HelpfulGardener.com

Webmaster, I’m putting this here. You can move it to Hoo-hah or whatever if you want.

We had an overcast cool morning with forecasted high of 85°F so I was outside enjoying the cooler sun-less conditions and planning to get a lot of the cleanup and busywork done in the garden very early this morning.

- I managed to drain the rainwater that accumulated in the lid of one of the two compost tumblers.

- I drained the tub temporarily holding a bunch of compost worms — the Tub was nearly full of water and the worms were clinging to the top surface of the bunch of cardboard I shredded and put in there to help soak up the water.

- I was working on the 2nd tumbler near the fence to the neighbor.

- I was cutting open and dumping used Kcups UCG in an empty tray for the Can-o-Worms vermicomposter that is also set up under the pine tree near the same fence line, because I was going to fill a tray with the worms in the stacked 2 gallon bucket winter vermicomposter from the garage (it’s getting too hot in the garage for them and they need to go outside in the shade).

- I was pruning and training the cherry tomatoes in the VGD bed and pruning the apple tree while the siphon tubes drained the water into trays that needed to be emptied into buckets every so often.

With so many things going on, both the vermicomposters were open when the lawn service for the neighbor arrived. I rushed to finish the vermicomposter so I could dump the garage worms in the tray and close it up before they started spraying, and managed to do that, but the toxic cloud of their spray caught me halfway to the back door. And I was immediately gasping for breath, trying to stay standing while wracked by asthma attack. After that it was limp to the back door, gather up my coffee mug and some strawberries I harvested, then get inside to close all the windows.

I didn’t bother to look, but it’s very likely they were not holding their spray wands down to the ground — I’ve seen them before, holding the wands at waist level. When I spoke with a supervisor, they told me they are SUPPOSED to keep the wand low, but it looks to me like they get more coverage by holding the wand up and spraying wide — and they get done faster. This aerosolizes the mist and the cloud travels further, like past the picket fence and into my yard (and vegetable garden). It wasn’t particularly windy today, but the air was dense and heavy with humidity, which allows the chemicals to traverse the air faster too.

Between their chemicals and the truck they leave running to power the on-board sprayer... and the diesel fumes, which leaves me hypoxic even without the asthma, to me they are polluting MY air every time they are here. They arrive, rusharound spraying for 5-10 minutes, and they leave, but I can’t go outside for the rest of the day, and have to close all the windows even when it is nice and cool outside.

They tell me that the amount is not considered toxic. My neighbor feeds stray/neighborhood cats that come around from all over, so I can’t imagine that she hasn’t done her homework on animal safety. But it affects ME — to me, it’s still air pollution. How this is allowed is a complete mystery.

IMHO, that people allow them to — PAY them to — poison their property is an absolute absurdity.

When I lived at the other house everyone in that neighbor sprayed toxic stuff on their lawn to have what they called the perfect golf course lawn but it looked FAKE to me. When grass looks like green carpet with no white clover and no dandelions and other plants it looks FAKE. When neighbor on the up wind side sprayed their yard we packed up and went camping 2 days it was hard to breath with that smell blowing in our direction.

One day I heard something in the back yard the neighbor was having his wooden fence spray painted white and all that over spray was tuning my garden plants white. I ran out and started yelling at the guy but he acted like I was not there so I hooked up 2 water sprinklers and turned it on. Water was washing some of the paint off the plants and washing a lot of the paint off the fence. The guy started yelling at me so I acted like it was not there also. LOL. About 20 minutes later he packed up his stuff and left. Next day we came home from work fence and garden were both white as snow. Wife & I went next door to throw a bitching fit, the snooty @#$% neighbors reply was, WHY would anyone grow a garden when you can buy vegetables at the grocery store. We picked all the white vegetables then threw them at their house, their car and in their swimming pool. We threw stuff over the fence and all over their yard and driveway. They never said 1 word and never called the police. I was tired of their tree hanging 20 ft over my garden so I cut off all the limbs I could reach and threw them in their yard. After dark I put a long PVC pipe over the fence to their tree that shaded my garden then I poured 5 gallons of diesel fuel down the PVC pipe twice a week until the tree was dead. Most of the garden died from the white paint that year. We got no black berries that we could eat either berries were all white.

Paul Tukey, the guy who wrote the book about organic lawn care produced a movie (A Chemical Reaction) about how he suffered medical issues because of all the chemicals. His doctor advised him to stop exposing himself to those chemicals.

Scott interviewed him and published it on the article side of Helpful Gardener.

Interview with Paul Tukey

I sometimes smell the chemicals drifting over from neighbor's lawns when I visit my mother in law in Connecticut and rush to get indoors fast as I can.

Thanks, @webmaster

I had a cousin who had a lawn service company with her spouse, and both died from cancer in their 50s. We all figured that the chemicals they worked with all the time had to have something to do with the cancer.

I use to work with contractors that build houses in our area before the economy crashed about 9 years ago. I noticed the professional painters all died in their 50s from, liver damage, lunch caner, brain cancer. Everyone claimed water base paint is safe but now new information says the chemicals in Latex paint are toxic and dangerous. Latex paint contains, benzene, formaldehyde and toluene. Formaldehyde is blamed for causing headaches, nausea, fatigue and irritations of the eyes, nose and throat, according to a 2006 article in the Vancouver Sun. It appears the average home owner that uses Latex paint once is a while is not at high risk but full time painters that are exposed 8 hrs every day are dying from cancer and Liver failure.

You know, toluene and benzene outgas from new carpet and underlayment/padding, I believe. Probably Formaldehyde, too, since it’s used as preservative in a lot of stuff. You remember all those “preserved” specimens from biology lab? That SMELL?

“Preservative” that’s a joke. What it does is KILL everything so things don’t spoil from micro-organisms — bacteria, fungi — nothing LIVES in it (that’s why decomposition doesn’t take place) ...or exposed to it in concentrated gaseous form. Oh BTW it’s also a “useful” fire-retardant. So yeah carpeting is saturated in it, fabric-covered office cubicle walls, draperies, ... oh yes and children’s pajamas made from flammable synthetic materials and even cotton (if you buy the ones that are NOT treated, they come with a warning label that they weren’t, as though that was a BAD thing). It’s a good “sizing” too, keeps new fabrics — furniture, draperies, new clothes (you do wash them before you first wear them don’t you?) wrinkle-free.

Wrinkle-free...don’t let me start on laundry products... another source of neighborhood -MY AIR- air pollution

Formaldehyde - CH2O - your body immediately treats it as a toxic substance and tries to rid of it, and once normal pathways are jammed up, it ties up the oxygen in your blood. Read the symptoms Gary350 listed. Brain isn’t’ getting enough oxygen.

It’s absorbed through skin contact and crosses the placental barrier.

Oh, and going back to toluene and benzene
— those are used for dry cleaning and outgas from “freshly laundered” fancy clothes.
— I was exposed to benzene in an office products cleaner, and feeling ill, left work early and was trying to drive the 1 hr commute back home. I got so sick on the interstate highway I had to pull over and barely had enough time to open the door to throw up, then I couldn’t stop. It was like my body was trying to turn me inside out. It got so bad a state trooper noticed and stopped to ask me if I needed help. I was sick for days.

I talked to my neighbor about 7:30 am we both have a nice garden. He was saying there are no bees this year, no black/yellow bumble bees in the yard and no carpenter bees either. I told him there were no honey bees last year either. Then he mentioned that he sprayed his yard with chemicals to kill all the clover and broad leave plants. I told him I never spray toxic poison on any part of my yard then I walked away. I am glad wind never blows across his yard to my yard.