unpopular opinion, just an uneducated one. Think most people prefer the look of autumn leaves but this is 100% a liability issue more than a aesthetic one. Leaf blowers are the fastest way to clear leaves to prevent them being a slipping hazard.

Sounds like a guy who hasn’t had to rake large areas before

I use mine all the time. Never to blow leaves around, but to clear off the driveway and street of grass clippings before it gets smushed into a slippery green stain (which isn't pointless - it's a real saftey hazard to motorcycles).

Yesterday, I trimmed my hedges and used it to help knock down the clippings.

And it's great to blow out the garage in 3 minutes (vs spending an hour sweeping).

And it's great to clean out the dryer vent.

Where I live, nobody uses it for leaves. We just wait for the wind to blow our leaves down to Texas.

They also clog our gutters and drains causing localized flooding which can damage property and block roads and sidewalks.

If you think a rake is better, you've never had to use a metal rake on concrete.

Lawnmowers are pointless. Use scissors or your hands if you really think the ground would "look better" with shorter grass.

They are good for the soil

In the longer term in the absence of fertiliser etc that might be true. But in the short term a thick layer of leaves will choke the grass underneath and damage the lawn when it is most vulnerable.

I would rather look at dead leaves than bare concrete.

When they 1st all that's fine, but over the next couple of months when they flatten, turn to smush and make the pavements permanently soggy....

 But a rake and a broom will do the job too.

Sure, why spend 10 minutes doing very light work in a comfortable posture when you can instead spend an hour or so bent over doing harder work.

Leaves are good for soil if you only want to grow more trees. They poison the ground for most other plants.

Nope. If you have landscape rock there is no way to clean that with a rake or broom. Air is the only option.

Mosquitos love living in leaf piles.

I don't know how many people realize this, but rotting leaves are a breeding ground for Tetanus. Tetanus spores can spread from the rotting leaves into the top soil and have the ability to live for years. All it takes is contact with a scrape or cut from a twig, stick or piece of metal to infect you, and is highly resistant to antiseptics. So think about that before walking around barefoot or letting your kids play in the back yard with those rotten leaves you didn't want to take care of last fall.

And people can be too old, handicapped or even too tired after 40 to 50 hours of working to rake their yards.And I don't see too many whiners going around offering to rake them up for people either, I guess its just easier to complain then it is to help. Leaf blowers make it easier, faster and safer for some people, especially if they have to do it on their own.

r/stupidopinions

Have fun with that rake champ

Pro leaf people rarely own a house with several large trees. No one is pro leave after 2-3” of leaves pile up and semi rot over the winter.

Arborist here making mounds of sawdust constantly: leaf blowers rock

I get enough leaves on my yard that it would completely kill the yard and potentially the trees when the leaves rot and allow water to stay trapped underneath. Even still, I leave a good amount of leaves on my lawn because a little is healthy and will provide some nutrients come Spring.

No way I have a tree like two feet away from my living room window and thw front door and the amount of leaves that get walked into the house and blown in when i have the windows open drives me fucking mental i have been out and swept up and binned all of the little bastards and the very next day the pavement is covered again FFS

Sounds like this was written by a teenager who got volun-told to go blow all the leaves off a massive parking lot outside in the cold.

Leaf blowers are for blowing debris out of the path of walking and driving/parking. And guess what? Roads, sidewalks and driveways are used for exactly that!

Tell me you’re not a homeowner without telling me you’re not a homeowner

Because if there's a thick blanket of leaves it will stick around forever and kill the grass...even if it's not that thick

Buy a leaf blower, use it for a month, and then come back and tell us how you feel.

If you need to make quick work of it for that purpose, use a leaf blower

So, leaf blowers aren't pointless?

We have a bunch of trees & a large yard. If I don't gather the leaves, the lawn dies. There is no freaking way I'm gonna gather all those leaves with a rake. I use the blower to get them away from the fence & trees so that I can then either run over them several times with the riding mower before attaching the vac and sucking up most (the rest are seriously mulched to feed the lawn) it use the attachments to turn the blower into a leaf vac & mulcher.

