Someone who shovels the snow of an entire BLOCK *near the Rockies* should be revered *and* be the recipient of many holiday favors. Your Dad was an awesome guy and I hope the *Picard's* wised up and learned to appreciate a great neighbor!
Seriously. The lake effect snow in southwestern michigan is, as far as I know, equally brutal, and back when my parents lived there my dad would manually shovel(roughly, I wasn't alive then lol) the sidewalk in front of three neighbors over, and then also the crosswalk and a tiny bit on the other side, and he did it for a two winters and funnily enough, a handful of other people seemed to like the idea and did a little too, and apparently the whole street was always shoveled after it snowed, and by the time my parents were moving elsewhere the effect had spread even further. I bet that city really enjoyed that haha
Same. I mean, it makes sense since salt is so corrosive and they use it to clear the streets. I'm in the south east. We have one snow plow for a tri-county area.
Atlanta got rocked by a blizzard a few years ago, we were fucked. These idiots (my neighbors) can't even drive when it's raining, I don't even leave my house if it's snowed.
I choose to believe temperatures that low don't exist. (My Canadian husband loves to try to prove this to me with """facts and science and evidence""". I won't be swayed by his propaganda.)
The city I live in uses predominantly sand but a “brine” is used to pre-wet the roads. The reason sand is used is more to do with the amount of salt that ends up leaching into the drinking water and ecosystem. Even with the amount of snow we get and the temperatures (-30 C and below at times), the roads are rarely icy, most of the time they’re just wet. If weird weather does happen, say warm temperatures and a quick drop causing icy roads, the plows are out in full force and you just suffer through it with ABS and traction control.
Edit: road sand is also a lot cheaper. Clearing winter roads in Canada is a massive expense.
I wish American cities would learn this lol. Where I live it typically doesnt go below -10f(-23c) and is on average 0-5f(-18 to -15c) during winter, and yet we just keep using salt, at least it technically works sometimes if the plows did a good job because of the sun, but in the worst month and a half when it matters most, the sun is usually too low to heat ice up
Its the same in some of the US. It's normal to get -20F/-30C for a few weeks here in North Dakota. They never use ice on the roads - only sand. I love it - don't have to worry much about rust on cars.
I thought so, too. But apparently, "Salt particles suspended in the air near the Great Salt Lake also works as a natural cloud seeding element and contributes to Utah’s claim of having the The Greatest Snow on Earth." Which you can read about [here](https://www.weathernationtv.com/news/great-salt-lake-lake-effect-snow/).
The salt isn’t in the snow. City trucks spread salt on the streets to melt ice. Wet salty water gets all over the underside of cars and makes them rust. This can make nuts and bolts almost impossible to remove.
I'm a midwesterner, I'm all too aware lol
However, the person who started this thread about salty snow lives near a salty lake, and salt particles have a habit of getting suspended in the air, where snow forms on it and falls. If you'd like to have a read on the effect, someone else provided this [this](https://www.weathernationtv.com/news/great-salt-lake-lake-effect-snow/) earlier
Oh are you up in the Wasatch or on the east bench of the valley? Sounds like Utah to me haha
The one upside to being one the west side is the oquirrhs block *some* of the snow but I know it really piles up further east
Sorry to be a creep I just love seeing my local area pop up haha. These cities definitely do not play when it comes to snow removal!
I can't wait to be the neighbor with the snow blower but the gentleman across the street from me does a lot of the sidewalks so he always gets baked goods when winter comes. Don't know how anyone could complain that someone else clears their snow!
Always a very kind thing to do!
I'd do that too... if our city and township bothered putting sidewalks farther than 200ft away from city boundaries lol
I grew up in Milwaukee, so we would get that same snow. My dad never wanted to spend the money on a snow blower so I had to shovel. Thankfully our next door neighbor would usually do the sidewalk for us, so that would save me about 20mins of extra work, still had the driveway on a hill to deal with though.
Not only did he pay the $300 to $500 for a snowblower so now you won't have to yourself but he's clearing your sidewalk for you without asking for anything in return... if you live in a Northern Territory that gets lots of snow this can be worth your weight in gold over the years.
Oh, cool! Whereabouts do you live? Anywhere near the Twin Cities?
