I know some people think I am already certifiable but I almost agreed with them today

At 6AM – yes I do mean 6AM I was awakened by the dreadful, annoying, nerve wrenching [I am being polite] racket of a gas powered leaf blower that the operator had instructions from his employer not to do later as it would disturb the banks clients.

Yes I live next door to a bank.

That on one side of the bank are residential homes doesn’t matter one bit. On the other side of the road there are residential homes. They don’t care.

This interminable noise went on for 90 minutes whilst the operator moved all the leaves out onto the main roadway or against our chain link fence separating the properties and into our garden.

After a little respite and I had moved into my office the same familiar noise started up again. This time it was another company with a man using a similar gas-powered leaf blower on the other side of our property. If that wasn’t enough noise two more men arrived with a gas powered electric saw to cut up huge tree trunks that were sticking up a few feet from the ground following some tree felling a few months before.

This went on until 1pm!

But I am not alone in finding this noise ‘disturbing’  – oh I am being polite. It is Holy Week.  I found this article from Press Democrat:

Some Sonoma residents have had an earful over noisy leaf blowers

Darryl Ponicsan’s quest to ban gas-powered leaf blowers in the city of Sonoma could form the plot of one of his Hollywood screenplays.

The pitch goes like this: An accomplished writer working at his home in a leafy neighborhood a few blocks from Sonoma’s Plaza is interrupted frequently by a leaf blower’s tell-tale roar. The writer confronts gardeners with a sound meter, calls police and in exasperation airs his grievances for months at City Council meetings, including one in which he confesses that he has had to flee downtown to one of the city’s wine salons to escape the maddening noise.

“So you can say this is driving me to drink,” the writer tells city leaders.

Surprisingly, a majority on the City Council, which two years ago rejected calls for a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, buys it this time around. Following a Sept. 3 public hearing, during which 19 people spoke in favor of the ban — including one woman who had a small dog perched on her shoulder — the council orders an ordinance that would make the city of 10,000 the first in Sonoma County, and one of the very few in the nation, to ban gas-powered blowers.

The move would represent a happy ending for Ponicsan, 75, whose screenplay credits include “The Last Detail,” “Vision Quest” and “Nuts.” He also is the author of a series of crime novels featuring a 50-year-old woman suffering through menopause.

Ponicsan said in an interview from his France Street home this week that the noise from leaf blowers is so distracting that he sometimes talks on the phone with one finger in his ear. He said he’s gathered more than 300 signatures in support of a ban, mostly from people in attendance at the city’s Tuesday night farmer’s markets, where Ponicsan has manned a booth.

“I don’t have any organization. It’s just me and whoever shows up,” he said. That included, at the Sept. 3 City Council meeting, his wife, Cecilia, who recounted the horror of “mothers trying to outrun clouds of dust” kicked up by leaf blowers.

Sebastopol, which also relies on police, has had relatively few complaints about leaf blowers since the dust-up in 2011, City Manager Larry McLaughlin said.

That may have something to do with the City Council ordering city employees to discontinue their use of leaf blowers of any kind. Employees now use rakes and brooms, if they use anything at all.

“Our level of service went down,” Rich Emig, superintendent of Sebastopol’s Public Works Department, said of the blower ban.

Emig said he respects the City Council’s decision. “But I honestly have to tell you, I wish we could use them (leaf blowers),” he said.

Kem Loong, a supervisor with Berkeley’s Public Works Department, said city employees get along fine without gas leaf blowers and use a street sweeper or rakes to clean up.

If you want to read the whole article and there is a lot more to read go to:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20130915/articles/130919680

My wife, Joan, has already purchased a gas powered leaf blower. Not to use it to push the leaves around but to blow them all back where they came from – the neighbouring properties especially the bank next door.

War has been declared she has said.

Now if I can find the Bank Manager’s home address I will borrow the leaf blower and start moving some leaves around outside his garden at 6am in the morning.

I will wait after Holy Week has finished, being a good Christian!!