Throttle jockeys and other power equipment abusers.

Guys, you gotta tell me is this just me and am I totally alone with this? I’m going nuts.

My next door neighbor is a nice guy, but he’s a serial power equipment abuser and it drives me so crazy I’m going to have a break with reality and beat him with a leaf rake.

Specifically, what he does is he gets on his lawn tractor and starts it up and immediately jacks the throttle to the MAX limit and then some. The poor damn tractor is running at about 11000 RPM, just screaming bloody murder at 800 decibels.

Now if he was mowing, it’s one thing, but NO! He then putters around the yard with his lawn trailer behind him raking up leaves and picking up sticks, putting them into the back of the trailer. The whole freaking time his engine is SCREAMING bloody murder. He’s on and off the tractor, picking up sticks, he goes in for a cup of coffee, etc and the damn tractor is roaring like a jet engine running 50 feet from my kitchen window. This goes on for an hour at a time and like I said it’s not even mowing.

But wait, there’s more! Then EVERY FREAKING TIME he shuts it off, he just twists the key to off and BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM. Massive backfire! Every f##$%@g time. Arrrrrraaaaaah! He doesn’t back it down to idle, he just dumps the kill switch. It drives me nucking futs. You’d think eventually I’d learn to anticipate it, but each and every time he does it, I hit the dirt face first and scream, “INCOMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GET THE BLEEPING FIFTY UP HERE AND RETURN FIRE ON THE BAST@RDS!!!!!!!!!”

This gets a little awkward. Especially when we’re sitting on our patio having drinks with friends. Arrrrah! I just want to strangle him with a length of weed eater line every time!

Does serial abuse of power equipment drive anyone else crazy? Tell me I’m not alone here.

Should I try to talk to the guy about it? Wow, how do you start that conversation, that’ll be more awkward than having “the talk” with your 12-year-old daughter.

Don’t even get me started about watching him use a chainsaw (help me Jesus), a string trimmer, or any other stuff. It doesn’t get better.

Grouse

Damm laughing so hard it. Hurts!

My dad and brother had often referred to me as “break it”

They are both mechanics. I can change my oil. He probably doesn’t realize how stupid he’s being and wonders why the pos backfires. I’d just tell him don’t mean to offend you at all but your driving me fn nuts. Maybe tell him over a mojito

LMAO. I had it the other way. Old neighbor sat in the driveway for hours tring to get his new push mower started. Couldn’t take it anymore went to help him out to find out he never put gas in it. Offer him a beer and when he’s not looking take the keys.

All this time I have been reading your posts and I had no idea you were my neighbor!

Honestly, my neighbor seems he has the right to tell me when I can do my chores. They are rarely home but when they get back from their travels they try to tell me when I am allowed to mow, blow leaves, paint my deck (fumes) blah blah blah.

Last week they came back from a 2 week stay at their cabin. I arrived back from a 3 day weekend, with a 3 day business trip the following day. My grass needed cutting but they decided I really shouldn’t mow because the dust might settle into the stain they were putting on their deck. Their deck is on the second story, wind was blowing away from them…..

When my kids were younger we had a small rink on our back year, complete with some lighting that shined into our forest behind my house. We had the kids in by 9:30pm every night, they were 8-12 years old.
neighbors called the sheriff to complain that it was not too bright, not threatening the health of their property/grass but that my kids “hockey Noises” were too loud. I had a net with aluminum pipes, they did make noise. The noise was my kids laughing. Because kids laughing and having a good time until 9:30 at (night after they finished homework) are noises that we should all be threatened by.

Cant we all just get along?

I built my first hot rod well before ever having a drivers’ license. So for me, it’s all pay-backs from the crap I put my neighbors through. I learned how to build engines and pushed a L79 to over 440HP( a joke by todays building standards – LOL) Pops defended me and just told’m too dam bad. I wasn’t doing anything illegal, so tough turds

Looking back, all the test hits in the driveway, 4-1/2″ open side pipes with no baffles or fire arrestor straight off the hookers was just a little on the loud side. Later once I was legally driving, Mom could hear me coming home from more than a block away while the car was idling.
So, when my neighbor starts cutting his grass or weed-wacking at 6:45 am, or my other neighbor is working on his race car at 11pm, I just smile and remember being young and dumb

Randy Wieland wrote:

Looking back, all the test hits in the driveway, 4-1/2″ open side pipes with no baffles or fire arrestor straight off the hookers was just a little on the loud side. Later once I was legally driving, Mom could hear me coming home from more than a block away while the car was idling.
So, when my neighbor starts cutting his grass or weed-wacking at 6:45 am, or my other neighbor is working on his race car at 11pm, I just smile and remember being young and dumb

X2! I feel the same way, it’s all payback for the people I bothered when younger.