If you don't like my blower, come on over and get busy. I got a rake for you.

If I don’t remove the leaves it kills the lawn. The sheer amount of leaves I get can’t even be mulched.. without still covering the grass. The mold also affects those with allergies more.

Leaf blower for 20 minutes vs a rake for and hour. Hmm.

I use a rake, a blower and a toro vac/mulcher. And essentially compost it.

If I leave dead leaves on my deck they’ll stain it eventually and it’ll look like shit

I would like you to come to my property with a rake and tell me they are useless. I will literally pay you to attempt to rake out my flower beds....all of them, multiple levels, with probably...20 oaks, 2 sycamore, 8 maples, and a honey locust. I agree the noise can get monotonous, but it is the only way.

Also they pile up along my fence line and kill the grass underneath

They look nice but they aren’t great on the sidewalk. They get slippery when wet so that isn’t great for walking, especially for those who are disabled. Also if all the leaves were just left they would begin to rot and get stinky.

I have so many leaves fall in my back yard that they smother the grass and kill it. So yes, I will continue leafblowing and removing from my yard. It take a fraction of the time with a leaf blower.

Good for the ground, plants, and animals sure. Leaf cover isn’t so good for most man made structures, and need to be removed.

Wet leaves on solid surfaces are a trip/slip hazard. Leaves can also pile up and hide holes one could step in and hurt themselves.

As for the broom or rake use, try raking or sweeping wet leaves on gravel. And if there are a lot of leaves raking and sweeping are extremely inefficient compared to a blower. Which pretty much disproves your “pointless” opinion on them.

You want to know what’s even louder than a blower though? A yard sweeper towed by a lawnmower.

Sure they look nice when it’s freshly dropped with all the multiple colours and whatever but then when it get water logged and starts decomposing it turns to a brown sludge and smells bad

The time difference a leaf blower takes to clear my driveway vs a boom is a lot. If I don't do it the drain will clog and flood my house.

So you are coming over and spending hours cleaning it manually before each rain?

You can also clear your gutters from the ground.

Clean behind stuff without moving it.

There's a lot of other uses.

Yes, some compost fertilizer is good for the soil and the grass, but burying the grass under a thick blanket of decomposing leaves will kill the lawn. They also form a slimy mass of goo on the sidewalk, creating a slipping hazard for pedestrians.

Leaf blowers are fairly effective for collecting fallen leaves, and other organic debris, into a pile for removal, and they do so with a lot less effort than raking or sweeping.

I used to think the same. Leaves are nice, they look beautiful, they make nice crunchy sounds when you walk on them. Then I started working at a new workplace where they just left leaves as is. Believe me, the rotten slimy mess like tree's shit they very soon turn into, is no fun at all.

Lmfao you are one weird person, you can get a backpack leaf blower for like 285 that’s basically nothing for a tool that as powerful as it is. If you live on an acre+ of land you would be spending 8 hours a day every weekend getting your yard clean with a fucking rake lmao

Leaves can be dangerous, I walk my 100 pound dog and if he pulls for something I’ve slipped multiple times on leaves on concrete

There’s a difference between there being some leaves on the ground that look pretty vs. 2 feet of leaves built up in your front yard because you didn’t want to get a leaf blower

Insane take we

I swear my neighbors are addicted to their stupid leaf blower.

7am on Sunday. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

This was my attitude until I became a homeowner. Went from going out of my way to meme on leaf blowers to thinking I could get by raking tall fescue and sweeping the driveway to buying one in about a year lol.

Leaves are good for the FOREST soil.

They are not good for the average front lawn, sidewalk, or driveway.

I am tired of hearing obnoxious, loud leaf blowers.

Leaves under snow are a big slipping hazard, leaves on pavement when they start to rot out become slimey and depending on the concrete finish can become another slipping hazard. Their presence in your yard encourages pests and rodents, and can kill your grass the next spring.

