Mow Your Yard Too Early & You Might Be Breaking Missouri Law

I always thought there was an unspoken law in Missouri about when the appropriate hours to mow your lawn were. As it turns out, if you mow your yard too early, you might be breaking the law, but it depends on where you live.

I saw someone ask this question "When is the earliest time I can mow my lawn?" on the St. Louis, Missouri sub-Reddit. The answers were interesting and also surprisingly legal. The general answer about the earliest hour that is respectful of neighbors was 9am. Others mentioned that there are hours that are truly illegal.

The General Ordinances of the City of St. Louis (version August, 2017) 15.51.030 deals with permissible noise levels and it says that 7am is the earliest you can mow your yard there and the latest is 10pm. Chesterfield, Missouri is much more strict. They have a city ordinance that says you can mow from 7am until 6pm weekdays and from 7:30am until 5pm on weekends. Wow.

If you live in the Town and Country area of St. Louis, don't mow before 8am or else. Oh, if it's Sunday, you have to wait until 9amor they'll sick the dogs on you.

There are landscaping experts that say there's a practical reason to not mow your yard early in the day. Mid-morning or late afternoon are generally thought to be the healthiest time to mow your grass so you don't "tear" the blades of grass if they're too wet in the morning or stress the yard out by mowing before the heat of the early afternoon.

I'm no lawyer or city councilman. If you have questions, it really does matter where you live in Missouri if you're concerned about legal issues with yard mowing. I can only speak for myself in saying that I know I have truck driving neighbors who sometimes work crazy hours so I do my best to never mow super early for fear of disturbing their badly-needed sleep. I also don't mow anytime after sunset for the same reason, but to each his/her own.