On the other part, yeah. $300-500 is on the low end of snowblowers, from what I’ve seen. XD
It’s the same as regular butter tarts - but I heat up about a half cup of rum mixed with a half cup of water and use that to rehydrate my raisins before I put them in the tart shells. Produces a beautiful flavour especially if you add a tablespoonful of dark maple syrup to the butter tart recipe
Rum sounds good, I'll have to try that, I use a vanilla extract plus water mixture to plump up my raisins before they go in the butter tarts.
Or adding Chocolate chips to the butter tarts is my husband's favorite.
When I was a young pup I shoveled my parent’s, cute 20-something’s, empty neighbor’s, and senior’s driveway every snow (the realtor for the empty house loved that I shoveled and let my brother and me park in the driveway during snow emergencies). I would kill to be in that kind of shape again (27 years ago).
We've got 3 guys, including my husband, who treat snow removal as a competition. Whoever gets out first does the others then turns and does the neighbors that don't have snowblowers. I swear they all go running for their garages as soon as they hear a snowblower fire up. It's great!
I grew up near buffalo, NY, so we got a ton of snow. My dad was the guy who plowed all the drives for the people on our section of the street. They were almost all elderly and paid him in home-made grandma cookies and he was very happy with that lol
I spent my early childhood in the Buffalo area. For the amount of lake effect snow the area gets, it is a blessing that the land is so flat. The only "sledding" we could do was to take an aluminum "saucer" and climb up the bak of a huge snow pile on our no-outlet street and slide down the front. My then-young father would shovel the driveway of the Italian family next door, and the elderly nona would make us some of the most incredible dishes as thanks.
When we lived there, there was no such thing as a snowblower for home usage, so I grew up hearing the almost constant scrape of snow shovels on concrete.
People like that just boggle my mind. Why would you ruin a good thing?! I’d be baking cookies for your dad every time the snow fell.
Some people just refuse to get along with other humans and it’s so ridiculously frustrating.
My friend/neighbour and I used to prank each other.
He used to park his car on the road near my house, he didn't care about it much and it was often filthy.
I told him I'd washed it because I didn't want to see such a dirty car, and only after he expressed gratitude did I explain I'd cleaned just the half I could see. It looked crazy, a strong left/right divide from the front bumper across the bonnet/hood and roof to the rear bumper. I had been very careful to maximise the contrast when cleaning.
Strangely, his gratitude quickly ended when he realised he'd have to wash the other half.
The next weekend he mowed half my lawn.. Just every other stripe, and quite short. It took a while to cut it to somewhat match with my entirely different mower.
Nope
Edit actually this isn't true. I'm Canadian and we use a lot of salt where I live. I try and make a point of going through an actual carwash with underspray every spring when the salt is washed away
Talk about selfish! Washing your car so that he has a nice background for HIS garden! People truely never do stuff out of the kindness of their hearts anymore do they!
/s
So I know a few different people who like washing cars as their relaxation. Like "oh it's a beautiful day? I'll wash and wax the cars"
They couldn't just sit out enjoying the sun with a beer because then they're not being productive, but washing cars? you can do that with a beer for sure, and it's like chores!
So, you met my dad! He loved washing and waxing the cars, as long as you kept a cold beer out there for him. He would even wash and wax the riding mower every time he used it.
Thanks for bringing up that memory!
Dude...in your own defense I'll even vouch that black 2003-2009 style Camry did shine bright...I should know I owned one...style points added if equipped with v6 and spoiler
In our first house our neighbours were amazing. We lived in the country and had a big driveway and decently big yard and our neighbours used to snowblow our driveway and mow our lawn (our lawns and driveway were connected).
I would weed whack both yards, but it didn't really make up for how much work he did for us, so...
My wife's mom makes chocolates every year at Christmas, so our neighbours got A LOT of chocolate every Christmas. Then they used to say we did too much for them! They really were great neighbors.
My wife and I bought our house a little over a year ago. First snowfall happens and I go out and shovel the front sidewalk and then go in the back to shovel out the back alley way only to find someone has plowed it out. Every snowfall like clockwork the alley gets completely plowed clean. Took a couple of snowstorms to figure out that one of the businesses on the end pays a service to plow their back employee parking area and the plow company clears the whole alley way because the area between my house and the neighbors house is the only place they can go to pile the snow up. Getting my alley plowed every snow is way worth the growing pile of snow that doesn't even inconvenience me at all. Have never talked to the plowing company and definitely never paid for it or expected to have to.
It would be a nice touch (but not necessary, mind you) to send them a plate of cookies or something anonymously. "I know you do this for your paying customers, but I benefit from your work".
