.... to object to people pressure washing garden paving?

[JennieLee]

It just seems very noisy and goes on for hours. I have neighbours on either side who like to do this.

Is it a clean freak thing to do like bleaching door frames? I've heard it's not actually very good for the stones.

I just sweep the paved areas of the garden with an old-fashioned broom from time to time.

(Naturally I tolerate this in the way you have to tolerate neighbours' eccentricities. But this seems to be some new fashion. I can't remember it happening when I was younger.)

Our neighbours (both sides) also pressure wash their roofs every year - the mess they cause with displaced lichen and moss is appalling. Patio cleaning is a minor inconvenience in comparison.

Laughing at the idea that Jeyes fluid is better for the environment

I do it because my patio gets covered in pigeon shit. Not a good look.

Jeyes fluid data sheet

I bloody love my pressure washer. We get a dreadful biofilm and have a dog that wees in the yard. Mines out every few weeks. Keeps the paving stones looking marvellous. A sweep with a hard brush doesn't keep things clean.

So, for those environmentally conscious enough to not want to use Jeyes but not so environmentally conscious enough to refrain from adding to the plastics polluting the ocean but internet savvy enough to find a Jeyes data sheet online....

how come you didn't discover that natural salt will also kill moss and algae?

sprinkle it and leave - no brushing, no plastics, no noise, no pollution.

It's on the internet too.

Yanbu - my neighbours wash their driveways all the time. They do it first thing and it always wakes me up. They have paving bricks, I don’t think they realise they’re washing the sand out which holds the bricks together. They’re going to have wonky drives soon.

So many times I read threads and find myself wondering how on earth some users manage to function in real-life if they have a conniption on hearing the slightest bit of outdoor noise.

They're just saying pressure washers are noisy and interfere with other peole's quiet enjoyment of their own places.

I'm afraid that's part and parcel of living around other people. If you don't want to hear pressure washers/lawnmowers/children playing yadda yadda pack up and move to the middle of nowhere. Or deal with it.

Yes, yes, yes for a grubby and dishevelled garden. If I want manicured I can always go to a public park.

Actually this reminds me of the thread about the woman who wanted to chop down the neighbours tree because it shed nasty filthy stuff like blossom and leaves and she had to keep going and hoovering all the stuff up on the ground that her child might go out there (and suffer blossom damage).

dh borrowed one and kept it for months because he loved it so much. It did make our concrete look much better. He wrote 'Hello' with it too.

We do have a problem with moss though. Caused partly by my watering the plants. I don't know how to deal with it, tbh.

(He had to give the pressure washer back a few months ago. He was very sad {wink})

There is a middle ground between manicured and dishevelled. Like maybe a nice normal garden that you can spend some down time in?

I can't eat my evening meal outside at a public park. But TBF our public park isn't really manicured...

Blossom on paths can be quite dangerous and slippy. They put signs up in our town centre.

I’m amazed at how many people have slimy patios that need jet-washing.

Ours is 1970s crazy paving and it’s never been slimy. I pick the weeds out by hand and sweep the dirt. Looks fine to me.

I think because I live a few miles away from the centre of a big city - ie not really outer suburbs, I like the fact that the garden is lush and green and slightly overblown - quite a few mature trees. It's a kind of refuge from a fairly urban environment. If everything was all mown and trimmed, there wouldn't be the sense of having a bit of my own private semi-wilderness/refuge. So most of my gardening is really a bit of hacking back to make sure the lights get in/the weeds don't take over. When my daughter was a baby, we gated the area where there is a small pond. And when my elderly father in law used to visit, we'd be careful about anything slippery as he was not steady on his feet. (Actually you are all making me realise how fond I am of it.)

futuristic1 - and what if all your garden is in the shade? We had to get rid of grass at the back as it just wouldn’t grow because of all the trees, we replaced with a large patio area - we’d break our bloody neck if we didn’t powerwash the moss away.

SuburbanRhonda - we are completely surrounded by trees and get very little sun. The moss grows quickly, especially as we live in wettest part of the country. It’s absolutely treacherous to walk on. Can’t get rid of the trees as they are protected and in the adjacent graveyard. It’s a bloody pain, but we did choose to live there!

You know id moss is such a problem maybe you've laid your patio in the wrong place.
Handily our shared path runs down the side of the house to the garden... and DH powerwashes it once a year as it becomes as slippy as glass in the wet otherwise and we are keen on our elderly neighbour not breaking her hip.
Also tbh I’d swap the sound of a power washer any day for our other neighbour discussing her sex-life for an hour at full volume on her phone. Why she thought that was suitable to be heard by half the road...

Are You saying you don't cut your grass either op?

Semi wilderness? How big is your garden?

I do it twice a year. It’s a filthy job but very satisfying. Can’t imagine doing it more often

Fair enough, just. Seems like there are a lot of people with slimy patios though - I wonder if they all live somewhere like you?

I’m in the south-east so maybe we have more sun here.

I cut the grass but it sometimes gets longish. The garden is narrow but long. Not huge but the furthest away bit you can't see from the house - partly because of trees. And it slopes down to an old farm pond from 150 years back. It gets wilder as you get further away. (The estate agent referred to that bit as 'the lower natural garden.')

Hilarious as DH just bought a Karcher. He did the highchair at weekend, it now looks like new.

I jet wash my back yard and pet hutches about 3/4 times a year as it gets mossy very easy and is as slippy as hell, and I can not put any chemicals down due the the pets that have full run of the area .

I have to do it at weekend as I work full time ( unless you wouldnt mind me doing it at 7pm when I get home from work )

There is a middle ground between manicured and dishevelled. Like maybe a nice normal garden that you can spend some down time in?
I agree.
I like my garden to be tidy and neat, not obsessively landscaped and photo worthy but nice enough to sit out and enjoy it.

I don't use a leaf blower and am not obsessed with looking like the chelsea flower show, but do like ny patio tidy, my deck clean and my lawn neat enough.

Maybe I am one of those neighbours. Our grass gets cut every fortnight in the summer (mainly to hide the weeds in it ) and this bank holiday I've been out weedkilling. It's a slippery slope. Maybr in 6 months I'll be trimming the lawn with nail scissors.

Same here Maisy, just a normal garden. Like most people lucky enough to have a garden have.

I don't understand leaf blowers, they don't seem to sort the problem do they?

I do mine 3 or 4 times a year & it's sooooo satisfying But I am thoughtful & do it during the week when I'm sure everyone has gone to work. Did my drive a while back to get the weeds out of the brick paving - ended up absolutely covered but it was such a good feeling at the end. I can't imagine why more people don't bother.