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I called the police on my neighbors for violating lock-down rules
Four households of them. They all employ the same gardening crew. Commercial gardeners cannot operate under the new regime here in San Mateo County. Yet they do. I spoke with one of their employers and very politely asked that she call them up and tell them not to come. I even offered to mow her lawn for free! (I adore this particular neighbor) She requested that I ask some other employer (neighbor) to do so, saying that she does not want to cause trouble in the ‘hood. I told her that I am asking her because she is a lawyer and as such she must have no trouble whatsoever in saying, “No”, because what good is a lawyer that cannot say, “No”? She gave me their phone number. I said I will not call them because I have no relationship with them and I have tried talking to them but we have no language in common. Eventually she offered that she would tell them not to come because there was a neighbor who would call the police if they did. I do not know whether she followed through, but they arrived again on Saturday afternoon as they usually do. I immediately called the police. The dispatcher seemed annoyed, and told me that some sergeant somewhere would “prioritize” the complaint. The police never came. I totally understand the actual situation for the police – they will be accused of racism, undermining trust of communities at risk, all of that stuff. I suspect that the gardeners knew the police would not respond because they have been around awhile and know that the more petty of the laws do not apply to them. VDH has often described this situation and he is correct. We are a sanctuary. There is nothing illegal about being illegal – or not much, its sort of vague . . . The law is a legal fiction, depending on one’s ethnicity. The gardeners know the lay of the land.
To be honest, my problem with the gardeners does not relate to the virus. I have been known to exceed the only-within-5-mile-from-home restrictions on bike riding. Rather, I suspect I have a genetic predisposition (or something) that makes the sound of a leaf blower disabling for me. It drives me crazy! Immediately. I am trying to use the law to eliminate this blight from my locked-down existence. Continuing with the honesty, this group of gardeners is particularly unsympathetic, because I saw them pointing at me and laughing as I planted a lawn from seed, and another time when my damn mower would not start.
So what to do? I have contemplated filing a suit for trespass for the dust, leaves spores, mold, etc., that is deposited on my property that is the actual purpose (not side effect) of a leaf blower. I could call 911 for an obvious non-emergency. I have already (some years ago) petitioned my local government to restrict leaf blowers. It turns out thats racist!
It is bad enough to be ridiculed by gardeners for being an old white guy trying to start an old lawn mower. Now I feel like an old man shaking his fist at clouds demanding something impossible. Not good!
Published in Policing
Obligatory:
Get a life! 😇
I got into an argument with the owner of the lawn service I was using a few years ago because the person mowing the yard would direct the mower so that the grass clippings went into my pool. I told him that since he had one guy mowing, one guy weed whacking and one guy coming behind to blow things around, he could get the blower to track the mower and divert the grass from my pool. He thought that was ridiculous so I fired him. The company I use now uses a mulching mower that doesn’t send clippings into the pool.
I’m still a bit freaked out that so many of my fellow Ricocheteers don’t mow their own lawns.
I’m interacting with high society, I guess.
I do my own. I need the exercise.
I never hired anyone to mow my lawn. I’m in Arizona now and my lawn is rocks.
Yes, and the noise cancel headphones. Follow them in time along your property line. It would be a leaf blower cancellation action.
We have a homeowner garden service for the front. I appreciate their service immensely, but I HATE that they blow all the dust and debris from the sidewalk at my house and doors and windows.
I may just start sitting in my yard because The very considerate rule they follow is they turn off the blower if you walk by.
Now THAT is a solution.
Comparative advantage.
I have the utmost respect for law enforcement officers, in general.
But, as you suggest, they are often the tip of the spear of big, out of control government.
When I lived in southern California I could hire lawn mowing for what I considered a very low price. One service did several houses on our block (1500 sq ft houses on 7200 sq ft lots) so his crew could park the truck at one end of the street, and the 3 guys could work along the block very efficiently (they didn’t have to wait for each other to finish one yard before moving on to the next). So service owner discounted his price for us all while still making a tidy profit. Also, since it was in southern California, unskilled labor was inexpensive. If I had mowed the yard myself, I would have had to buy, store, and maintain equipment. The storing was the big issue, as I have very little storage space at that house.
