Leaf It Alone Or You’re Gonna Regret It

I keep a very clean yard. In the fall, I like to get all the leaves before it rains and they become a b*** to pull up wet. My neighbor doesn’t care about his yard, as he has owned the house for a few years and still has not moved in. He lives a few states away.

I’m finishing up, sucking up the leaves with my machine. Some of them blow into the neighbor’s driveway, maybe twenty leaves total. I finish up and go inside. About twenty minutes later, there’s a knock on the door and a squad car outside, with one of the officers still inside.

Me: “Hi, officer… everything okay?”

Officer: *Visibly annoyed.* “We got a call from your neighbor. He said you blew leaves into his driveway. He wants them cleaned up.”

Me: “You mean… the driveway of the guy who doesn’t even live there? He bought the house a few years ago but hasn’t even moved in yet.”

The officer sighs and gestures behind him.

Officer: “Yeah. He called it in from his doorbell camera. Look, I just need you to clear them. He’s watching.”

Me: “Fine, no problem. I’ll grab the blower. But while I’m out there… can I ask a favor? See that old car he’s got sitting there?”

The officer turns to look at the rusting hulk that’s been dropped in the driveway for the last eight months.

Me: “Could you check if it’s tagged and insured? It hasn’t moved since the day it was shipped here.”

The tiniest smile crosses his face.

Officer: “Yeah, I can take a look.”

So, while I blew the twenty rogue leaves back off the neighbor’s driveway, the two officers started circling the car. Flashlights out, writing down the VIN, calling things in on the radio.

Through the doorbell camera, we can hear the neighbor’s voice:

Neighbor: “Hey! What’s going on? Why are you looking at my car? The problem is the leaves! The leaves!”

Turns out, our state requires any car parked in a driveway to have current tags, insurance, and a valid emissions check. His didn’t.

The officers called him directly:

Officer: “Sir, you have two weeks to get that vehicle either inside the garage or up to date on everything, or we’ll be towing it and issuing a citation.”

And that’s how a guy living three states away bought himself a ten-hour round trip to deal with his own car, all because twenty leaves dared to touch his driveway.