Ahh, The benefits of having to mow leaf covered lawns.....Let me count the ways

[jasonnau]

1. I don't have to spend 15 minutes cleaning out all the crap under the mower decks every time i sharpen blades.

2. Ummmm. Please refer to number one.

[shovelracer]

Hitting something you never saw. Causing more monetary loss in one second than you made that whole hour.

[punt66]

Hitting something you never saw. Causing more monetary loss in one second than you made that whole hour.

happened to me today! I hit a concrete monument! uughghh

[QualityLawnCare4u]

I love leaf season NOT! I get many calls this time of the year that are all the same. "Since my grass is not growing can you not come back until all the leaves and straw are through falling?" Translated, I am a cheap sob that wants you to spend 8 hours on a 2 hour yard for the same price I usually pay. I lose a LOT of clients every fall over this:hammerhead:

[mowerdude777]

I love leaf season NOT! I get many calls this time of the year that are all the same. "Since my grass is not growing can you not come back until all the leaves and straw are through falling?" Translated, I am a cheap sob that wants you to spend 8 hours on a 2 hour yard for the same price I usually pay. I lose a LOT of clients every fall over this:hammerhead:

I have all great coustomers excape one like your example plus they never pay so I think I will drop them

[LR3]

I love leaf season NOT! I get many calls this time of the year that are all the same. "Since my grass is not growing can you not come back until all the leaves and straw are through falling?" Translated, I am a cheap sob that wants you to spend 8 hours on a 2 hour yard for the same price I usually pay. I lose a LOT of clients every fall over this:hammerhead:

Hahah, I just had someone do that to me yesterday.
Posted via Mobile Device

[Sweet Tater]

I love leaf season NOT! I get many calls this time of the year that are all the same. "Since my grass is not growing can you not come back until all the leaves and straw are through falling?" Translated, I am a cheap sob that wants you to spend 8 hours on a 2 hour yard for the same price I usually pay. I lose a LOT of clients every fall over this:hammerhead:

What?? thats not the way its suppose to go?;)



:laugh::laugh:

[STIHL GUY]

i hit a stump that was covered in leaves a couple days ago. it was a new lawn and i was in 4th gear so when i hit the stump i got a pretty good charlie horse from the handles of the WB

[Tinkerer]

Or better yet,, the grass is healthy, thick, 12" tall and thats not counting the leaves. They want you to haul it all away for a grand total of $50. Forget it.

[topsites]

Y'all ain't right, but unfortunately that's been pretty much my experience as well.

[tjwalkingon]

My help makes more per hour than I do on this leaf cleanup. Did round 1 on two big properties that has tons of trees this week. Yuck
Are there more leaves this year??? Seems like more leaves.

[punt66]

you dont knw leaves untill you go to NE!

[HighlandLC]

you dont knw leaves untill you go to NE!

Truth.. Untill you see Oak trees still full of leaves, and 6" of snow on the ground in December, you aint seen nuttin.

[jasonnau]

Truth.. Untill you see Oak trees still full of leaves, and 6" of snow on the ground in December, you aint seen nuttin.

That's a spring clean up in my book! I'm not going out for anything like that after the 15th of December. We'll see them sometime in March.

[MnGreen]

Or better yet,, the grass is healthy, thick, 12" tall and thats not counting the leaves. They want you to haul it all away for a grand total of $50. Forget it.

Had one of those this week. New call as they were not a customer and wanted a fall clean up.

Leaves were laying on top of grass that was 11" folded over matted to the ground. Obviously not
cut majority of the summer. Guy comes out and asks why I'm blowing the property clean of leaves ?
Giving you your fall clean up I told him. He expected the grass cut when I was done then for the $85.

I told him the clean up does not include a double cut of the lawn from a entire summers neglect.
That would be 2x my mow rate additional to the clean up, plus the leaves and grass cant be combined for city pick up. (removal fee was to much for him)
Told him I'll blow it clean and you come out in 30 minutes and make your decision which one you want done.

"Give me $85 worth he said with lawn cut"
I blew it all to his garage/fence area @ the alley for pick up after he bags it all, and I cut his lawn on 1 pass @ 6".

He was livid, I couldn't believe it. I told him I mowed your 11" property (1/4 acre) and blew it all clean of leaves to even attempt that. 2 guy's and 1 hr.

[jasonnau]

People just expect us to make the leaves magically disappear. I hate leaf season. The only time I like it is with new customers and I can tell them upfront what it's going to cost. It's my existing customers that i hate doing leaves for. Leaves are really not any different than a lawn covered in trash. If I showed up to your house in the summer and the lawn was covered in 3" pieces of brown paper, you would expect it to be a pretty big job cleaning it all up. But, leaves, they should just magically disappear. Plus, with my existing customers, I feel as though I shouldn't charge them too much since they have been faithfull to me all season long. It's kind of like I feel as though if I leave it looking great, I'll be back for sure next season. That requires a lot of nearly free work for me. I make half as much per day this time of year than I do during the late spring and summer. The only way I can justify it in my mind is that a lot of the lawns I'm mulching leaves on really don't need cut other than that. I guess all I can say is that at least I'm making money. It could be the other way around.

[Tinkerer]

One local LCO I talked to about 5 years ago said several companies were charging $70-90 per hour to do leaves. Others were getting out of doing leaves because of the dust. I remember one year I did so much leaves that when I would wake up in the morning there would be a dust trail below each of my nostrils from the dust coming out of my lungs.

[brucec32]

I hit a protruding piece of what looked like quartz rock doing leaves last week. The blades took off the tip of the rock and the mulching deck did it's job and "recycled" the rock over and over inside the deck before spitting out the fragments. Took a look and the sails on every blade were twisted and almost torn off. $30 of damage in an instant. Thankfully it was an older set and not the new sets I'd just purchased the month before. I guess I now have a set of "zero lift" blades if I cut the remaining part of the sails off.

[TheC-Master]

I just do year round service and I mow the leaves as I go, that makes it an easy time for me. Same rate every month all year. I cut the lawn much faster than I would in the spring.

[XLS]

flat rate it boys and save you troubles no money to lose we get $5.00 per walkerbox on small lawns 50.00 a dump on our walker magnum 75.00 a puckup load at curb ( or 15.00 a minute ) plus all fuel cost associated with the job