Welcome to BrainStuff, a production of I Heart Radio.

Hey BrainStuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum,

and today's episode is a classic from our archives.

It was, in fact, the first BrainStuff episode I ever recorded back in 2017, which feels like it was about 32 years ago.

I wanted to run this one again because with fall upon us here in the northern hemisphere

and the trees starting to change colors and shed their leaves,

one of our greatest enemies has re-emerged,

the leaf blower.

Hey brain stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. Ah, the sounds of autumn, the satisfying crunch of a crisp apple or fallen leaves under your feet,

or the teeth grinding noise of a leaf blower.

Powered by electric or gasoline motors that propel air out of a nozzle to send leaves and grass

cuttings flying, leaf blowers are probably the most villainized devices in the lawn care universe

due to the noise that they emit. In the mid-1970s when Leaf Blowers became

ubiquitous in the United States, two California cities adopted early bands of the equipment.

Carmel by the sea and Beverly Hills labeled the leaf blowers a noise nuisance and

banned their use, a move that has been followed by hundreds of other cities

across the United States to some degree.

But what is it about leaf blowers that people hate?

Is it the decibels, the constancy?

Do leaf blowers pose real dangers to the health of users or others who happen to be within earshot?

Increasingly, the answer appears to be yes, to all of the above.

Leaf blowers may send leaves and lawn clippings for a ride,

...