Just shut up!
By Fleur
@Fleura (34927)
United Kingdom
October 4, 2023 6:08am CST
There are five houses in our little cul-de-sac and four have quite large gardens. Three of our four neighbours employ the same ‘gardener’. I say ‘gardener’ in inverted commas because I don’t know whether he has any special gardening skills or knowledge. I’ve never seen him wield a fork or plant a seed, for example.
But what he does an excellent job of is keeping things tidy. The grass is mowed, the hedges cut straight, the bushes all trimmed into geometric shapes, weedkiller applied along the kerb.
Apart from the sterility of all this, the most annoying thing is the noise. He is constantly at it with some sort of noisy power tool – the mower, hedge clipper, strimmer, leaf blower or whatever. It drives me mad; if he’s not at it in the garden next door, he’s in one of the gardens opposite. And the noise just seems to reverberate all around so it doesn’t matter whether I go to the opposite side of the house, or whether I’m inside or outside. Of course the home-owners are all either out at work or just away, so it doesn’t bother them at all!
Today I’m at my desk and he’s mowing and leaf-blowing in the garden opposite. I want to yell ‘Just shut up!!’ but instead I have actually donned a pair of bright yellow ear defenders. He can clearly see me through the window so I hope he might take the hint!
All rights reserved. © Text copyright Fleur 2023.
16 people like this
16 responses
@sharonelton (30756)
• Lichfield, England
4 Oct 23
Oh, I know what you mean! There's always some kind of mower or hedge trimmer or something going on on our street. And the guy next door has recently had a loft conversion. We are semi-detatched, so the noise was very loud by our wall! Fortunately, the loft conversion is finished now, but we still sometimes hear banging! I don't know what he does. Is he hanging pictures? Removing the fireplace? It's a mystery!
4 people like this
. Glad the work is mostly over now!@Fleura (34927)
• United Kingdom
4 Oct 23
@sharonelton He should have brought you a case of champagne when it was finished!
2 people like this
@sharonelton (30756)
• Lichfield, England
4 Oct 23
@Fleura Oh, you have no idea! It was terrible! The banging, the sawing! Gee! To the guys credit, he did come round and warn us it was going to happen before hand..
2 people like this
@BarBaraPrz (51811)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
4 Oct 23
He's a guy... they don't take hints that easily, and they do LOVE to make noise. Whenever I see/hear someone using a leaf blower, I want to scream out "Use a rake!" I don't think I've ever seen a woman use a leaf blower, have you?
3 people like this
He's also going a bit deaf - do you think there's a connection?@BarBaraPrz (51811)
• St. Catharines, Ontario
4 Oct 23
@Fleura What? Can't hear ya... 
2 people like this
@LadyDuck (502148)
• Italy
4 Oct 23
The leaf-blower is the most useless and noisy garden tool ever invented. You do a much better job and faster using a rake and collecting the leaves instead than blowing them around. A gardener (a real one) here used it every Friday in the garden of a neighbor. We have rules here about the decibels, I suspected it was too much noisy, I sent an email to the Mayor... no more leaf-blower noise.
3 people like this
@LindaOHio (222222)
• United States
5 Oct 23
Sorry you have to wear ear defenders; but the man has to do his job! Have a great day.
2 people like this
@LindaOHio (222222)
• United States
6 Oct 23
@Fleura I know it's rough to have your peace and quiet ruined. Try and have a good day and a good weekend.
1 person likes this
@DaddyEvil (174208)
• United States
4 Oct 23
We only hear the neighbor directly across the street when he works on his yard or the old man next door when he mows and trims. We use a quiet electric mower here so nobody should notice us working on our yard.
2 people like this
@wolfgirl569 (135583)
• Marion, Ohio
4 Oct 23
Too bad he couldn't get the noisy stuff all done in one day
2 people like this
@crazyhorseladycx (39503)
• United States
8 Oct 23
the perks 'f city livin' i reckon? e'en out here'n the country there's too much noise. folks down the road care not that most all the critters they tend bawl, honk, bark, moo, cluck, etc near 24/7. jest hang'n there, hopefully that fella'll run out'ta schtuff to do soon.
1 person likes this
@xFiacre (14782)
• Ireland
4 Oct 23
@fleura I’m with you all the way there. The persistent shrill whine of garden machinery can tip one over the edge. In our last house the elderly couple next door had a team of gardeners every week for their modest garden. Every Wednesday, even in the depth of winter, the lawn mower, leaf blower and electric hedge clippers combined to make our lives miserable. And their garden wasn’t anything special to look at. There was no need for it and the gardening company was certainly on to a good thing - rip off. And it sounds so petty to complain about a neighbour’s lawn mower being too noisy. Where we live now is just the same only different. All the neighbours use the same groundsman to keep their acreages trimmed and boring, and his ride on mower creates a terrible din.
2 people like this
@KarenAnne (257)
• United Kingdom
4 Oct 23
There's gardening and then there's what the Americans call "yard work" which bears no resemblance to actual gardening. It's just housework outdoors!
We don't own a mower or any other garden power tools. We sometimes borrow the mother-in-laws strimmer. We don't have a lawn anywhere - which would take up valuable space that could be used for plants that are useful and beautiful - and other than those with small children I can't think of a reason to have one.
2 people like this
