Those that live in rural areas

It always seems to happen on nice days, too! :grr: People around here just love to burn stuff! I think it's mostly yard waste, leaves, maybe garbage too, since we have to pay for garbage pick-up. I made the mistake of calling the fire dept when we first moved here, thinking it was illegal. Nope. As long as it's contained somehow (like a barrel, a fire pit), it's fine. We had one good summer when it was extremely dry and burning was banned for a couple months, yay.
I really had no idea burning stuff outside was a "thing". It is so annoying, it almost makes me want to move. I can't stand the smell, it aggravates my allergies, and I do not want my children breathing all that smoke.

Does this happen where you live? I've never lived in a rural area before, I had no idea outdoor burning was a regular occurrence.

 

It's not only a regular occurrence, but something of a spectator sport.

I live out in the sticks and my neighbors burn things, ride dirt bikes across our lawn, and shoot pumpkins (don't ask). But they were here first, and I mostly accept this stuff as the price of living someplace where I don't have to look out of the window and into the neighbor's bathroom.

 

Yep! People do it here and have parties around them!!

 

Ditto!

 

Oh yeah, there's also riding random vehicles up and down the street for hours on end (dirt bikes, motorcycles, old muscle cars), shooting, and our famous neighbor with the Bobcat with the never-ending construction/demolition, digging, using it to bring items to burn from around the property all in one spot.

I think I'm just not cut out to live around here. Never thought I'd be saying "Sorry I'm late, I was stuck behind a combine."

How do you all stand the burning? I could probably deal with the other stuff, but the burning is just awful.

 

Yep. Bonfire

The ATV's screaming down the road is a bit annoying, especially if you're out walking with the kids.

 

Oh I don't mean bonfires. At least those are at night, and I can understand that it's a fun thing to do (although I can never go to one due to allergies). I mean burning leaves or whatever during the day when it would be nice to take my kids outside.

 

They do it in town too if they can get away with it...like 20 feet from the bedroom window! (the guy next door cut down half a tree and burned everything less that 1" diameter).

 

Yes, it happens where I live, too. We are in a neighborhood (1+ acre lots), but we're outside of city limits, so it seems anything goes. We have a firepit, and DH burns limbs/leaves a few times a year, and we have bonfires sometimes, but nothing regular.

However, the ATV & other noisy things screaming up & down the neighborhood roads are on my VERY last nerve. Not to mention, my neighbor decided he wants to open a mechanic shop on the side & thought his yard would be a nice place to put engine blocks, a rusted out "fixer upper", and two boats. However, his garage & work building are empty, except for his tools. .

 

It's normal here, too. My grandparents owned a hog farm for years and garbage pick-up wasn't available. So, once a week they burned the trash as well as leaves and branches in one of those big drums out back. Granny was always really careful though. She wouldn't burn on windy days or when the weather was bad and since it was just the two of them most of the time it wasn't a whole lot.

But the ATV thing...ugh, that's a regular occurrence on our street. There are these guys about five houses down who's parents sent them off to school with more money and toys than sense. They're constantly riding them up and down the street, towing someone on a bicycle or riding their motorcycle past the house at top speed. Totally normal in Texas, though it certainly doesn't make it less annoying. Yay for rednecks.

 

LOL!!

 

We live out in a rural area but they are not allowed to burn in town. The people who live on farms often do but our farms are so far apart that it doesn't bother us because we don't really smell it unless we are driving by. Sorry you are having such an awful experience with it but rural living can really be enjoyable without all the extra crap like that. Best of luck

 

This drives me crazy at my grandmothers house. She's always burning something and it stinks. I'm not there often anymore, but it is very common in the rural areas where I'm from.

 

I do have a fire pit in my back yard that we have burnt branches and cardboard in. Not trash, I am not a GREEN person but I remember seeing how bad (they said) it was to burn even branches for our environment on a TV show recently. I have not stopped burning branches but we have stopped burning cardboard. We are not the only ones in my neighborhood that have a fire pit so we smell people with them going often

 

WTH is with that? They do that here, too. Saw them towing someone on a skateboard once as well. :crazy: Idiots! OK, you have an ATV or a dirtbike, go ride it out on some terrain, not up and down the street!

 

Very common and we aren't very rural. I'd say we're between rural and suburban. It took some getting used to (we moved down here from Columbia, MD where they'd have your head for having a pile of sticks in your yard let alone actually set them on fire!) but it's just part of the area now. I'm regularly behind a tractor on the way to class or stuck at the RR crossing waiting for the train to pass. But I love it!

 

If it wasn't for burning, I don't know what we'd do! We burn everything! We are temporily living in the city right now as our other house is being renovated but we burn everything out there. It's on 9 acres so the smoke doesn't bother anyone but I love it. We don't pay for any trash pick up at all so it saves us a lot of money! Sorry that it bothers you though

 

Haha! Columbia or Ellicott City is where we WANTED to live when we moved to MD, but it was still during the real estate bubble and prices were insane (Columbia's always expensive though). For the price of a townhouse there, we got a single-family house on about an acre out here in Carroll Co. I didn't realize though all that came with living here. I would like a happy medium between the Columbia HOA freaks and anything goes. Heard some stories when I used to work in Columbia about the nutty stuff they fine people for.

