Gasoline-Powered Leaf Blowers

How I wish I had seen Petti Rados’ letter (Oct. 3) regarding the “infernal machines” (dust blowers)! But I did see the reply from Richard Seeley (Oct. 27).

I have fired three gardeners for the use of this contraption! The very name of “blower” signifies how worthless it is. Everything is blown about--not removed, or cleaned up, mind you, but blown from one place to another. In one case, it was over my 6-foot fence into my neighbor’s yard.

I have seen dust, leaves, weeds and other debris blown 15 to 25 feet into the air by this “blower.” Of course, this matter does not remain where it was, but is blown into heaps in other locations where the hapless homeowner must take the traditional rake to gather it up and throw it away.

I don’t know who invented this device, or why, or what it’s proper use is, but I do know that all gardeners latched onto it very quickly as a way to move the muck around without having to dispose of it. I do not have a gardener now, and I’m doing the same thing I did when I had one, i.e., raking up the debris and disposing of it.

Now, instead of having to find and extract it from behind bushes and plants where it is difficult to get to, and where it ends up after being blown about, I am simply raking it up from where it falls. The blower is just another form of “sweeping the dirt under the carpet.”

Gardeners, indeed--more like bad housekeepers!

JEANNE KOMINOS

Cerritos