Obsessive neighbour losing the plot over leaves

[Sparkies2012]

Our neighbours are a relatively elderly couple and since they moved in have had a bee in their bonnet over leaves that blow onto their driveway. The gate to our driveway is opposite to their open driveway, separated by a narrow road. Our next door neighbour has a massive old tree in their garden that produces a lot of leaves, most of which fall into our driveway. We don’t really bother collecting the leaves, as it is an endless task at this time of the year, but the elderly couple is constantly on at us because the leaves blow across the road into their driveway and the odd one gets in their front door. Now we have told them we don’t produce the leaves, and they don’t bother us, so if they are bothered by the leaves either pick them up or take it up with our neighbour who owns the tree. But now they have even started collecting them in black bags and, under the cover of darkness, leaving them in front of our driveway gate, or throwing them over our fence. I’m tempted next time they do this to open the bag and dump it over their driveway again. AIBU by not picking up the leaves in our garden?

Get a leaf blower and blow every bloody leaf into their drive, that'll keep them busy.

Do you think they may need help/some sort of support? Do you have anything like Community Wardens where you are? Our local chap (employed by Kent County Council) is really good at dealing with social problems like this. We had an old dear** over the road whose bloody car alarm was going off at random times. She would just stand in the drive and stare helplessly until he "popped in", diagnosed the problem and it was sorted within 24 hours. He's also been helpful getting support for a neighbour who very clearly wasn't coping.

** I don't know who I think I am, calling anyone else an old dear! 😉

Some of us may well end up like this, obsessing over trivialities. It still doesnt mean people should pander to us.

For a pp who mentioned getting all the local children involved. Currently on my street ( * tree lined btw) there are only grandchildren who visit. Why would I go ask all the neighbours to get there grandkids to pick up leaves? What about safeguarding? What if the parents say no? Grandparents say no?
Am I just left picking up the entire street of leaves by myself? Or would it be easier for the older couple who has this massive issue to move?

I vote They move.

• as in the grass verges all have a tree on them. They create billions of leaves and then about half are blossom trees too. Belongs to the council. So if someone had an issue they should take it up with the council.

I think you should order a courier and send all the leaves back to them. In huge boxes! This way it's their property and their responsibility to dispose of them 😆maybe it will teach them 😂

I brushed up my leaves this morning and thought of this thread.

Bloody love this thread. If it makes you feel better, I have exactly the same problem. The enormous tree is in our garden and has a TPO on it. To get it crowned, the tree surgeon bill is £3500! My elderly next door neighbour are effing obsessed with the leaves, the tree, our garage, our garden, us! The man is very frail but still goes out twice a day with his leaf blower. He has been moaning at us about leaves for 16 years. I've told him I don't control the wind! We've had her sweeping up leaves on our drive! Our garage borders their drive and I caught her up a ladder cleaning out the gutter on OUR garage on Christmas Day!! I mean, FFS! Just this morning, she got the council round to clear the drains "due to leaves". I told the poor council chap that the drains aren't blocked, the drainage is fine, and it's Autumn! Just weird, weird, weirdos!
Unhappy old people with nothing else to do in life, and clearly no family visiting on Christmas Day.
When we first moved in and clocked they were nutters, we thought we'll they are old. They won't be a problem forever. It certainly feels like forever!
P.s. to make you laugh. Despite being very frail and ill with heart and lung problems, the old chap.smokes like a chimney and takes great pleasure in flicking his cig butts onto our drive. I saw red and collected them all up into a pile and made a mound on their drive. Neither have ever mentioned this and he has never dropped a cig but since, so I reckon she gave him a bollocking!
😄😄😄😄

I suppose the elderly might be afraid of slipping on wet leaves and having a fall. Doesn't excuse their behaviour though.

Colluding with your neighbour in what?? Causing autumn?

Not you're tree not you're problem also if their putting the leaves outside you're door its trespassing, put the bags at the neighbors his problem his tree if neighbor asks who dumped the leaves be honest with him and tell him. They cant worm their way out of it then without incriminating themselves

And just to add, I am a very keen gardener and until recently kept chickens. I have bagged and bagged and bagged leaves. Pricked holes in the bags, added a little water. Left then behind our shed for 2 years. The leaves of some varieties of oak do not break down easily. While I love the idea of lots of free leaf mulch in just 12 months, that's not the reality with our tree.

