Open letter to the City of White Rock.
Please ban these health hazardous leaf blowers.
After a lousy sleep, I woke up the other morning to this blasted noise of a leaf blower. My first thought was, no, not again, I don’t like this blast from the past. Grateful to our strata council supporting me a year ago to have the blowers stopped.
But here is the landscaper blowing ‘crap’ off the sidewalk right into our open windows again. I knew what this would mean to my poor nose; yes, infection, fungus, bacteria you name it, whatever swirls around in the air may end up in my sinuses. I got one of those super sensitive noses.
What blows my mind is, here is the leaf blower, and he is wearing earplugs! His tool is diesel/petrol operated and the dangerous dust it dislodges is pollution. The dust contains everything from animal fecal matter to nasty bacteria and mold spores, which I happen to pick up if I breathe any of these airborne particles in.
I am aware the blowers are commonly used as a shortcut to sweeping dirt from the sidewalks/concrete etc. May I dispel this myth that the blowers cut the workload and save council taxpayers’ money? According to my analysis, if it takes one person with a broom and rake one hour to move one small scattering of leaves, it will take two men with blowers the same time to redistribute them.
Then they have to get the person with the rake to pile them up and take them away. And we pay for the blowers, the pollution and in my case I pay to get infected. You may think it is melodramatic, not when you need your sinuses endoscopically cleaned weekly.
The leaf blowers are all over town and whether I walk or drive, the majority of “blowers” don’t stop.
Perhaps good old non-motorized tools are cheaper than leaf blowers and, according to several tests, nearly as fast.
Maybe the City of White Rock could create some jobs by hiring people to use a broom and rake, just like the good old days.
Maggie Bernet, White Rock