HRG

@wormdunker two words that cures a lot of problems FOX URINE

am sorry Grouse,but thats too funny !! you have my sympathy.
a couple of thoughts,dump a whole can of ether into his mowers gas tank,guarantee you it will blow the head clean off of it bolts and all.
spread out a fifty foot chunk of green plastic wrapped clothes line cable in his yard,that’ll keep him busy for a few days when it gets wrapped up in the deck.
for all of you worry warts,I am being sarcastic so let it go.

or,simply build one of these things.

My neighbor also thinks that reving up a car in the garage will some how help it if it doesn’t run right. It doesn’t help.

Randy Wieland wrote:

I built my first hot rod well before ever having a drivers’ license. So for me, it’s all pay-backs from the crap I put my neighbors through. I learned how to build engines and pushed a L79 to over 440HP( a joke by todays building standards – LOL) Pops defended me and just told’m too dam bad. I wasn’t doing anything illegal, so tough turds

Looking back, all the test hits in the driveway, 4-1/2″ open side pipes with no baffles or fire arrestor straight off the hookers was just a little on the loud side. Later once I was legally driving, Mom could hear me coming home from more than a block away while the car was idling.
So, when my neighbor starts cutting his grass or weed-wacking at 6:45 am, or my other neighbor is working on his race car at 11pm, I just smile and remember being young and dumb

Well said Randy. I kind of feel the same way.

A guy I work with runs the fork lift floored all the time. Red line. Of course his personal truck is a mess, his work van looks like it was in a roll over accident, etc. They’re ll over the place I guess.

SR

More than anything it’s the flagrant abuse of good equipment that’s driving me nuts. The noise is just telling me he’s doing it AGAIN.

I mean, how can you NOT realize that it’s the dumping the kill switch on a white hot engine that’s revving at the redline that’s causing that freaking backfire?

For his little lawn, that mower would last forever if he wasn’t beating the engine like a rented mule. As it stands, he won’t get 3 more years out of it before he blows a hole in the piston with a backfire.

He does the same thing with his snowblower. Start ‘er up and run it on the red line and then just turn the switch off.

Grouse

I know how you feel. I know many people who are the same way. Good friend of mine starts up he diesel skid loader or his diesel pickup wide open and no warm up what so ever, whether it’s -40 or 100 above! Still drives me nuts but I’ve finally come to terms that it’s his money.

Maybe it’s the guys “quiet” time away from his wife’s nagging.

Grouse, are you guys otherwise friendly? I know these situations can be delicate and you don’t want to start a war, but he probably doesn’t have any idea. I would walk over there with a couple cold ones and a friendly smile and just tell him you’re here to help him save a bunch of money on fuel and probably his mower as well. If he’s too proud to take the advice that’s his problem.

Engines like going full out first thing about as much as we would like doing a sprint right when the alarm clock wakes us up.
I hated the loud sound of my gas trimmer so much that I switched to electric. Then and here’s the dumb part: I gave the gas one to my next door neighbor-so guess what? I still her the dingin’ thing!

Grouse, I have the same problem as you. But he also mulch mows every 4 days.

I don’t complain. The neighbors on both sides of me are busy planing their migration to the south. One to AZ and the other to FL.

In three weeks I will have the better part of the neighborhood to myself.

Peace and quiet will be mine until the snowmobiles appear on the the lake.

They are generally good neighbors, I look forward to them leaving in the fall and returning in the spring.

Such is Mn retired lake life.

i would approach him from a level of small engine expertise. “you aren’t supposed to let those things just idle at max power for long periods of time. thats a sweet machine and you’ll get way more years out of it. “

i used to have a neighbor that was a constant complainer though. he would complain when i started mowing at 8am. he didn’t work 2nd shift or anything of the sort. just lazy. he was the type of guy who made sure you pulled permits for every project.

All I know is that hosting a birthday party on the backyard deck complete with balloons, streamers, etc. for family/friends will absolutely bring out the next door neighbor’s lawn mower every flippin time…..Really???