In western New York I mowed my own because labor I would have hired was relatively expensive, and there I had space to store the equipment (I even had a riding mower, and found riding around on it listening to podcasts relaxing).
Now in Texas I mow my own because I’m now retired and so my time is less valuable. Although I again have very little storage space, I chose small electric and battery powered equipment that is compact to store and doesn’t also require space consuming fuel, oil, and other equipment maintenance supplies.
The reason for this phenomena is quite simple:
Time spent mowing the lawn is time not spent on the golf course.
I’d rather mow the lawn.
There are moments on the golf course when the way I’m playing tells me I should have stayed home and mowed the lawn.
Full disclosure: I employ others to mow my lawn too. Here are some of my employees:
So there are no noise laws anymore? No one can disturb the peace? Shame, really. How many decibels are we supposed to endure like sheep? I remember when cars had 1000 watt amps and would blast through the streets. This went on for YEARS. But something happened a few years ago. My guess is that the cops started to crack down and enforce the actual laws once enough citizens complained. In any case, it has been a long time since I heard one in my town.
Now as for motorcycles–I like those guys so I cut them some slack, but some bikes are made to be really obnoxious. When my pleasure equals your misery, something is wrong. Nothing conservative or liberal about it.
You have yourself enough for a goat rodeo there!
Exercise…and that hour and a half each week with the mower running is the “quiet” me time I need so much.
Those guys are stealing jobs from American vegans!
How about we just not be calling the police on people at all right now. I’d encourage the landscapers to be out working. Good for them!
It’s jest.
That many goats, you need a horse to keep them happy.
I self-identify as American, a certain philosophy of pragmatical idealism which I view as the best ideology of a Christian.
What you see as a logical puzzle isn’t one at all. It is only a puzzle about the best path to be chosen from today to tomorrow.
We Americans are conservative in (a) our epistemology and (b) in our pragmatical decision-making process.
But we are radically liberal in our views about what is right and what is wrong, and about what form of social organization–the Constitutional republican compromise of Madison/Jefferson and Hamilton/Washington, John Adams, and Samuel Adams/Patrick Henry–supports the general happiness of a certain people (us) and what form does not.
Neither aspect of the American nature–our liberalism of ideals and ends, and our conservativism with respect to present positive action and means–trumps the other.
We are comfortable with there being a grey area between what we think we can know and what we think we cannot know (this is the Burkean conservative side of our heritage: America, like England, is an experiment to determine what parts of our traditions to discard, and which to keep).
We are comfortable with the grey area between Locke and the uncertain path to achieve his ends.
Do you support Chinese law enforcement? Some laws – particularly laws that were given illegally – cannot simply be “changed.” The governor of my state just extended our house arrest until June. The only appropriate response is for everyone, all at once, to flip him the bird and dare him to enforce it. Our government is becoming no better than the totalitarian regimes we would physically oppose. Nothing makes me angrier.
What’s with the hate for leaf blowers? Here’s what’s wrong with using a rake:
Just think of it as a labor-saving device.
On the contrary, I think you are seeing the conservatives behave as you note because of arbitrariness of enforcement as directed by political power.
A position like yours, supported by 10 detailed concrete arguments for, and 10 against, requires the unique specialized skills of our detail-oriented concrete-thinking Ricochet policy analysts. If you need us, the big-picture logical/analytical abstract theoretical thinkers, let us know. We’ve got your back.
I think you have some good reasons for using a leaf blower instead of a rake. I’m not going to take the time to describe the situations I complain about but I assure you, in most of them, a rake would be easy.
Although, if this is satire, it is pretty good satire. Kudos to you if you had me fooled on first reading.
We have identified the penultimate Karen.
Hmmm. Are you the guy who lives next door to Rand Paul?