Raking Etiquette

[CliffFletcher]

So my neighbour has already raked his lawn twice this fall, and has started passively-aggressively hinting that I should do the same by raking up up patches of lawn adjacent to his property.

What's the etiquette on raking? It seems some people rake every week in the fall, like mowing the lawn, and expect their neighbours to do likewise so leaves don't blow onto their property.

I usually rake twice in the fall - once when close to half the leaves are off the branches, and a second time when snow seems imminent (just before Halloween). Am I a bad neighbour?

[troutman]

Twice seems reasonable to me.

If you have a mower with a bagger, you can quickly pick up a lot of leaves every week or two.

[Fuzz]

I rake once when the trees finish dropping, and again when the GD lilac bushes finally drop, 3-4 weeks later. Fortunately those leaves are heavier and seam to stay stationary.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

So my neighbour has already raked his lawn twice this fall, and has started passively-aggressively hinting that I should do the same by raking up up patches of lawn adjacent to his property.

What's the etiquette on raking? It seems some people rake every week in the fall, like mowing the lawn, and expect their neighbours to do likewise so leaves don't blow onto their property.

I usually rake twice in the fall - once when close to half the leaves are off the branches, and a second time when snow seems imminent (just before Halloween). Am I a bad neighbour?

I wait until they're done falling, then I get rid of them.

[Ducay]

I've raked 4 or 5 times. A lot easier to do a quick pickup (15 mins) than waiting until it becomes a big soggy wet mess that takes an hour and weighs a tonne.

That way you can just mow in-between and that becomes another pickup cycle, and your property is going to look tidier. Win/Win.

For anyone who does raking, I implore you to get these. It takes 3 or 4 grabs to fill a garbage bag, versus watching others do it handful by handful for an hour. Plus you can use it to re-collect leaves into a pile if they get scattered during pickup.

[habernac]

My new neighbour is awesome, he cut his trees down so the one that used to drip sap all over my driveway is gone. So are the leaves. He is planting new ones in spring.

[mrkajz44]

I haven't raked yet and don't plan on it until next weekend at least. It seems like a waste to me to do it when I know that I'll have to do it again regardless as there are still lots of leaves still on the trees. I might have it a bit easier though as my yard habits are much better than both of my neighbours, so it'd hard pressed for them to say anything to me.

[CroFlames]

I'd like to piggy back onto this thread.

What if your neighbor has branches of his tree encroaching into your yard. Can you just prune them yourself? I smack my head when I mow the lawn.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I'd like to piggy back onto this thread.

What if your neighbor has branches of his tree encroaching into your yard. Can you just prune them yourself? I smack my head when I mow the lawn.

Not great for neighbour relations. Talk to them. I did to mine when the branches on his tree were doing that. He apologized and had them pruned a day later.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I'd like to piggy back onto this thread.

What if your neighbor has branches of his tree encroaching into your yard. Can you just prune them yourself? I smack my head when I mow the lawn.

You can do whatever you want with the bits over the property line. However, talking first would be the prudent thing.

[Canehdianman]

Once all of the leaves are down, I mow them up.

Raking/mowing before the leaves are all down is as stupid as making your bed.

It's just going to get messy again.

[Kybosh]

I don't think the previous owners of my current house ever raked, or picked up their dog ####. When the snow melted, I was greeted with one of the worst messes I've ever seen in a yard. My only etiquette rule is don't be like they were.

[Table 5]

I'm pretty methodical and patient about it. I make sure to completely let all the leaves fall from the trees, and by that time hopefully it starts snowing to cover them up.

[Fuzz]

Another good strategy is to let the wind take them away. Nature is self-cleaning that way. Works well in my front lawn, not so well in the back with the fences.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I'd like to piggy back onto this thread.

What if your neighbor has branches of his tree encroaching into your yard. Can you just prune them yourself? I smack my head when I mow the lawn.

Talk to them. We've been on both sides of the equation this year with one of our trees growing over the fence into a neighbor, and another tree growing into our yard from another neighbor. Talked to both of them about it, and both said to go ahead and prune the trees however we saw fit.

Re: raking leaves. I don't do that, but I do mulch with the mower. I've done one pass already as some of our trees have dropped all their leaves. I'll probably wait until all the rest have done so before I do so again. I don't think the neighbors care one way or another.

[calgarygeologist]

I usually wait quite a bit. We have a birch that holds onto the leaves pretty long and my neighbour has a tree (don't know the species) which holds leaves even longer. I wait until his tree has lost about half of the leaves.

[Chingyul]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

I'd like to piggy back onto this thread.

What if your neighbor has branches of his tree encroaching into your yard. Can you just prune them yourself? I smack my head when I mow the lawn.

Legally, yeah, anything on your side of the property line, you can cut. That said, it is probably a good idea to let them know.


My turn. When do you guys clean your gutters?

[Swift]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Another good strategy is to let the wind take them away. Nature is self-cleaning that way. Works well in my front lawn, not so well in the back with the fences.

Yeah, this. I don't rake at all. Don't get too many in the back, but we get quite a bit in the front as there's a large tree a few doors down. The wind takes care of it all.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by Chingyul

Legally, yeah, anything on your side of the property line, you can cut. That said, it is probably a good idea to let them know.


My turn. When do you guys clean your gutters?

When they get plugged?

My house is a flat roof so I don't have gutters, but there are drains in all four corners of the house, and two on the garage/carport. I check them when I put up Christmas lights in the fall, and again in the spring, but they have never been plugged.

In my old house I never checked the gutters, until one day during a rain storm I realised that there was more water coming out of the side of the gutter than the drain. So, I bought these:
https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.5...000685616.html and continued to never check the gutters.

As for raking. I don't have much raking in my current house. The leaves across the street fall and blow under a cedar bush in my front yard, and I try to pick it all up before the snow falls. I get no leaves in my backyard. Mostly pine trees in my area aside from two birch trees across the street from me.

My old house was a different story. I didn't have a backyard, and the neighbour behind me had the largest oak tree in the history of oak trees right at the edge of our yards. It covered much of my back yard, which was great for sun shade, but I gathered 20-30 bags of leaves (mulched) each fall. The first year I was at that house, I was raking leaves into a pile and the neighbour lady screamed into her house to her husband "They better not dump those leaves over the fence onto our yard". The thought hadn't crossed my mind, but for 10 years, whenever the leaves started to fall, it was all I could think about. My last fall at that house I wished I had known that we would decide to move the following summer. Also, after that first year, I bought a blower/vac that mulched the leaves because it was easier to deal with 1/3 of the garbage bags.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

So my neighbour has already raked his lawn twice this fall, and has started passively-aggressively hinting that I should do the same by raking up up patches of lawn adjacent to his property.

What's the etiquette on raking? It seems some people rake every week in the fall, like mowing the lawn, and expect their neighbours to do likewise so leaves don't blow onto their property.

I usually rake twice in the fall - once when close to half the leaves are off the branches, and a second time when snow seems imminent (just before Halloween). Am I a bad neighbour?

I think you should ask for your leaves back that he stole from your lawn.

I am a rake once after the first snow melts off or end of October.