For many readers, mounds of irritation pile up as leaf season descends

Not since I proposed repaving Beltway potholes with kittens and puppies has there been such reader outcry as that which greeted my inclusion last week of comments from Shirley Connuck of Falls Church. Shirley wrote that at this time of year, she becomes aggravated when cars park on leaves she has raked into the street to be sucked up by city workers.

Aha, many readers exclaimed: No one should be raking leaves into the street.

"The D.C. Department of Public Works requires either that the leaves be bagged and put with the trash or raked onto the tree lawn in advance of scheduled vacuum truck pick-up dates," wrote Joe Keyerleber. "I don't know about Falls Church, where your frustrated correspondent lives. Maybe they are allowed to randomly rake their leaves anywhere, even into the street, if they feel like it, but not here in the District."

Washington: First in war, first in peace, first in leaf-free streets.

Same goes for Bethesda, wrote John Bisney. "Instead, folks in my neighborhood pile up leaves on the grassy strip between the sidewalk and the street. That not only helps keep the streets clear, it also keeps leaves out of the storm drains. Some may say this practice kills the grass under the leaves, but it really just turns yellow for only a few days."

Well, in her North Bethesda neighborhood, Marta Vogel wrote, everybody puts leaves in the street, "even though the county says you're not supposed to. Every year, MoCo sends out a brochure telling people to mulch the leaves into the grass. Then they pick up the leaves which people aren't supposed to put in the street."

She thinks the county should stop sending the brochure or stop picking up leaves left in the street. She said she prefers running a lawn mower over them and turning them into mulch. Wrote Marta: "It never looks as 'clean' initially as my neighbors' where the lawn services have blown all the leaves into the street. The next day, however, it looks just as good and those cut-up leaves are doing their job."

So, what are the rules? Said Hyun June Lee, spokesperson for the City of Falls Church: "Rake them to the curb, but not into the gutter or onto the sidewalk."

Sometimes that's easier said than done.

Shirley said she has 57 trees on her corner lot. True, some are evergreens, but the two-foot-wide strip between the sidewalk and curb is not enough to contain her mountain of leaves.

As a participant in my online chat last week noted, several things can happen at leaf-collecting time:

"If I pile my leaves on top of my landscaping, the leaf pickup guys will rake my plants away with the leaves.