Brooklyn1 wrote:
Tell me this was all a joke.

Probably serious, seriously stupid. I have large lawn areas with
several large trees and large forest areas with lots of trees. I
never ever rake leaves. The leaves in the forest are free to do their
own thing. The leaves on my lawn early on mostly blow away and the
few that accumulate under trees get taken care of with my last mowing,
I have mulching blades. Come spring after the snow melts there are no
leaves, they have all blown away and/or decayed. I've never seen
leaves accumulating feet deep, more like a couple inches the most due
to rain holding them plastered down, once they dry they blow away,
where to, into the forest of course.

Here in Seattle, not removing leaves results in significant patches of dead lawn
in the spring from the always wet leaves. They lay there in clumps, and the lawn
composts beneath them.

I'm sure your neighbors love your blown away leaves.

I rake them into the ornamental beds for free mulch. They definately keep down
the weeds.