HAMILTON EAST NOTICEBOARD LEAF-BLOWER FEUD ENTERS WEEK SIX, PARTIES NOW WRITING IN BOLD

A community noticeboard on Grey Street, Hamilton East, has become the staging ground for a dispute about leaf blowers now entering its sixth consecutive week, with both parties showing no signs of running out of paper or grievance.

The original notice, posted on a Tuesday in October by a resident identified on the paper only as "CONCERNED, GREY ST", asked neighbours to "kindly refrain" from operating leaf blowers before 8am. A response appeared within 48 hours, signed "REASONABLE HOMEOWNER", suggesting the complainant could "kindly refrain from telling other ratepayers how to live".

Margot Henley, 71, who walks past the noticeboard daily, told The Daily Yarn the back-and-forth had now reached eleven separate notices, two of which were laminated. "There's a diagram now," she said. "Someone's drawn a wind direction map. I don't know which one of them did it but they've used a ruler, so they mean it."

A third party has since joined under the byline "NEUTRAL OBSERVER (BOUNDARY RD)", proposing mediation. Both original parties have rejected the offer in writing, with REASONABLE HOMEOWNER noting that NEUTRAL OBSERVER "does not even live on this street and should mind their own business". CONCERNED, GREY ST agreed, which is reportedly the only point of agreement reached to date.

A Hamilton City Council spokesperson said the noticeboard was "community-managed" and that council had no jurisdiction over what was pinned to it, provided nothing was defamatory. Asked whether a hand-drawn wind map qualified as defamatory, the spokesperson said they would "have to get back to us on that one".

As of Thursday, a twelfth notice had appeared. It was blank except for a single sad face drawn in vivex marker, unsigned. Nobody on Grey Street is claiming it.