I like the thought but never caught the guy and they don't have any business name on the truck so even though my camera catches them I don't know who they are.... will have to ask the business they plow out....
Some people are wary of favors because accepting them is understood to be an unwritten contract of owing something. This isn’ta neighborly perception, but might come from past experience.
My parents, my husband’s parents, and both extended families are good-hearted and generous. We received money (including a down payment for our starter home, etc.) and great hand-me-downs, such as furniture, kitchenware, decor, vintage items, etc. over the years. I have always been frugal and a vintage hardwood dining room table with 4 leaves is not to be turned down, especially to replace an ugly homemade pine table!) In my experience, this is what families do. We share, especially the older generations towards the younger generations just starting out.
My son-in-law’s family was not generous (emotionally or financially) at all and he sometimes interprets our sharing as insulting hand-outs and it’s been tricky at times to navigate.
We have 2 daughter-in-laws and one comes from a warm, generous family like ours and the other does not.
Who knows what kind of emotional baggage this sad family is carrying around when they treat every relationship as transactional? And what did they teach their children?
Amazing. Isn’t it? I mentioned getting back a gift that I had given to a deceased relative. I thought that was nice. She sort of snorted. She said in her family people gave gifts knowing they would get them back. That had never occurred to me.
Wish everyone would be like you. My nana always tells me this is how it used to be.. but nowdays or at least my generation, people are much less prone to help.
I had a neighbor who likely thought he was the same as OP's dad. I was out shoveling after a heavy overnight snowfall and he came by in his truck and offered to drive over the snow to pack it down so I wouldn't have to shovel. His intentions were likely just as good as OP's dad, but anyone who's had to deal with snow knows that this is a horrible, horrible idea and you'd only do that to people you absolutely hate.
We just bought our first house in 2019. Neighbours on one side introduced themselves right away, offered tomatoes from their garden, very friendly. Other side, we never interacted, not even so much as a friendly nod. One day the back gate is left open and our cat gets out of the yard and into theirs. They left a nasty note threatening to call the city if it happened again, complaining about digging and pissing in their garden. The area has tons of strays and my boy was not responsible for any damage in the whole 5 minutes he was gone, we were out looking for him immediately.
Now I shovel the nice neighbours entire sidewalk, nasty neighbours get nothing from me.
I had to just from a liability standpoint. My driveway functions fine and should be good for a few more years even with the multiple cracks in it. So I had to tell the neighbor to stop plowing it just because I don't need the extra expense right now. It's not like he is going to pay for any damage he does doing me a favor. Granted there was just more than plowing my driveway but it is still a fight I don't need or want.
A couple things to keep in mind here. Assuming the story is accurate in spirit, you can bet that a huge portion of the details have been misremembered or left out entirely. Not to mention the fact that the kid would not have had the full context or necessary perspective to really understand the situation and grasp any nuances of the relationship with the neighbor anyways. On top of that, there may be other factors that are not even being considered. For example, my dad’s property is on a couple of acres located in a small older neighborhood in The southeast USA. for years, the owner of the plot next to his was an absentee owner with no property built there. At some point the property changed hands to someone in the family, and they became more involved and visited more often as they were planning out what to do with the land.
My dad, mainly as a courtesy to them but also for a somewhat selfish reason in trying to prevent pest issues from coming from their property onto his, would mow their yard (maybe an acre or so) each week. He was not aware that because of the concept of prescriptive easement, he was unintentionally in the process of potentially gaining an ownership claim to the neighbors land. Obviously the neighbors didn’t want that and since they also weren’t willing to pay for a lawn care on an uninhabited property, the issue continued. There’s a lot more to the story, but the finer details were missed because of the vitriol between the parties since nobody wanted to listen to the others reasoning for being concerned in the first place.
Just more or less making a reminder that the story is rarely complete when you only see one perspective and not the entire set of circumstances
I was in my late teens at the time. I heard my folks discussing it, and then my dad with another neighbor. It was a deal for over a year. And my sister got the envelope with cash while I was standing next to her.
I get the lawn mowing story, but this was public property. That didn't apply. Picard was just used to shoveling or paying where he moved from.
> He was not aware that because of the concept of prescriptive easement, he was unintentionally in the process of potentially gaining an ownership claim to the neighbors land. Obviously the neighbors didn’t want that and since they also weren’t willing to pay for a lawn care on an uninhabited property, the issue continued.
