If the leaves don't know property lines, should the bags have to respect them?

One of the most iconic things that come with fall is the fallen leaves. There's something so magical about watching how they start turning more beige, then a darker brown, and finally have most of them fall off the trees. It's the circle of life, and we are now very used to this moment. Some people love it and find it incredible, while others can't stand leaves in their yard.

And who can blame them? Leaves make the place look untidy and messy, especially if they aren't from your own tree.

A neighbor has three huge maple trees in his yard, and every fall, he gets up at 8 am and blows the leaves into the other house's front yard. Starting on the 15th of this month, they get picked up by a truck, but they have to be carefully disposed of in bags on the curb of the house. Not spread around on other people's homes. 

One homeowner, who saw how his garden turned brown, complained and asked him to pick up the leaves. The neighbor laughed and told him that leaves "don't know property lines". And, honestly, I get his point. Of course they don't, but he does. If you're trying to clean up your yard, you shouldn't be dumping all of them into others' homes.

Anyway, what the homeowner did taught him a valuable lesson, something that I've done in the past with a similar situation. Instead of backing down and pretending that nothing happened and waiting for the leaves to be collected, he put them inside eight trash bags and put those in the neighbor's yard. This is what he was supposed to do…

The neighbor was upset and threatened to call the police for dumping trash on his garden. But it's not trash: those are his own maple leaves. And since they won't be picked up until the 15th, the neighbor still has the bags full of leaves on his front porch. What a good way of teaching a lesson to someone who doesn't respect boundaries.