Rules exist for a reason, and most of the time are there to make things run more smoothly. That said, sometimes they’re also completely arbitrary and make people’s lives that much harder.
This guy hired a leaf pickup service. They had all kinds of rules about where the leaves should be stacked, how far they had to be from a mailbox, etc.
The leaf collection company for my neighborhood has absurdly strict rules about where leaves must be for pickup. I live at the end of a cul-de-sac, so my curb is curved and pretty short (about 30′ / 9m) long.
My property is wedge-shaped, so my back yard is quite long (200′ / 60m) and has 40-50 oak trees. I also have two sugar maples in my front yard. So, leaves. Lots of leaves.
Pickup rules state leaves must be within 5′ of the curb, but on the road. They must also be at least 15′ from a mailbox. Because subscriptions for leaf pickup are by individual homeowner, neighbors are not allowed to combine leaves and cannot buy a group subscription.
Subscribers must only put “their” leaves from “the current year” out for pickup. Pickup trucks use GPS to identify homes who have signed up and ignore leaves in front of homes that did not sign up.
OP knew he wasn’t going to be able to follow them all because of where his house was situated, so he called and asked how he should handle it.
Because I have so many leaves and so little curb (only 15′ of available curb due to the required distance from a mailbox), I called the leaf collection company and asked to put the leaves along a longer curb I share with my neighbor.
“No problem,” they said.
Great!
When the pickup guys came, though, they left the leaves that didn’t follow protocol. That time when he called he was told he had to follow the rules as they were laid out.
The truck came through and picked up a fraction of the pile and left the rest of the pile the driver decided was in front of my neighbor’s property.
I called the company back and a different person said those are the rules. I’ll just have to figure it out.
Fine. Now it’s on.
So, OP got creative. He bought up all of the leaves from his neighbors and raked them into a pile that was almost taller than his house – but that technically complied with the rules.
I have 15′ of width and 5′ of depth. There is, however, no limit on height. I moved the remaining leaves to my available curb space. I collected the rest of my leaves and added them to the pile.
I spoke with my neighbors and acquired the rights to their leaves by paying them $1 each. Now they are all “my” leaves.
I shoveled / swept the leaves off the streets. They went on the pile.
I collected the purchased leaves from the neighbors. They went on the pile. Leaves continued to fall, so I kept adding them. It was a lot of work, but the pile was over 12′ tall.
I spent a ton of time using a snow shovel to fling the leaves to the top of the pile that was more than 5′ above my head. Neighborhood residents stopped to gape at the epic leaf mound.
I am happy to battle willful ignorance with malicious compliance. I reminded myself of this every time I spent another hour tending to the obscenity on my curb.
They took the leaves, though it required a couple of trips.
The truck came today. The pile dwarfed the truck.
They had to drive away and dump leaves, then come back and reload.
Twice.
I just know the passive-aggressive Redditors are going to get a chuckle out of this one!
The top commenter really wishes they could jump in those leaves.
While this person says this malicious compliance deserves five stars.
This Floridian can’t imagine going to these lengths, though.
If you want an excuse to leave your leaves alone, here it is.
Down with capitalism.
This is an argument that never ends.
But no one is arguing that OP did an excellent MC.