And this is why I moved to a 5 acre wooded lot. I can kinda see one neighbor

When I start my Harley up I always have to rev the poop out of it to make sure it is still running!

pool2fool wrote:

Grouse, are you guys otherwise friendly?

Yes, he’s a perfectly nice guy and we get along just fine. It’s not a case of he (or me) being a bad guy/control freak/whatever.

Like I said, it’s just the flagrant abuse of perfectly good power equipment that is the fingernails on the blackboard to me. I mean, how can you NOT know that this is bad for an engine.

trophy19 wrote:

All I know is that hosting a birthday party on the backyard deck complete with balloons, streamers, etc. for family/friends will absolutely bring out the next door neighbor’s lawn mower every flippin time…..Really???

Yes, my parents must live on the other side of this guy. His favorite time to mow was starting at 5:00 PM on either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. He would NEVER mow any other time.

Now the funny part was that my dad ended up driving the guy to the hospital after this guy lost a front tire off his lawn tractor and tipped over into his fence. Dad told me about the incident by starting with a long denial that he had anything whatsoever to do with the incident…

Grouse

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Guys, you gotta tell me is this just me and am I totally alone with this? I’m going nuts.

My next door neighbor is a nice guy, but he’s a serial power equipment abuser and it drives me so crazy I’m going to have a break with reality and beat him with a leaf rake.

Specifically, what he does is he gets on his lawn tractor and starts it up and immediately jacks the throttle to the MAX limit and then some. The poor damn tractor is running at about 11000 RPM, just screaming bloody murder at 800 decibels.

Now if he was mowing, it’s one thing, but NO! He then putters around the yard with his lawn trailer behind him raking up leaves and picking up sticks, putting them into the back of the trailer. The whole freaking time his engine is SCREAMING bloody murder. He’s on and off the tractor, picking up sticks, he goes in for a cup of coffee, etc and the damn tractor is roaring like a jet engine running 50 feet from my kitchen window. This goes on for an hour at a time and like I said it’s not even mowing.

But wait, there’s more! Then EVERY FREAKING TIME he shuts it off, he just twists the key to off and BOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM. Massive backfire! Every f##$%@g time. Arrrrrraaaaaah! He doesn’t back it down to idle, he just dumps the kill switch. It drives me nucking futs. You’d think eventually I’d learn to anticipate it, but each and every time he does it, I hit the dirt face first and scream, “INCOMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GET THE BLEEPING FIFTY UP HERE AND RETURN FIRE ON THE BAST@RDS!!!!!!!!!”

This gets a little awkward. Especially when we’re sitting on our patio having drinks with friends. Arrrrah! I just want to strangle him with a length of weed eater line every time!

Does serial abuse of power equipment drive anyone else crazy? Tell me I’m not alone here.

Should I try to talk to the guy about it? Wow, how do you start that conversation, that’ll be more awkward than having “the talk” with your 12-year-old daughter.

Don’t even get me started about watching him use a chainsaw (help me Jesus), a string trimmer, or any other stuff. It doesn’t get better.

Grouse

This might be the most passive aggressive thing I’ve ever read. How about you go talk to the guy?

I have a good friend that revs the urine out of his ATV on cold startups when we’re out trail riding. Makes me cringe every time…All I can think about is bad top end…

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

Yes, he’s a perfectly nice guy and we get along just fine. It’s not a case of he (or me) being a bad guy/control freak/whatever.

Like I said, it’s just the flagrant abuse of perfectly good power equipment that is the fingernails on the blackboard to me. I mean, how can you NOT know that this is bad for an engine.

Then why not go talk to him and teach him? You’d be surprised at how little people can know. I’m a prime example. Just because I bought myself a boat doesn’t mean I understand how to take care of an outboard.

Neighbors suck… Even the good ones

In defense of the guy.

No one has asked the question, does it even idle.

He may have abused it with unleaded gas and neglect to the point where all of his power equipment may not even run at low speed.

I have done small engine repair all my life, I am to cheap to pay someone.

More than likely if you went to talk to him you would end up cleaning a carb of fixing something.

I would bite my tongue and hope he kills them soon.

I’d ask the local small engine guy if he pays referral fees and next time this guy is out abusing his equipment I’d give him a big smile and thumbs up.

These types of guys keep local businesses going…..I would encourage his behavior.