Who are the most clueless people in the world?

Easy, they’re the ones who use leaf blowers to move yard debris and dirt into the street or the neighbor’s yard.

Six times in the past two weeks I have seen people manned with leaf blowers cleaning front yards, sidewalks and the streets immediately in front of homes. Each time they blow the debris to the property line — which means the neighbor’s yard — or either to the middle of the street or the street in front of a next-door home.

Outside of this being incredibly rude, it is also incredibly useless.

The odds are that a part of the dirt, leaves, and lawn clippings are going to end up back in the yards being cleaned. It is safe to say that such people would not be welcomed in Holland that makes cleanliness of public places including streets a virtue.

None of this means everyone who welds a leaf blower is clueless. There are people who actually blow things into piles and then clean it up.

The biggest offenders, by far, of the leaf blowers are those who do it for a living. Why would anyone pay anyone good money to disrespect their neighbors or simply move their yard debris into the street?

Whatever happened to doing a thorough job for the money? I understand the drill calls for you to squeeze as many yard jobs into a day that you can, but what is wrong with simply blowing debris into a pile and picking it up or — heaven forbid — using a broom and a rake?

There are good yard services out there. I can think of more than a few.

I will admit that the yards that have been worked over with the leaf blowers that are loud enough to wake the dead do look spotless – for a day or so. But if that is the look people want, then they should do it right. And doing it right means picking it up and not spreading it to the rest of the neighborhood.

My yard doesn’t look spotless. You will find leaves left behind even after I rake it. But I’m not rude enough to simply push them into someone else’s yard.