KAREN WANTS TO SPEAK WITH YOUR LAWN SERVICE.

We could make a case that the people who were most neurotic about locking the country down at least had a contagious disease to fret about.  I'm not sure what to do with the recent neuroses involving mechanical leaf blowers.  But if you're a neurotic cat lady or a woke wine woman, there's always something to stress over.  "Leaf Blower Fight Roils Greenwich, Conn., Home to World’s Most Perfect Lawns."  That's from The Wall Street Journal, a newspaper whose real-estate section is called "Mansion."  You'd think that people who hired in lawn services might understand something about hiring silence.  "Couldn't he talk with his neighbor about the timing of yard work? Pay the landscaper a bribe to show up later? Find one of those Third Places to hang out at on Thursdays?"

No, it's New England, and Karen wants to have a town meeting.

“The roar, roar, roar is inescapable!” longtime resident Monica Prihoda said at a recent town meeting, imitating a motor with her voice. “Even the storm windows do not protect me.”

“Please,” she implored local officials. “I beg you.”

More than 100 cities nationwide, including some near Greenwich, restrict loud leaf blowers. But the tony New York City suburb that is home to billionaires and hedge funds, has long refused to turn over a new leaf. Town leaders decades ago exempted gas-powered blowers from Greenwich’s noise ordinance.

Now, a coalition of residents called “Quiet Yards Greenwich” is being anything but quiet. Raking through reams of documents and citing a case from the 17th century (about a neighbor’s pig sty), they are pushing for a seasonal limit on gas-powered leaf blowers—and urging the use of electric ones instead.

Karen even got to speak with the manager.

Svetlana Wasserman took this selfie with neighbor Karen DeWahl.  Retrieved from Wall Street Journal.

The manager made enough money from yard care to buy one of those Greenwich mansions.

In fierce opposition are some landscapers, who’ve already invested in gas-powered equipment.

“I totally respect your desire to go green—organic lawn care, electric cars, healthy organic food…but it’s your choice,” Roberto Fernandez, a Greenwich resident and owner of a local landscaping company, said at the town meeting. “Don’t force homeowners and professional landscapers and tree companies to go and think like you.”

After testing electric blowers, Fernandez concluded they weren’t strong enough. They weighed more than traditional blowers and required charging too frequently, he added.

The leaf-blower debate has split Greenwich’s landscaping industry.

Jeff Cordulack, who owns a local landscaping company, said he saves money on gasoline by using electric blowers. His employees wield two hand-held ones at the same time, and they work fine, he says.

“They blow very strong,” said Cordulack, who supports putting limits on gas-powered blowers. “We throw leaves around.”

Sure looks like much ado about nothing.  Hire Mr Cordulack's company?  Pay Mr Fernandez more to purchase the electric kind?  Find an entrepreneurial kid with a leaf rake?  No, the only remedy is more litigation.

The uprising against blaring blowers is years in the making. The wealthy community’s anti-leaf blower movement started in the 1990s with the formation of a group called Project Quiet Yards. They lobbied Greenwich officials to limit the use of the noisy lawn tools. Those efforts failed. Instead, the town gave gas-powered leaf blowers an exemption to the local noise ordinance, establishing the hours the tools could be used.

A decade later, a new coalition dubbed Citizens Against Leaf Blower Mania unsuccessfully took up the cause.

When the pandemic forced residents to stay home, many faced a roaring symphony of leaf-blowers during work and school. A new group of fed-up locals organized Quiet Yards Greenwich in 2021.

Co-founder Elizabeth Dempsey said the insulated walls and windows of her home on a 3.79-acre lot are no match for the gas-powered leaf blowers in her neighborhood during busy blowing months.

“I can hear it in my house all day,” said Dempsey, a 61-year-old former banker.

Svetlana Wasserman, a 53-year-old former management consultant, moved from a nearby town in Westchester County, N.Y., for a home with a bigger yard in 2019. “One of the first things that jumped out at me when I moved here, despite living in the back country and 5-acre estates, is how friggin’ noisy it is,” she said.

Even among spacious lots with few neighbors, Wasserman said she can’t escape the leaf blowers. She puts on earbuds and plays music when she needs a reprieve, she said.

“Sometimes I play Radiohead,” said Wasserman, also of Quiet Yards Greenwich. “Usually it’s some pretty angry music.”

Sophie Koven, another member, said one pivotal moment for her occurred last year during her son’s eighth-grade graduation, further solidifying her opposition to the tools. Midway through the outdoor ceremony, the blare of a gas-powered leaf blower coming from the adjacent property began drowning out the student speaker, who could barely be heard above the buzz.

“One person operating one leaf blower can just ruin an event for 800 people, and no one can do anything about it,” said Koven, 49, who works as a mediator.

So much privilege.  Four acre lots.  Mediators without a lick of common sense, something like, "Hey, buddy, we've got an event going here, can it wait?"  These are our elites?