Real Estate

Real Estate: A lazy homeowner’s guide to raking

If you're looking to hire, which is columnist Grant Parpan's #1 raking tip, then Manuel Canel (left) of Canel Landscaping of Riverhead is available. Above he's cleaning up an Aquebogue yeard with his crew, Jose Canel (center) and Victor Garcia (right hidden). (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)
If you’re looking to hire, which is columnist Grant Parpan’s #1 raking tip, then Manuel Canel (left) of Canel Landscaping of Riverhead is available. Above he’s cleaning up an Aquebogue yeard with his crew, Jose Canel (center) and Victor Garcia (right hidden). (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)

I don’t like leaves.

Sure, they’re beautiful when they change color, and I appreciate the shade they help provide on a hot day. But the agony caused by having to physically rake up thousands of leaves from my yard each autumn is enough to make me generally dislike them. 

My next door neighbor, Marion, appears to enjoy picking up leaves. A couple of weeks back, on a third consecutive day of rain, I heard that awful noise a rake makes as it pushes through the leaves. It was coming from her yard.

“I just couldn’t take another day of having to look at those leaves on my lawn,” Marion yelled out when I questioned why she was raking in a downpour. If only it were socially acceptable, I thought, I could tolerate another decade of them covering my lawn.

It’s not just the act of raking that bothers me, but also the scooping up and bagging, which is required in Brookhaven Town, where I live.

I suppose I could just hire someone to do it, but I’d rather spend that money on things I can’t physically do or just don’t have the aptitude or patience for, like pool and automobile maintenance or cleaning my toilet.

So over the past few years, I’ve come to grips with having to clear my yard, even if I haven’t learned to love it.

This fall I decided to put together a little cheat sheet for my fellow lazy homeowners on how to go about cleaning up all those leaves when it’s the last thing on earth you feel like doing.

If you’re a meticulous, hard-working homeowner with a Stepford yard, you can stop reading and click to a new page.