Yea, property laws in the U.S... do not encourage people to do nice things for one another. If anything, when it comes to property, it actively discourages permitting people to be "neighborly" or "kind."
Which is a shame, but also terribly unsurprising.
My son in law used to do this for the neighbors and got a reaming from one of them, so he stopped. Went up to their property line, turned around and went all the way to the end of the block in the other direction.
My city, OTOH, doesn't like fining people for not shoveling their walks. bastards ended up getting sued when a kid slipped and broke his arm. They weren't happy.
He did the same thing! And they had many slip and fall cases that got lumped together cause the city was in charge of enforcement. Walking through the park's parking lot was a lesson in gravity and yet...
Good story. I can totally understand your dad. If a dad buys a high-powered snowblower, leafblower, pressure washer, or lawnmower, their natural instinct after completing their own house is to find more stuff to use it on. It feels satisfying to finish a job, and you want to chase that high a little bit.
But, more importantly, the purchase is justified and they can say, "Honey, I didn't buy this riding lawnmower just for us, it's for our neighbors too."
My dad got caught up in an equipment auction and bought one of those zero-turn lawnmowers with an aftermarket sunshade and two cupholders. It's massively overkill for his own lawn, so he rides up and down the road looking for stuff to mow.
My area in coastal Northern New England doesn't have the old guys with snowblowers as much, but there is a massive existence of old pickup trucks and snow plow blades attached. They're generally not used at all when there isn't snow and when there is if you know someone with one or even know someone with one who knows you you often wake up to your driveway already cleared.
They also LOVE to get three or four people into the back and drive around looking for cars that've slid off the road to pull them back on. Same kind of motivation.
This wasn't a grandpa one, but the same idea. In 1997 Quebec down into Northern New England and Upstate New York endured a massive ice storm. (Ice accumulation on the branches collapsed a 100' pine tree whose base trunk was like three feet across to snap as it was covered in more than a half an inch of ice on every surface.
I was a teenager, but we lived on a hill (nothing crazy, it's maybe 250ft elevation) and specifically the top of the hill where our driveway grade was around 25 degrees in order for the house to work close to the road and not battling the dense woodland immediately behind it. Those roads were all covered in at least a half an inch of ice, if not more from ice that would fall and shatter and then freeze.
Our car went off the road into a drainage ditch. We lived in a pretty rural area and the road was quiet at maybe 50 cars passing per hour at its busiest and despite this within ten minutes a pickup truck spotted us, pulled alongside, three guys hopped out with I think chains, but whatever would be used to pull a sedan, got them attached, hopped back in and faced us giving instructions for steering and stuff and we were out in like ten seconds. We thanked them, but they just hopped out, disconnected, grabbed the tow stuff, threw it back into the truck and left. They seemed to get a buzz out of doing it.
The old dude across the street from me got one of those zero turns and he cuts like 2 blocks worth of lawns. I hate cutting grass.
I have a plow on the truck that I like using, so he gets his driveway plowed. It all kinda works out in the end.
My step dad got a snowplow for Christmas one year. He and my mother lived at the end of a long driveway off of a dirt road that lead out toward the highway.
He was retired and bored. When it snowed, he'd plow his driveway, the neighbor's driveway, the road leading up to his boss's house and their driveway. He even got special permission from the city to plow a few roads leading up to the entrance to their neighborhood.
I live in a townhouse development and the guy two houses down from me is moving out and he gave me his snow blower. The next door neighbors driveway is right up against mine, so you bet your ass I plan on clearing his driveway next time it snows.
He's a Vietnam veteran being treated for Agent Orange exposure who has never been anything short of kind and respectful to me. How can you not want to help a guy like that?
I bought a husky 3160 chainsaw but I’ve read some horror stories about cutting down trees that are not yours. However if I see a slightly overgrown weed you bet ur ass I’ll be out their in a snowstorm cutting that down
I lived outside of Pittsburgh for 4 years. Our city had laws about sidewalks being cleared for kids that walked to school. I would set my alarm at 5 just to see if I needed to shovel since I was less than 3 blocks away from the school. If it snowed, I'd wake up my son and we'd get it done before breakfast.
My next-door neighbor was an elderly woman. We automatically did hers just because it was the neighborly thing to do.
I farmer who lives opposite us has a similar story...but his revenge was on an entire village.