That is brilliant 😬! Another clever poster higher up the thread suggested the owner of the offending tree should ‘apprehend’ the leaves before they flew off!! 😂😂!

Off topic but I once went to cooler than cool club in Shoreditch back in the late nineties. National Express came on and the place went crazy. Never seen so many adults have so much fun when they had previously looked like they were auditioning for the overly miserable version of Andy Warhol's factory scene. Has a soft spot for that song ever since.

Out of interest, why, when it’s an old person, is it ‘having a fall’ and not ‘falling’? I do understand how the consequences of falling can be much greater with age but I don’t see why that means we have to change the language around it in such an irritating way!

@eastegg We had been debating this very subject when a couple of months ago I fell badly. Without exception all hospital notes, letters and beloved relatives refer to me "having a bad fall" I am mid seventies so I guess it starts sometime before then

It's one of the ways in which older people are infantilised by society and particularly by healthcare professionals.

Probably because for older people it can be a death sentence, if not immediately, it can start the cycle of operations, joint replacements, infections, pneumonia etc. The language is to differentiate it from something that is a mild annoyance when you're 2/9/20/30.

I don't think it's infantilising to use a more serious-sounding phrase when, for many older folk, it can lead to serious injury, a big deterioration in quality of life and can indeed end in their death, if sufficiently old and frail.

Toddlers fall over all the time, but it's virtually never serious at all. They either get back up and instantly forget about it or shed a few tears before a quick cuddle makes it all better again.

For those of us in the middle, it might be a sore arse and aches and pains for a few days, but it's virtually unheard-of for somebody aged under 60 to fall over on ice or slippery leaves and end up in hospital or even dying as a result.

But even if, contrary to what OP has said, they really were frail and very elderly (rather than just 'older'), it's still got absolutely nothing to do with OP why the leaves blow from the house to her left, via her garden, and then cause issues for the house to her right.

If somebody near you were chain-smoking a series of dirty big cigars and making it unpleasant and difficult for you to breathe, you wouldn't shout at somebody else who just happened to be standing between you and blame them for it, would you?

I drive down a tree lined street near me and think how beautiful the leaves are and how I'd never want to live there.

I would personally keep them bagged ( make some holes) and use for mulch in spring. Bizarre they've chosen the OP to receive the leaves though.

A friend of mine in his early 70s fell and damaged his hip a couple of years back and told me he'd "had a fall". I pointed out that this was something that only happened to "the elderly and infirm" and as he had been single-handedly moving his boat on to a trailer when it happened, he probably didn't qualify. He agreed that he just slipped and fell over, but said that his medical notes claimed he'd had a fall!

Not read all the replies, but if they are in black bags, keep them as they will turn into compost for Summer.

Sorry you have batshit elderly and annoying neighbours though.

I wish I’d never asked about ‘having a fall’. I was very deliberate about acknowledging how serious it can be for older people, because my own DM slipped on wet paving nearly 4 years ago, had a seriously broken ankle as a result and then had a debilitating stroke 6 weeks later. Ended up a shadow of her former self. But thanks to those posters reminding me how serious falling can be 🙄.

I was questioning the specific use of language, which I actually don’t think is more ‘serious sounding’ as one pp put it. Never mind.

So nice to read a comment that resonates with the one I posted earlier. I totally agree with you

They will probably have too much time on their hands to dwell on what you might consider unimportant things. Its not worth falling out over a pile of leaves. Bite your tongue and get out the sweeping brush

You can't be serious.

I’ve heard it said that a sign you’re getting old is when you refer to yourself as having a fall instead of falling. Or had a fall instead of fell. Apparently there’s a stage of life or threshold that people pass through where they change this language about themselves! Scary.

OP, please come back! I'm concerned that you're now underneath their (treeless) patio.

Honestly, some people just loathe nature. It's so messy and unpredictable!