The pet peeve thread

[Sports_Freak]

My pet peeve? Hearing people say how beautiful the changing leaves look. Yeah, sure. That immediately tells me they don't have to rake and bag 35 bags of those "pretty" leaves. I dread this time of year all year long. 😅

[oblong]

1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

My pet peeve? Hearing people say how beautiful the changing leaves look. Yeah, sure. That immediately tells me they don't have to rake and bag 35 bags of those "pretty" leaves. I dread this time of year all year long. 😅

Best $1500 I spent was having my maple taken down.  Caught a crew in the neighborhood last year and my jaw dropped at the estimate.  He got 4 in my street that day. Time is money and so is energy. I made it back.  Plus it was dying and every time it rained or we got wind I was nervous.  My birch provides just enough leaves that I can mulch with grass cutting and I let the wind and nature take care of the rest.  Lawns aren’t supposed to look like golf courses.  

[Sports_Freak]

3 hours ago, oblong said:

Best $1500 I spent was having my maple taken down.  Caught a crew in the neighborhood last year and my jaw dropped at the estimate.  He got 4 in my street that day. Time is money and so is energy. I made it back.  Plus it was dying and every time it rained or we got wind I was nervous.  My birch provides just enough leaves that I can mulch with grass cutting and I let the wind and nature take care of the rest.  Lawns aren’t supposed to look like golf courses.  

My neighbor has a huge tree that doesn't drop all its leaves until mid-December. And the way the wind blows, they cover my lawn and...gasp...my driveway. 

I usually mow them too but they were way too deep today so I raked and bagged them. Getting too old for this crap. 😅

My maple is about empty. And with the 40MPH winds tomorrow, it should be done. So far this fall, I've only filled 15 or so bags of leaves.

[oblong]

When we bought this house 12 years ago it was empty as the owner had moved in with his girlfriend.  He told us, off the record, we could start putting some stuff in before closing, just don't let his agent know.  I showed up around this time of year, and he was there knee deep in the leaves.  It was near Veterans Day as we were both off work.  He said "I bet if you saw this you wouldn't have bought the house, eh?"

I devoted probably 7 days, a few hours each day, of leaf cleanup every winter... and dozens of lawn bags.  We also have a system to put leaves in the street for pickup but that doesn't always work out time wise.  

 

[chasfh]

On 11/4/2025 at 10:43 PM, Sports_Freak said:

My neighbor has a huge tree that doesn't drop all its leaves until mid-December. And the way the wind blows, they cover my lawn and...gasp...my driveway. 

I have sort of the same problem in that one of my next-door neighbors has a humongous tree that must be over 100 years old. Some years ago I turned my postage stamp-sized front lawn into a garden with a tree that’s rather large itself, so even if I took that down, there would still be a ton of leafage courtesy of my neighbor’s tree in my front yard. If you know how tightly built together houses are in this city, you know why it’s bit of a problem.

[Sports_Freak]

51 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I have sort of the same problem in that one of my next-door neighbors has a humongous tree that must be over 100 years old. Some years ago I turned my postage stamp-sized front lawn into a garden with a tree that’s rather large itself, so even if I took that down, there would still be a ton of leafage courtesy of my neighbor’s tree in my front yard. If you know how tightly built together houses are in this city, you know why it’s bit of a problem.

My neighbor's huge tree is right over my driveway. As much as I don't like it, I feel bad for her. She's a single mom of 3 and works her butt off to support her children. The estimate she got to remove the tree was 5 grand. There's no way she could afford that.

[gehringer_2]

On 11/5/2025 at 6:34 AM, oblong said:

When we bought this house 12 years ago it was empty as the owner had moved in with his girlfriend.  He told us, off the record, we could start putting some stuff in before closing, just don't let his agent know.  I showed up around this time of year, and he was there knee deep in the leaves.  It was near Veterans Day as we were both off work.  He said "I bet if you saw this you wouldn't have bought the house, eh?"

I devoted probably 7 days, a few hours each day, of leaf cleanup every winter... and dozens of lawn bags.  We also have a system to put leaves in the street for pickup but that doesn't always work out time wise.  

 

We have a stand of several large Red Oaks. They usually don't drop their leaves until after some of the neighors have already done their pickup. In fact our clean up guy often ends up doing our leaves in the Spring because so many are still on the trees after the ground starts to freeze.

So we are prime offenders in terms of leafing up the area after everyone has tried to clean up. Sorry folks....