Town Assigns Leaf-Raking Days by Street Address Parity; Odd-Numbered Homes Rake Tuesdays

OAKHOLLOW — The Department of Public Works announced its annual leaf-raking schedule Monday, assigning raking days by street address parity: odd-numbered homes rake on Tuesdays, even-numbered homes on Thursdays, and “residents with strong feelings” may petition for a variance on Form LW-9.

The parity system, now in its fourth year, was designed to keep bagged leaves off curbs on non-collection days. “Before parity, it was chaos,” said Public Works director Stan Kowalski. “Bags everywhere, all week. It looked like the town was being slowly buried by festive trash. Now the burial is orderly.”

Under the rules, leaves must be bagged in paper yard-waste bags — plastic bags are “a violation and a moral failing” — and placed at the curb no earlier than 6 p.m. the evening before collection. Bags exceeding 40 pounds are tagged with a bright orange sticker reading “TOO AMBITIOUS” and left for the homeowner to “reflect upon.”

The town’s 311 line received 212 calls on the first parity Tuesday, mostly from residents who had raked on the wrong day and sought “amnesty or at least understanding.” Kowalski said his office grants neither as policy but noted that “understanding happens anyway, usually around the third bag.”

In a concession to modern life, the department will accept photographic proof of raking via its app, though Kowalski warned that “photos of your neighbor’s raked yard will be detected; we know what your yard looks like; it looks unraked.”

The town’s raking-verification app, launched this fall, uses photo recognition to confirm bagged leaves at the curb — and, Kowalski confirmed, it flagged 34 submissions on opening week as “neighbor’s yard.” “The app knows,” he said. “It compares rooflines. One gentleman submitted a photo of a beautifully raked lawn that our system identified as a stock photo from a landscaping website. We mailed him a paper bag and a pamphlet.”

The dreaded orange “TOO AMBITIOUS” stickers have developed a following of their own; residents have begun photographing them for a community social media page, “Too Ambitious Oakhollow,” where the current most-liked post shows a bag estimated at 70 pounds leaning against a mailbox “like a tired strongman.” Kowalski takes it in stride: “If the sticker makes people laugh while they rebag 30 pounds of leaves, that’s public works succeeding. The leaves still get collected. Everybody wins, especially the compost facility, which is having its best year.”

Kowalski’s final tip for the season: “Rake with the wind, bag with patience, and remember — the leaves will be back next year. They always come back. Plan accordingly.”