this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

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Especially gas powered ones. If you are going to blow refuse in the street, can’t you at least do it quietly?

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

As a scandinavian I never got what the deal is. Just let it decompose? Or use a rake, it's not that hard.

Then I visited Texas, and leafblowers were everywhere to the point where I had to ask a coworker "why do you guys hate leaves so much?"

[–] [email protected] 46 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It goes against the perfect manicured lawn narrative.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

And perfect lawns are horrible for the environment!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

And boring to look at, I would rather see a mix of flowers and bees.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Won't someone please think of the property values‽

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

I will not, I own this property now and will do what I like with it! The front garden has taken care of its self for the past 2 years now. Loads of foxgloves growing right now and a mix of some other things. I do remove a few thorns though when they start getting big.

Mainly focusing effort on the back garden, got some shrubs growing but want them to get bigger to properly take up the area they are growing in and cover some of the bare soil a bit more. Its getting better over time. I think a cat keeps trying to dig in some of them too and having bigger established shrubs in the way should prevent that but it takes time. Overall focus is on low maintenance things.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Idk I find using a rake is actually pretty hard

My property has dozens and dozens of trees, many of which are big leaf maples, it’s sweaty physical work that lasts months and months to keep up, the rainy months too, and if I don’t keep up my house gets overtaken by the forest

[–] [email protected] 62 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I'm Brazilian. As one can imagine, we do have a lot of leaves, being a tropical country and all.

I have not seen a leaf blower in my entire life, and I don't understand the obsession with them.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Being in a tropical country, I imagine most/all of your trees are non-deciduous, as in they don't lose all their leaves in autumn and then regrow in the spring? Imagine all the leaves drying up, falling off, and the mess is left all over the ground. Cleanup is a laborious effort. Leaf blowers speed up the process by blowing the leaves from trafficked locations and/or to more centralized locations that are easier to clean the debris. Helpful, noisy, and often environmentally unfriendly.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

You're correct about most trees not following your typical seasonal variance.

You're incorrect about this meaning we don't deal with significant amounts of leaves and flowers. Search for Handroanthus images, then imagine one on each sidewalk, and imagine all their flowers on the ground.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

The massive jacaranda mimosifolia (native to Brazil) which is dominating my front garden, laughs at your suggestion that it does not leave much mess on the ground.

It regularly carpets the area below it in purple flowers, tens of thousands of small leaves, hundreds of twigs/seed pods and a few larger dried branches. Not just one season either - it flowers multiple times a year with how weird the weather is nowadays. The birds and bees like it though so we're cool.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

I envy you. They are the bane of my existence. I have 4 neighbors that use them for landscaping once a week, most of the year. As for the appeal: you ever see a kid use a straw to blow stuff around? My theory is leaf blowers are on extension of that curiosity. A toy, really. When I hear someone rationalizing their use of a leaf blower, I hear someone talking about a toy they like. nevermind all the times i hear folks revving them like they're on a motorcycle.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Gas ones are banned in my town starting June 1st. Going to be reporting so many people.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Luckily I own a battery powered one owned by a giant multinational gas company (Ego/Chevron)!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Or you could just use a leaf rake.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

I tend to for leaf removal. The mounds of leaves get too large for a blower to handle.

The blower is more for gutter-cleaning, blowing random woods-generated debris off the porch and deck, and blowing lawn clippings off the sidewalk/street/driveway/walkway back into my lawn.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 weeks ago

I had a neighbor who was rather compulsive about her yard. She would mow her yard/have it mowed 2-3 times a week and would use a leaf blower to push the grass clippings onto her neighbors yard every time. She would also leaf blow her roof with surprising frequency.

I gotta say, I was a little relieved when I saw the for sale sign in the yard earlier this year.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago (13 children)

I agree that overuse of them is an issue, but damn they come in handy more than I thought it would... Mine is at least electric, and cleaning out dusty stuff (fans, cars, rugs, etc) is so quick and easy... I almost never use mine for grass or leaves.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah! Clean the coils onthe fridge fast and easy. (Open windows first. Close cupboard doors.)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

Oof, I’d go shop vac there. You’re just spreading it around, no?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

If on the scale of annoyance gas leaf blowers are 10/10, electric are 3/10.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

It sounds like a very American problem. I just let the leaves rot away on their own really, maybe sweep the path by my house and they can sit on a garden bed around some plants and rot down there.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The answer to the world's problems ..... remove leaf blowers

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

you jest, but children around the world are no longer starving thanks to this post.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You know, I was just— bbbrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

Your comment blows, dude...

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

I'm always taken aback by the hate. Where and how do you guys live that this is an issue?! Let alone a major annoyance?! I can scarcely imagine noticing leaf blower noise. It's no worse than gas mowers and those are everywhere (or used to be), and go for far longer. Is this just a circle-jerk complaint kinda thing?

I know everyone around here thinks they're an ADHD, autistic, OCD mess, but can no one tune out background noise? (No, you're not special, more likely an normal adult human with modern life issues.) If anything it should be old people bitching as hearing discretion gets more difficult in middle-age+.

The homeless guy that lives behind our Lowe's probably gets annoyed at the 9PM blowing, but that's a 20-30 minute thing, and not too late. (Always felt a bit bad when I closed.) I pick every tiny bit of plastic out though. Not in my waterways!

