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....

[LaceyLou]

Does anybody else still get tons of free address labels from various organizations asking for money? Even before the internet took over most communication, I never mailed that many letters. I honestly can't remember the last time I mailed a letter. Stop sending me labels!

[chasfh]

6 hours ago, LaceyLou said:

Does anybody else still get tons of free address labels from various organizations asking for money? Even before the internet took over most communication, I never mailed that many letters. I honestly can't remember the last time I mailed a letter. Stop sending me labels!

I decided a long time ago that if you're gonna guilt me into giving you money, you're going to have to gift me something higher value than return address labels.

[CMRivdogs]

The only time I see return labels in use is one the few Christmas cards that still include the “we accomplished so much in the past year” Joe’s out on parole, Patsy finally finished that afghan she’s been working on the past 10 years. Had a great time at Six Flags.

 

[Screwball]

I got some junk mail the other day that had a check in it. It really looked legit, so I did some research, and as it turns out it is a real check. 10 bucks. If you read the fine print it gets pretty ugly - expect to be bombarded with who knows how much torture this may cause - I ripped into many many pieces.

It now costs 10 bucks to get ripped off.

Edited Sunday at 01:12 AM by Screwball

[CMRivdogs]

It's a tiny peeve, but I'm not crazy about minor league baseball teams try to be curtsie with their nicknames. Over the weekend my former adopted home town changed the name of their Single A Minor League squad from the Red Sox to the Ridge/Yaks. 
Yaks are not native to SW Virginia though I understand the name also refers to kayaks (Roanoke River, Smith Mountain Lake) and Home Runs. Just a bit to cute for me. Besides I'm an old fart, they'll always be the Bucs to me despite changes in affiliation

[Edman85]

Delta taking their sweet old time announcing which flights are cancelled Thursday

[oblong]

Driving pet peeves are old, I know. Coming back home thru the middle of OH where 75 is two lanes, circumstances took place that ended up with two trucks side by side.  I’m in the left lane. I can see the truck in front of me is going slightly slower than the other so I start to slow down a bit so that he can see what I’m doing, giving him the space and ability to eventually get over and behind the other truck that’s going just a tad faster.  Did the car behind me realize that?  Nope. He just speeds up on the tail of the truck in the right lane now parallel to me wondering where he’s going to go. Jesus. Just wait about 30 seconds and we can punch out of there and leave. 

[Motor City Sonics]

I live in constant fear. 

[Screwball]

Driving peeves;

I used to make many trips between St. Joe/Benton Harbor from central Ohio. OH turnpike to M31 N (I think?) to those places. Always in a hurry to get home, especially after all that nonsense. Get behind the trucks going East on the pike. They might be running well over the speed limit, but they would get beside each other and take what seemed like 10 miles to pass. They could see you coming and would do it anyway. Pricks.

[oblong]

1 hour ago, Screwball said:

Driving peeves;

I used to make many trips between St. Joe/Benton Harbor from central Ohio. OH turnpike to M31 N (I think?) to those places. Always in a hurry to get home, especially after all that nonsense. Get behind the trucks going East on the pike. They might be running well over the speed limit, but they would get beside each other and take what seemed like 10 miles to pass. They could see you coming and would do it anyway. Pricks.

I thought of you on Friday and Monday when I drove by the windmills near Findlay and the Whirlpool factory.  That came up in a convo a while back somewhere around here

[Screwball]

24 minutes ago, oblong said:

I thought of you on Friday and Monday when I drove by the windmills near Findlay and the Whirlpool factory.  That came up in a convo a while back somewhere around here

Yep, those are the ones. Last time I was over that way some were not going around. Probably maintenance. Maybe. That area is nuts. Construction all over the place. That Whirlpool plant is a big one, but there are others around there too, along with distribution centers. I-75 is the big artery around the lake going South. Much easier to truck stuff to Findlay to a warehouse, then East and South from there.

The windmills were a deal between Whirlpool and another company, I think it was Ball Metal. Suppose to save on electric costs over a period of time. When they were building them it got wild on days they delivered a blade(s). It wasn't like these were 30 foot long. It shut down traffic. They were behind the plant (don't remember if you can see the plant from 75) so they had to go around - while hundreds of people were trying to get around the area to go to work - what a mess.

They put some up at their Marion facility too, but that's on 23.