 

OMG Columbia is full of a bunch of control freaks! Way too stuck up for me...and I lived there for 27 years! We had to get permission to paint our front door the SAME FREAKIN COLOR!! I understand if I wanted to change the color and make it neon green or something, but the same boring gray and I need permission?? Sorry, can you tell it bugged me? lol

 

Yep, add me as one of those rednecks who likes to burn things!!!! Just last month we set fire to old files (taxes from like 1992, old bank statements, etc)- stuff normal people would shred, but nope, not us!

 

Is it evil to secretly envision throwing something into the spokes of their bike while they tumble down the street? I'd never really do it, but the thought gives me just a little bit of satisfaction. Especially when they do it at naptime.

Sorry, the redneck comment was so not intended for people who burn things out of necessity or because of where they lives! It was aimed at the jerks who ride up and down the street on their ATV's. Not meant to offend at all! :blush:

 

No offense taken!!!!

 

everything, even plastics?

 

Yes. Not here but my hometown and dh's hometwon. My uncle and FIL both have burning barrels to burn trash.

 

Don't even get me started. Our county has a dump where you can bring household trash FOR FREE. That's right, free trash service if you bring it yourself. You can also pay one of three companies to haul it for you. Still, after we moved here, I discovered several locations in the yard where the previous owners had hidden in bushes, buried, and/or burned their trash. There's a cave in the forest that contained the partially-burned carpeting they'd pulled out of the living room when they replaced it! I cut it up and hauled it out so we could dispose of it properly. The "designated burn hole" had such random stuff in it including a small metal engine (um, yeah... that won't burn!) and dozens of glass vials as well as syringes (most of them rusted off but not all!) It was truly a hazardous situation and I wore thick leather gloves and heavy boots borrowed from DH while I dragged trashcan after trashcan of junk out of that hole. We're turning it into a pond because it's a big hole and now that the junk is gone, it's really quite pretty.

We also have neighbors with non-running vehicles filling their yards and probably some who burn their trash too but the forest does a great job of shielding us from them.

 

I think I'm just not cut out to live around here. Never thought I'd be saying "Sorry I'm late, I was stuck behind a combine."


I have to allow an extra 15 minutes to get to work to allow for getting stuck behind tractors or cattle (have to move cattle on the roads often)

Burning here, all the time. We don't burn plastics or diapers because we don't have the proper kind of burn barrel to make it safe, but most people do.

 

I don't even live in a rural area but yes. Here in the county, people burn leaves and such all the time. Makes it difficult to keep the windows open on nice fall days. My parents are in rural Wisconsin, and there it is extremely common to burn garbage and/or lawn refuse.

 

My neighbour burns branches and some garbage in a barrel. The smell bothers me from time to time, but in general I don't really notice it.

The ATVs in the middle of a hot summer's night when we have all the window's open - that annoys me.

 

Yeah, we burn all cardboard and paper as starts to our regular fires out back. We have 55 acres, so I don't think anyone has to smell us that doesn't want to. (Really? Is it that bad?) People tend to come over for fires instead of running around here. I guess we are rednecks, but that's ok with me...

 

My ILs burn all their garbage. They aren't even on 9 acres...more like 2 acres. The main issue I have with it is the burning of non-paper items....like diapers and plastic. I'm not even horribly concerned about the environment. (yeah I know it's not the best) I'm looking at the more immediate concern of their lungs and the lungs of anyone close enough to be breathing this stuff in all the time. Every year at christmas time I have to have a cow to get my FIL to NOT burn the wrapping paper in the fireplace with the kids all sitting there. I literally snatch it all and shove it in a bag before he can get to it.

Now here, in our rural neighborhood everyone has their trash picked up. I did notice the smell of burning leaves the other day, but that doesn't bother me nearly as much. I figure that at least some wildfires are natural, so they must not be entirely horrible for the environment. So if they stick to burning leaves and small amounts of brush it doesn't bother me so much. I probably get a little nostalgic though because the smell of burning leaves in the fall reminds me of many autumns growing up helping my family rake leaves into the road for burning. LOL.

 

Yes, it is. Most of the homes in my immediate area are 1-2 acre lots, but there are some larger ones with corn and soybean fields, I don't know how many acres. It really makes me gag. I know I have allergies and maybe I'm super-sensitive.

BTW, here's some info about burning trash. Paper and wood aren't that bad (as long as it's plain and not treated with chemicals), but please, don't burn plastic and stuff like that.
http://www.health.state.ny.us/environmental/outdoors/air/trash.htm

 

Wow, I must be really weird and out of touch. This morning I walked my girls out to the bus and smelled a fire somewhere and loved it. The best smell in the world! (Even at 7:30 am!)

 

My ILs in rural alberta canada do this too. I grew up burning leaves so that does not bother me as much but they burn all their trash, diapers included; And that just grossed me out! Burning poop fumes to breathe, yeah! :blink: If you can transfer disease in your poop and you burn it aren't you now transfering all that disease into the air?! Gross!

 

In my town, you can only burn during certain months. Even then, you need to obtain a permit from the Town.

 

I guess I don't understand how people burning in their yards is that much different than people burning in their fireplaces in town. When it's cold outside, you step out of the car almost anywhere (well, except downtown), and you can smell somebody having used their woodburning fireplace.

In our rural community, in order to have a big fire of any type, you need a burn permit. But, fires are usual meeting grounds for people around here as well. And, you can occassionally smell them, but our houses are far enough apart that it's not a huge deal.

I'm sorry you are having such a hard time with it, but I guess that's part of having neighbors. Everybody has to put up with something they don't like from others. Fortunately, we don't have any close neighbors...nobody has to put up with us!!