A bit snarky, I know, but those were serious questions.

And BTW, organic refuse gets blown in the street because passing vehicles reduce it to dust very quickly. All organic, no harm no foul in my book. Also, it's hellacious to corral that stuff for sweeping, no point.

EDIT: This post reminded me I need a new battery blower. And if you think 5-minutes of noise while I blow out my truck bed and driveway is too much, I don't know what to tell you.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

They're loud, they kick up dust, and they happen at intermittent times based on when the neighbors do it. they also use fossil fuels. Loud mowers are annoying, too! If you -- heaven forbid -- want to keep your windows open and feel a breeze, you're going to get all of that noise and maybe even some of the dust.

I understand that we have to clear sidewalks and driveways so that accidents don't happen. People usually don't have so much sidewalk + driveway that a broom or something wouldn't do that job quickly. But then we have to blow the leaves off the lawn, too? I know that your HOA will kill you if you don't, but doesn't it seem silly to remove the leaves from a lawn, then buy and put down commercial fertilizer, when the leaves would have biodegraded into new topsoil? To spend so much time watering a lawn to keep it alive when the leaves would have shielded it from the sun? Why are we spending so much time, money, water, and effort to maintain sterile grass lawns? We can have beautiful outdoors spaces without being slaves to an HOA enforcing what plants we grow.

I understand that it's really the HOAs these days that are a big part of the problem. A good number of people in my HOA-less neighborhood have diverse plants in front of their homes. They look fantastic, they seem to take way less maintenance (I never see them mowing, watering, weeding, fertilizing, etc), and ofc they're much better for the environment.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

So, again, what sort of space do you live in where this is annoyance? I'm only aware of leaf blowers when I'm driving and a lawn service is blowing.

Who's complaining is my question. People in nice hoods with the neighbors going nuts? Apartment complexes? Is this an autumn thing where leaves fall everywhere?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I have lived in suburbs, subdivisions, and city neighborhoods with green space. People (or their landscapers) use leaf blowers in all of them.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I understand your skepticism, but gas-powered leaf blowers have annoyed the hell out of me for years. I live in a relatively small city in Northern California, and I can always hear and smell a leaf blower before I can even see it. I can't overstate how strongly gas-powered leaf blowers smell. The smell of gas permeates my apartment, even with the windows closed, and is the kind of smell that gets stuck my nostrils for hours. The noise is pretty disruptive, but the smell is way worse to be honest. I'm not sure why they smell so much worse than other gas-powered things, but it's like they're just spewing gas out into the air.

I have no problem with electric or battery-powered leaf blowers, just please use them at a reasonable time of day - after 8am and before 10pm.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Gas powered leaf blowers are small two stroke engines, you’re smelling oil burning (oil is mixed with gasoline to lubricate, it burns by design), and those engines tend to be jetted to run rich so they don’t burn up too quickly.

Unburned gasoline, unburned oil, burned oil are the extra smells that you don’t get from a lawnmower, which would be four stroke like a car.

Two strokes are also noisier than four. They fire twice as often as four strokes, and for the purposes of a leaf blower, they also rev higher.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago

The world will be better when people will stop following the medieval trend of having a lawn. Water consumption, leaf blowers, habitat invasion would be finally gone.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I get a lot of leaves. I have a battery powered 60v leaf blower. I blow them away from my foundation so I don’t get a rotting mound around my house. Then I have to blow those away or they won’t biodegrade without leaving giant dirt patches. What I’ve found works well is blowing them into the forest bed at the edge of my property. The deer and other animals seem to help break them down. I don’t have to worry about them until fall but there are just too many to leave lie where they land. I go through three batteries a day over the course of weeks to keep them from building up really bad. I’m not a mow every week manicured lawn kind of person either. Right now most of my back yard is over a foot tall with a mowed area for my small dog.

I also like the leaf blower for cleaning off my gutter guards, drive, lawn mower, garage floor, deck, and even when it’s just a light snow I’ll go out a few times to blow everything off so I don’t have to shovel.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Is that really so much easier than raking?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Blowers should be illegal.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Gas powered high volume blowers, yes.

Electric ones aren't so bad.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago

Leaf blowers piss me the fuck offffff VvRrrmmmm Five seconds later… VRRRMMMMMM Sound gets closer… VRRRRRrrrMmmmmmMMMMM!!!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

They were invented in the 1950s.

So the Depression and the World Wars were quieter....

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Theyre banning them where I live. Good riddance.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago

I always think about something along these lines about cars.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago

we are blessed here to have the noise in the winter, too. more than three flakes of snow and there's sure to be a legion of leaf blowers clearing off precious pavement in neighborhoods all over town. the guys that do it at 4-5am are the true treasures.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

My grandfather got in a minor disagreement with his neighbor one time. Shortly after I went to his house to visit and saw his neighbor on the roof blowing leaves off his roof on to my grandfather's lawn.🤣

[–] leftzero 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Wouldn't a goat be a cheaper and less polluting solution which would also automatically mow the lawn and produce milk..?

(Of course it wouldn't solve the noise problem, but it'd probably be less offensive than a leaf blower...)

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago

am i the baddie?

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