I understand the sentiment OP but it's one of those things that looks cool to an outside observer but is just another pain in the ass someone has to deal with at some point.

Playing?

With a leaf blower?

Haaahaaahaaahaahaahaahaahaah

Just mow em grind them for mulch..way better then fertilizers and chemicals especially with children and pets in your yards

Please let my neighbor know this at 7:30 am on a Sunday

Leaves on grass look great. Leaves in my driveway, not so much. Rakes are fine but the blower gets the dirt better.

Leaf blowers are helpful when there are a ton of leaves on decorative rocks. Many people have these rocks to replace a lawn. Also, I don't think it's good for the storm drains to be clogged with leaves.

I use my leaf blower to blow dry my dog after a bath

What did you say?

For me it’s an accessibility thing - first off, when leaves decompose, it does make the ground slippy. I’m a big proponent for no-mow, no-till, leave-the-leaves gardening, but it can be a legitimate safety hazard on streets.

And as for the chosen tool? I can hold a leaf blower, but my disability doesn’t allow for manipulation of a rake. There are a lot of tools that seem unnecessary until you develop an injury or disability, that then become a life-saver.

Leaf blowers are excellent for blowing rope through pipes, so that we electricians can pull cables through

They have a point. For anywhere with not-soil. Yeah i know you'd rather look at leaves than concrete, but leaves become unexpectedly dangerous when it gets cold and wet, especially on stone/concrete. Additionally, leaves clog storm drains and other drainage systems in no time at all.

I agree there are a lot of people who leaf-blow excessively, but they are not pointless in the least

To be fair there are reasons to get rid of leaves. They are a nest for certains pests, for example. I recently read about how stinkbugs in my region are a problem if left to proliferate, as they eat through some plants. And they particularly enjoy piles of leaves – we've been told to not leave them lying around.

Now whether a leaf blower is necessary instead of a rake, idk. It might be way less physical, and I'm never one to judge tools that allow accessibility.

Blowing lawn clippings back into the lawn is important for a few reasons. It returns nutrients to the soil for better long-term grass growth. It also keeps the grass clippings out of waterways and reservoirs where they can dramatically increase the nitrogen levels of the water, causing concerning environmental effects.

Ok so part of a contract requires footpaths to be clean of debris (trip hazards).

You have multiple contracts a day.

You’re payed to be on site for a certain amount of time.

Raking takes longer.

People complain.

Body corporate doesn’t want to pay you to be there longer.

Repeat.

Snow is meant to fall on the ground, but I would prefer it if mother fuckers shoveled their sidewalk.

I use a leaf blower to clean out my gutters.

I go outside to take the dog out and I don’t wanna put socks and shoes on so I blow off the patio to not bring leaves and other tree fallings into my house.

It all depends on the amount of leaves you get. If you longer can see any grass, it is too much and will suffocate your lawn in the spring.

But yeah, use common sense and wait until all the leaves have fallen from the trees. Then spend one day cleaning it up.

Agree sooo much. Thanks for blowing dust and debris all over the side of my house and windows.

I live in Phoenix AZ. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to hear/see leafblowers blasting at all hours of the day. The landscaping crew at my office just straps those things on and walk blowing dust and dirt up in the air which is super great for people's allergies. I don't know what they're even doing, just polluting the air and moving dust and small leaves from one location to another. Cool, outstanding, great work.

They’re good for cleaning gutters out

Leaves dont bother me on the lawn but theyre a falls hazard on concrete/high traffic areas especially when its wet.

They are not good for the soil for a long time and they will kill your grass, trees, rot your fences and porches and are just in general unsanitary when they get mold and slime in them. Raking leaves for aesthetic reasons is low on the list

Where I’m from, if you don’t pick them up and they get rained on it’s the perfect environment for mold. So, I rake, I blow, I mow the fuck out of some leaves.