[AaronAPU]

Raking requires more back work and they are moving the leaves onto the street for collection.

But some people seem to get obsessed with it and do it almost every day instead of the minimum number of times required to accomplish the purpose.

Around here if you simply let the leaves stay on your lawn you’re going to have a moldy mess and dead grass the next spring.

[nopelynopington]

Grass can survive leaves, I don't see dead patches on my lawn because I didn't move the leaves around

[obruchez]

I have the opposite anecdote. I left a lot of leaves on our lawn last winter (by pure laziness) and it definitely damaged the lawn. Edit: it was a rather young lawn, I guess (less than 2 years).

[AaronAPU]

This is directly contradicted by a lifetime of witnessing dead grass under regions of leaves which were missed the previous fall.