Tangent: We should outlaw leaf blowers in cities while at it. It's february and freezing out and for some reason the idiotic management in the apartment across the street has contracted some crew to do daily leaf blowers on nearly completely clean sidewalks disturbing probably hundreds of people WFH. Not to even mention how particularly awful leaf blowers are for the environment.
Hard agree. One of the most shockingly rude inventions. High CO2 emissions, particulates, dust and noise. And it only really works for one person until their neighbors blow all the debris back over the fence. Fortunately California already too steps to phase them out:
https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/california-s...
The worst part about the noise is the constant cycling. Whirr WHIRRR whirr WHIRR whirr. For me, at least, it is dramatically more annoying than just a constant hum.
I don't think it phases in fast enough, tbh, but it's a start. Someone the next block over from me runs their leaf blower around 7 AM everyday and it is godawful noise -- the sound carries at least 2 or 3 blocks in every direction
personally I just think of them as the Song of the Suburbs.
But yes, 2-stroke lawn-care engines are egregious offenders in the climate and air quality battles. At least make it all electric like CA's been doing.
Like most people in the suburbs the OP could probably answer in the affirmative. My brother does this professionally and he gets by just fine without any such machines. It’s kind of a selling point for people who don’t want fumes, dust and chemicals in their gardens.
How are you getting "fumes" in your garden, which is outdoors?
This just seems like such an obvious class divide thing to me. Those guys out there with the leaf blowers are working their ass off, sorry it's loud for a few minutes per day.
It's more than a few minutes. Often times it goes up to a full hour, and it's usually super early in the morning, waking up a bunch of people. Each apartment complex will bring them in at different times, and now people who work late just have to have their sleep interrupted.
> This just seems like such an obvious class divide thing to me.
Why? People who are forced to work late, btw, are usually not upper class. And it's not like we won't want clean streets. If anything, this efficiency decrease will create more jobs for landscaping folks. It will also be less of a nuisance for everyone.
Sure plenty of times growing up. Not sure the point of this question?
Ignoring the environmental aspect I think limited use in suburban settings is reasonable. I'm particularly focused on egregious use in urban settings when we aren't talking fall leaf collection but constant "cleaning". Obviously it's not the workers fault... it's a matter of mis-priced negative externalities. Napkin math say the noise makes 100 people WFH 10% less effective for an hour at say $50hr wage average it certainly makes more sense to just pay workers to work twice as long with brooms (if the work is even necessary in the first place).
