You're having a rough day. Seems like everybody wants a piece of you and they aren't kind about it. So you put on some ear protection, grab your leaf blower and step outside. Nobody bothers you out there. The leaf blower yells nonstop the way you wish you could and even though you aren't doing the yelling, there is still something cathartic about the noise. It creates a bubble where you are left alone. As the minutes pass and the debris collects into neat little piles, you can slowly regain your calm. The urge to explode, unleashing your anger and frustration, in an irreparable way ebbs and you feel like you can hold your shit together for a little while longer.

Or they are in a feud with their neighbors and are trying to piss them off.

If a genie told me I could erase all land-mines or two-stroke leaf-blowers, I'd choose landmines, but the silence while I considered would be uncomfortably long.

Well I ain't gonna get down on my knees and blow them myself

The leaves must blow.

One of my neighbours sometimes hoses down her driveway in the pouring rain. Who knows why neighbours do the things they do.

I just got a 765cfm battery-powered leaf blower and...

...it's so much fun. Mindlessly entertaining. I don't even care if I just blow the leaves back and forth, it's just...weirdly fun.

Also fun to blow random things around the house until someone gets mad.

Either the boss said he had to do it, our his homelife is so bad, that blowing leaves is an improvement.

I really hate leaf blowers.

Are you in IL? I just saw my neighbor doing that, but he has dementia. I think there are to many people who want a manicured lawn. Personally I don't see why so many people like that.

Petromasculinity?

Making noise.

As it happens, it's about 10 C (50 F) near me and raining, and I did actually think about using my leaf blower for a very specific purpose: blowing the leaves clear of the road gutters.

I saw outside my window that the autumn leaves formed a dam in the gutter, impounding an amount of water which started diverting onto the asphalt and the sidewalk. From what little I know about road construction, water intrusion is the greater enemy so I didn't want to let the small pond sit there.

In the end, I just picked the leaves up by hand to remove the obstruction. But if I had a lot more streetfront, leaf blower would be the first tool to come to mind. But it would take no more than 10 minutes total.

Honestly, it's just fun to blow leaves or snow. It's a mindless puttering activity that lets you improve your home area and be mildly active.

Unfortunately what happens is people's general tendency to think about themselves and nobody else. So they're self-satisfied in their reasons for being out there, not thinking about the dude next door that works nights and can't sleep, and even his construction-grade noise headphones don't help. Or the dude that just wants to listen to jazz quietly.

The leaf blower people are well-meaning people with mild mental illness who are just selfish enough not to realize their home/self care is annoying others. e: A lot of times the guy just needs to get the F away from their spouse. I've lived near leaf blower people and they're invariably older married (sometimes retired) men. Never women.

I'm a newly-minted leaf-blower convert but for specific purposes. I do not have any type of lawn. I freakin' hated the things but got a small battery-operated one to make fire prep** a bit easier. I found it satisfying in the same way I enjoy pressure washing.

** I live in a high risk fire zone - we remove anything remotely flammable from around the house and outbuildings. It sucks.

blowing around wet leaves with a leaf blower.

One does not simply blow wet leaves with a leaf blower. It is folly.

I like using leaf blower, don't like listening to leaf blower.

I had a neighbor for a while that ran his gas blower for a couple hours EVERY DAY. I think he had some sort of PTSD trauma and it soothed him.

He also dug holes in his backyard to bury leaves. Quite a ….. character.

Someone probably told them they were gonna be outlawed soon for their noise

Because the day already sucks so much…

Um leafblowers are portable jets and just as fun as an air-compressor.

It’s because he can’t use his chain saw on anything.

What is with the leaf blower hate around here? Must be a Yankee thing, never hear them around here.

And if you live in an apartment complex, they have to clear the leaves. They get slippery. You do the math.

I've considered getting an electric one to blow all the dust out of my shop/warehouse, but I can't justify the cost. I need a good shop/push broom and Japan doesn't seem to like those (at least anywhere that I've looked).

'Murica.

I saw this exact thing getting off the highway by the first gas station near a pizza place today in Everett.

I have an electric blower. But I use it to clean my gutters.

Ever tried that Leaf Blower Idle game?

It's like a hair dryer for lawns, leaves are the dandruff.

Blow me

54 degree fahrenheit is cold? not where im from. Now the under 40 degree rain we just had. that was cold.

54°F isn't cold.

"why is my neighbor doing [something]" is a question better suited for the neighbor than Lemmy. But if you must, asklemmy would be a significantly more appropriate community to be asking.