People constantly ask me why after being in Boise almost decade, I still won't commit to buying a house. Let's be honest, housing prices are at the top of that list...but yard work isn't far from there. 

I'm highly allergic to fresh cut grass. Before we lived together, my husband rented a room from his friend in Nampa and would help out with her yard work. I quickly realized that I was allergic to him (or you know, the clothes he was wearing) when he came in from mowing the yard.

Plus, I HATE raking leaves.  Growing up, my dad's backyard had a TON of trees in it.  My sister and I would grab our little plastic rakes and "help" him gather them we could jump into the piles he built. As I got older and graduated to a big person rake, I realized that raking leaves wasn't fun. I got blisters and the very next day it seemed like all the leaves were back I gave up.

If you own a home, you're no doubt familiar with that frustration and it probably grew even bigger after Saturday's storm really brought the leaves down. So what are you going to do with all of those? Put them in cute garbage bags that look like jack-o-lanterns and use them as lawn decorations until Halloween? Leave them to decompose on your lawn? Blow them into the street and/or gutter in front of your home?

If you said "oh, that last one" stop it right there! Did you know that under Idaho law blowing leaves into any street, highway or alley used by the public for public travel can result in a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2500 and up to six months in jail?

KTVB dug deeper into why the penalty is so harsh and discovered that it's because leaves can block storm drains which increases the risk of flooding. The ones who sneak into the drains can negatively impact the water quality of the Boise River as the runoff returns there.

So what should you do with those leaves? If you're part of the Curb It Boise collection program, you can dump them into your compost cart and have them hauled away.  If you have more leaves than room in your cart, you can put them in paper leaf bags and leave up to 10 of them per week on the curb to be picked up on your normal collection day.

If you have additional bags or prefer to drop them off, you can start to leave them at drop off sites on October 28. You can find those locations HERE.