Hey, there! Log in / Register
Citizen complaint of the day: Do something about the damn leaves
By adamg on Sun, 11/15/2020 - 10:02pm
An agitated citizen filed a 311 complaint today because there are a lot of leaves on the ground at Roberts Playground in Dorchester.
H/t Amy B.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Here’s a plan for those
Here’s a plan for those leaves spread it throughout the lawn then grab a lawn mower and go over it.
Worse than raking leaves
is shoveling them after a snow storm.
To be so removed from the
To be so removed from the natural world that you hate falllen leaves.
Depressing
Why the eff do we pay taxes?
This isn’t the woods, it is a heavily used park in an urbanized area in a rich first-world country. We pay property taxes commensurate with that. Expecting the government to provide the basic grounds maintenance that we are paying for, hardly seems unreasonable or disconnected from anything.
But how long have the leaves been there?
A few days ago, I raked my leaves before going to work. Got back home and my property was heavily carpeted with new leaves. Fallen leaves happen. Property owners and city workers can't just stand around waiting for the leaves to fall to get them right away. Property owners have to go to work to get income to pay the taxes to pay the city workers. City workers have to rotate between parks to rake leaves.
I'm not willing to pay the kind of taxes to have workers at each park to rake fallen leaves, then stand around that park waiting to rake more leaves to fall.
LOL at a rich first-world
LOL at a rich first-world country where we let people starve and die on our streets. A country that has sat by and watched this virus destroy small businesses and throw countless individuals into financial turmoil because we refuse to provide support (beyond that amazingly generous one-time $1200). A country that values money over human life. But please, Bob, tell me more about what "hardly seems unreasonable" to expect from the government of a "rich first-world country".
The leaves are still falling
The leaves are still falling and it has been windy.
You may have noticed that
You may have noticed that resources are a bit stretched due to the pandemic.
Any time someone says "I pay my taxes and..."
You know the next thing they say will be complete nonsense. You are the grown-up now. You can't throw hissy-fits over fallen leaves and shoveling your front walk after it snows. Welcome to adulthood.
Come on now, BannedFromTheRoxy.
Fallen leaves that remain on the cement are quite slippery. The city should remove them, since it's a public city park.
Facts
I almost busted my rump in a pile the other day
Wondering the same
Today was the first time in over 40 years living in the city, where I wondered about all these leaves on city streets. They are everywhere! And unfortunately not only are they a slip hazard, but worse, they are great at hiding used discarded needles.
And dog crap
As a kid I loved the sound of shuffling through leaves on the sidewalk—Halloween in a sound bite. But now I've lived in the city too long and know that the same people who use snow as a way to get out of cleaning up after their yapping shit factory use leaves the same way.
Not on purpose
Not on purpose to get out of picking up after them. At least - when we had our dogs years ago.
Ours preferred a pile of leaves to poop in. I did my damnedest to spot where they went and I always picked up bunches of leaves with the poop to try and get everything.
In fact, on one group list I was on, other owners saved leaves in their yards to help convince their pups to go quickly during the cold winters (in their own yards). Some dogs are weird.
My last face plant was
My last face plant was slipping on previously stepped on, and therefore smeared, dog crap on the sidewalk.
On My Way
Have no fear. I will be on my way first thing in the morning with 10 people with high-power, gas-powered, leaf blowers. We'll just push those all the way down the street passed the home and turn towards the nearest city collection yard and keep going until we get there.
Of course the noise level will be about 200 decibels but hey, they want the leaves outta there, right? I mean, the darn trees don't even have all of the leaves down yet.
Where are these people coming from? They definitely were not born in New England.
Or
you can be like one of my neighbors who just blows all his leaves out into the middle of street so that they can go into everyone else's yards and then they have to be the ones to rake them up.
A week ago in our
A week ago in our neighborhood, we had 1/4 of trees/limbs bare (at absolute most), 1/4 with leaves turning red/yellow/gold, and 1/2 with green leaves. The cold the last four days brought down over half of the remaining.
That's a very short time for a lot of leaves. Even if it wasn't over a weekend, how many employees does the complainant think the City has to conceivably assign to leaf removal?
Yup. We just had a LOT of
Yup. We just had a LOT of leaves drop within a very short period of time. The City cannot clean them all up instantly.
