In my little community, if you pile your leaves at the curb the city sends a leaf sucker wagon towed by a truck around the streets to vacuum them up. I asked an inside source how strong the suction was, thinking to josh a little about the operators sucking up bricks, beer bottles and the like hidden in the leaf piles and screwing up the machine. My source tells me that a newly assigned suction hose operator once complained to maintenance that the suction would not pick up "parts". Now that hose is about 16" in diameter and rolls along in the gutter strapped on sort of a skateboard contraption that the operator guides with a stick independant of the truck driver whose job is to go slow and steady. Oh, and it makes a helluva noise sucking up those leaves and blowing them into the wagon. The official management response to the newbie operator was that while it might float that chevy starter in like "0" gravity almost up off the ground it was not strong enough to actually suck it into the hose and spit it into the wagon. Turns out that the operators routinely suck up sleeping cats out of the leaf piles and they cannot escape the pull of the force. Thus the machine spits them in chunks into the leaf wagon. Hoorah for small government!

I seen a friend of mine throw one in a wood chipper once, probly had about the same effect as their leaf sucker. Just all those leaves would keep the blood splatter to a minimun. You might try putting some tuna fish in the piles of leaves on the days they are running that thing, just to help the process along!