Hating the Machine

In my last blog post, I felt the need to fictionalize my own murderous rage concerning the crow infestation in Corona del Mar. I’m not a violent person, so my fantasies regarding guns and dead crows sprawled across the alley behind my apartment frightened me. But now, I fear I have created a monster, one not unlike the Michael Douglas character in Falling Down: The other day, I wanted to take a hatchet and hack the nozzle of the leaf blower the neighborhood gardener was toting about on his back.

Containing myself as most human beings uncomfortable with the idea of living behind bars are expected to do in these circumstances, I randomly called a gardening service and griped to the owner. This man listened patiently to my furor, and then told me he thought I should know he was a pro-blower. He said leaf blowers get a bad rap. He told me quiet was a subjective thing. “Compromise,” he told me. “You can close your door, and gardeners can be sensitive around open doors. As long as it’s approached with a lot of courtesy and common sense, it’s like anything else.

I don’t think so. “What’s wrong with a good old-fashioned broom and hose?” I asked him. "It’s good exercise and is there really a drought? And what if closing the door doesn’t help? What if they’re so loud and noxious that the fumes and noise creep under the doors?"

“Ok,” he said. “A lot of blowers are not sensitive to the problems they create. If they are that much of a noise nuisance, they’re probably not properly maintained. Cities regulate noise, but they should regulate who’s using the blowers. You can’t blame the machine. That’s not fair. You have to blame the people that are not adequately trained to use them.”

So what is he suggesting? A leaf blowing training school? “Well, I've never had a blower belching smoke, that’s a maintenance problem. We have 20 guys maintaining hundreds of properties a week, and we don’t get referrals by making enemies.”

"But I am your enemy," I told him. "I hate you."

“You hate the machine,” he corrected. “And yes, there are people who are adamantly opposed to us. And then there are the environmentalists – they’re opposed to everything. But there’s room for everyone.”

Not according to the City of Laguna Beach and 19 others in the state that have outlawed blowers. And the City of Irvine has a noise decibel allowance so low you might as well blow dirt with your mouth. He also brought to my attention a letter “regarding the use of leaf blowers in Costa Mesa,” with restrictions so detailed and complex a PhD would have trouble absorbing it all.

I say the easiest solution, save their violent demise in the hands of angry citizens, is for leaf blowers to be replaced by the good old-fashioned rake and broom. Wasn’t it President Teddy Roosevelt who said something about the men with the rakes being indispensable to the well-being of society? Or was that the muck-rakes?