How early is too early to mow your lawn on a weekend or weekday? Most noise ordinances allow excessive noise starting at 7 am. So if someone mows their lawn too early what can you really do about it? Personally I dislike people that mow their lawns at 9 or 10 am on a weekend while I am trying to sleep. I think its disrespectful to do loud yardwork before noon on weekends.
Problem is, it gets too hot to mow in middle of the day. And by afternoon people have other weekend plans.
Right. I guess you have to do it some time. Imagine if people could coordinate to do it at the same time on a weekday morning or evening. Sometimes people need to rest on the weekends so thats why I hate hearing lawn mowing then. Around here you can also hire someone to mow it for like 20 bucks which is pretty cheap for an hour of sweating your ass off in the afternoon heat. I find it strange how early the noise ordinances end. Usually the noise curfew takes effect early in the evening around 10-11 pm and end early in the morning around 7 am. So playing loud music at 11:30 pm on a saturday night is considered a nuisance but playing it at 8:00 am on a sunday morning isn't. No respect for the people that like to go to concerts or sleep in. Gas powered lawn mowers contribute to about 5% of the air pollution in the US. While the design of reel lawn mowers is over 100 years old, it has been highly refined with modern state of the art, and could significantly reduce noise and air pollution. It seems like we are able to produce cars with mufflers that make them really quiet, but lawnmower mufflers are typically sub par. I mean when was the last time you heard a car that hadn't altered their muffler that was as loud as a lawnmower? In many areas the noise limit is subjective anyway and enforced with prejudice.
Some Hoity -Toity towns in NJ have ordances against such weekend noise as a disturbance of the peace. Leaf blowers are a big issue. There are ordances against doing home construction work on weekends. If you want to upgrade your fixer-upper in North Jersey its going to have to be done weekdays.
I’m a DIY guy who mows his own yard along with my neighbors on both sides of me. One neighbor like myself mows 90% of the time during the middle of the week. My other neighbor had a bad habit of firing up his gas powered weed-eater, edger, mower and blower on Sunday afternoons around 5-6 PM. He’s very lazy and hardly mows at all now. I do think about others in the neighborhood and hate to mow on Sundays, but every once in a while I have a schedule that leaves me no choice. I’m sure the neighbors frown at me. In the last couple of years I have replaced my 2 stroke weed-eater and blower with battery powered alternatives. It’s so much easier and quieter than the old gas powered ones. I think 8 AM on weekdays, 9 AM on Saturdays and 10 AM on Sundays would be the very earliest I would ever mow. Although Sundays should be no mow day.
I live out in the country, so we have no quiet time. We all farm, so from time to time we pull all nighters. I have bush hogged at 2:30 in the morning, and my neighbor has rode over on his ATV with cold beer. I don't believe in hoa's nor city ordinances. It's my land, i paid for it, and i should be able to do what i please any time i want to do it.
I have faced this dilemma as in my previous residence; I was tasked with mowing but skittish about edging the lawn's borders. But what time? I think if it has to wait until shortly before 11 AM it sounds like an ok thing to first do the toilet(s) and then mow (and then the windows, the kitchen, dust the dining room, and also vacuum the car, not to mention take out the trash, and put out drinking water).
Check out what this person did to get rid of their grass. Theres plenty of reasons to get rid of your lawn. Air pollution, noise pollution, pesticides, water use, biodiversity... Why We Shouldn’t Have Lawns - The National Wildlife Federation Blog 2002 the turfgrass industry generated a total revenue of 57.9 billion dollars! many standard lawns use about the same amount of water as 800 showers each year!
Thank you for your very timely post on lawns….much needed perspective. We live in the PNW and most of the houses in our neighborhood are surrounded by forest, and native vegetation ….trees are native Douglas Fir….mostly about 40 years old, but a scattering of 120 year old trees that are now about 40 inches or so DBH. Turf is minimal and shrinking…and we have an abundance of birds and other wildlife. A very natural and pleasant environment. Unfortunately most housing in our city is on traditional lots surrounded by grass with the fertilizer and pesticides that go with it.