Classic city dwellers...
One moment, they complain about not getting access to nature and all the good it supposedly entails. The next moment, they complain about the slightest inconvenience caused by nature...
You can't have it both ways.
You know what they say about assumptions
I wonder who is the "they" you are talking about.
Most people love nature. Some people might be concerned about the hazard of wet leaves.
Consider elderly, visually or otherwise disabled neighbors trying to walk to their bus stop. But I suspect that you are referring to a very particular "they".
Classic city dwellers know
Classic city dwellers know that there are tons of discarded needles around the city now a days. Guess where I spotted some the other day? In a pile of leaves.
Not true
Not true. You can walk all over the city and not see one. However, in some areas this is a large problem.
What you think you see and focus on tells a lot.
There are more flowers and trees than needles.
Archaeo-linguistics
Believe it or not, "nowadays" is one word, not three.
Although, putting on my historical hat, I could construct a conversation between two serf Scotsmen of the middle ages that employs it as three words:
"Aye, Wamba," Gurth said. "We go out at divers times... now a days, now a nights."
OK, I borrowed the serfs, I know Ivanhoe didn't take place in Scotland. It's okay, I have a poetic license stashed in my drawer somewhere around here... or in my drawers perhaps, let me check...
Was it the same person?
Do you know that this person likes getting access to nature?
Or are you combining things you've heard from multiple people?
Obviously it's the same person
This anonymous troll's self-righteous virtue signaling wouldn't make any sense otherwise.
/s
Why can't oak trees be more
Why can't oak trees be more like maple trees, and drop their leaves in September.
Deciduous Forest Diversity
Different rates of leaf litter decomposition provide soil nutrients over a longer period of time. Just one part of the entire complex system.
lol
our maple trees are the only ones to still have their leaves. everything else is bare.
I'm sending some cheese to go
I'm sending some cheese to go with that whine.
Damn trees . Why can't they
Damn trees . Why can't they just cut them down and pave everything.
Form a Friends Group
Get a few neighbors together, bring some rakes and brown leaf bags, and spend an hour as a group performing a socially distant, civically engaged community service.
Yes, bring rakes.
Don’t bring leaf blowers.
lol
yup, bring rakes so it can take longer, people will get more frustrated, and then they'll rake too aggressively and rip up any grass or plants that should not be disturbed.
yes, leaf blowers generate noise, but they also do a better job -- and much faster.
Bring puncture proof gloves.
Bring puncture proof gloves.
That’s enabling misbehavior
Organizing volunteers to do the work that we have already paid the city to do, simply enables and encourages the city to further shirk its responsibilities.
Go down to the Methadone Mile
with a van and a stack of $20's. One van load of people could rake the park in an hour. 311 filer will underwrite the transaction.
Not a good idea! Taxes pay the city to do it.
Therefore, the city should take care of it.
Thanks
I was waiting for some clown to suggest that citizens should volunteer to do the work their taxes should be paying for. Thanks for not letting me down.
Just like a Swiss fucking watch...
C'mon, Adam.
You just post these for the lulz donchya?
Autumn Leaves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnp58oepHUQ
Because kids hate playing in the leaves?
Honestly, if this was a December compliant, I'd definitely see the point, and they may have just been pointing out to the Parks people that they should get out at some point to clear the fallen foliage.
If they could just cut down
If they could just cut down all the trees, there wouldn’t be a leaf problem!
As others have noted, we had
As others have noted, we had a lot of the leaves fall in the past week.
Last Sunday afternoon, I did my whole yard. By the time I came home from work on Tuesday, there wasn't an inch of driveway or lawn that wasn't covered by leaves. If I had had the time on Veterans Day, I would have absolutely done them again then, but I didn't have time. I cleared the yard yesterday and it was easily twice as much work as it had been just 7 days before.
Based on a completely unscientific observation, up to last Sunday, 25% of my leaves came down, and in the past week, 50% came down. Just another quarter left! Most years, I'm dealing with a substantial amount of leaves through December (assuming snow holds off) but I might have an early finish this fall.
So yeah, paved paths in public parks absolutely should be kept clear of leaves, but at the rate I saw leaves falling in the past week, they could have done them on Monday and the path would have been covered again on Tuesday.