Fed up with noisy leaf blowers
Question: We live in a common interest development in Los Angeles and are fed up with loud lawn mowers and leaf blowers. Our gardener has been fined three times for using leaf blowers and loud equipment. Our board pays all the fines and encourages the gardeners to ignore the law.
The owner of the gardening business charges us more to use rakes and justifies the higher cost by calling it “manual labor.” Even paying more, his workers continue to use the blowers for everything but leaves. I wake up to the smell of exhaust and the noise of loud equipment right outside my front door very early in the morning.
Homeowners have tried to ask the gardeners to stop, but they mock us by using the blower to blow circles around us.
The board said that because the leaf blower is mounted on the gardener’s back, it is legal. The city told us they are understaffed and don’t have the budget to take care of these complaints. The police don’t seem to be interested either, as we keep calling but they don’t show up. What is the law and what are we to do?
Answer: Invented in Japan in the 1970s and adopted by California in the drought-plagued 1980s, leaf blowers were labeled as one of the country’s “inventions we love to hate” in a Learning Channel documentary and voted the third-worst invention ever, behind parking meters and car alarms.
Although challenged by various nationwide consumer watch groups, manufacturers claim leaf blowers are estimated to be about five times faster than rakes when it comes to moving debris around.
Critics note, however, that rakes don’t routinely generate noise levels of 70 to 75 decibels, nor do rakes launch particulates into the atmosphere. As determined by the American National Standards Institute, a 65-decibel level measured at a distance of 50 feet can actually be as high as 90 decibels outside your front door.
The rules on leaf blowers are contingent upon where you live. In Los Angeles, use of gas-powered blowers “within 500 feet of a residence at anytime” is illegal.
Both the user of the blower and the individual or association “that contracted for the services of the user, if any, shall be subject to a fine not to exceed” $100. Penalty assessments added to those fines can bring the total to $270.
By paying the fines incurred by the gardeners, the board may actually be a party to the illegal conduct. The board’s concerns should include homeowner complaints about how the noise is affecting the quality of life.
Enforcement is a problem, acknowledged James Washington, a chief inspector in the city Bureau of Street Services, because “there are only two officers for the Los Angeles area.”
Susan Strick, the West Los Angeles neighborhood prosecutor, stressed it is still important to “educate employers, homeowners and homeowner association boards that the Los Angeles Municipal Code prohibits use of gasoline leaf blowers within 500 feet of a residence.”
“Placing the blower on one’s back is still a violation of the ordinance,” she said.
At the state level, California’s Health and Safety Code, Section 41700, states that “no person shall discharge from any source whatsoever such quantities of air contaminants or other material which cause injury, detriment, nuisance, or annoyance to any considerable number of persons or to the public, or which endanger the comfort, repose, health, or safety of any such persons or the public, or which cause, or have a natural tendency to cause, injury or damage to business or property.”
If the leaf blowing is occurring within the city of Los Angeles, inquire at your local Los Angeles Police Department station about the possibility of a citizen’s arrest. If fines are levied on a regular basis, that might put a stop to the noise and air pollution you are experiencing. Boards that employ vendors that break the law also face fines and prosecution for each infraction.
“Quiet enjoyment” is a term lawyers use, but it says exactly what the homeowner is entitled to, even for those living in deed-restricted developments. A Web site for more information and links to leaf blower facts is www.zapla.org.
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Stephen Glassman and Donie Vanitzian are the co-authors of “Villa Appalling: Destroying the Myth of Affordable Community Living” (Villa Appalling Publishing Inc., 2002). Please send questions to P.O. Box 451278, Los Angeles, CA 90045 or e-mail CIDCommonSense@earthlink.net.