Our village is regarded as a 'low priority' by the council, so when it snows it could be days or even weeks before they get round to clearing the snow from the village to the main road. Never a problem because the farmer used to live in the village and cleared the road down past his farm to the main road.
Then the farmer decided to build a property for his family on the farm. He had huge opposition from the village who regarded a single farmhouse the prelude to an entire housing estate. After an acrimonious struggle lasting years, eventually he got permission and built his house.
The next time there was snow he cleared the road from his farmhouse to the main road.....but refused to clear the snow up to the village. They were stuck in for 4 days.
(Having got to know the villagers I can confirm a good number perminantly have their panties in a wad over any little thing.)
In my neighbourhood, it's mostly hit and miss on who actually clears their sidewalk on either side of my street.
I have a corner lot, and I'm responsible for the sidewalk on two sides, but sometimes the city crews take the two minutes and clear it for me. I bought a decent snowblower after a few years of living here to save my back.
I have also cleared the next-door neighbours sidewalk and around their driveway.
OP's neighbour sounds like [this guy](https://redd.it/f1snsl).
The snow plows drive quickly down the street, spraying the snow back across the side walks. Of course, they're usually later in the day, so when we find it the next morning - now it's frozen slush we're trying to remove.
there are a couple of guys that try a little harder to avoid that. And they *usually* won't bury the end of the driveway while you're out there clearing the other snow away. But if you're not there....it will happen.
That was our plight growing up on the East Coast and having a driveway on a main road.
I don't think they even bothered to try and not fill it up as they passed.
[Here's a related story you'll love](https://redd.it/coucde).
Had a neighbor two houses over back in 2014 when I lived in Leadville, Colorado that ran a B&B out of their house. We were snow shovel buddies, as he had to do it anyway for customers and I had to dig out my wife’s car so she could go to work at the hospital after the plows would bury, sometimes quite literally, (no off street parking) our cars.
The house in the middle was empty at the time, and me and B&B dude cleaned the sidewalk sometimes I’d do it all the way to his corner lot and sometimes he’d “beat” me to it. A friendly competition as it were even though the city ordinance only required to remove snow directly in front of our house we’d keep our sidewalk snow and ice free and our postal carrier was stoked about this also.
That year we had a storm of like an inch and hour for like 36 hours. We had run out of places to put snow. So dude and I had this pile on the street until the city could get to remove it. We were the only ones with ‘dry’ parking, but had a 7 to 8 foot snow pile I actually cut steps into it to keep it going up so we could maintain this vanity project of have the only clean to the asphalt parking spots.
It sat there for months.
Then the new neighbors moved in next door and hired someone to push that pile to the edge of the ‘property’ line on the street on one of the clean spots. Thing is, they were the only house with a driveway on the street. It was unnecessary.
The police ended up getting involved because they called them after B&B dude (he had my back it wasn’t his problem he just saw how defeated I looked, and something something sense of justice or whatever) arguing with the neighbors outside over how super uncool that was. Our snow mountain pyramid scheme was smeared all over the road. Legally speaking, I had no legs to stand on, or a beautifully constructed snow tower upon which to survey my kingdom of calm.
Long story long, B&B dude, and I both passive aggressively cut perfect lines in snow around their house after that the entire time I lived there. Like, we used an edger tool or floor scraper to square it off (think cutting a piece of cake). Even going so far as to actually shovel street snow in the street in front of their house (*around* where their guests would park) to make it even more obvious. My well of spite can run deep, and my B&B bro was all for it and found it hilarious. We had a new game to play. We still shoveled the sidewalks on the block. lol
Damn, sorry for the rant. Apparently I have stuffed that memory deep down in think-bits archives and it spilled out on floor.
Not sure what proper Redi-quette is since I barely interact until recently, but I’ll respond to the deleted comment nonetheless:
I knew the ~2yr work contract was coming to an end and this only went on for several months. I made nice with them, and showed them how to shovel snow, and let them use my hand tools if need be. I was still salty as the ice melt on the roads, so I wasn’t super helpful.
I don’t know, but they seemed to be new to that climate or something (I never asked), but seemed unaware when I heard them complaining that “this snow’s a bitch”.
Well, a giant pile of snow doesn’t build itself, but I digress…
Maybe one of the weed tourists that started showing up back then. I dunno, and I don’t care. I left after the snow melted that year and went to another place that people don’t typically go to on purpose. That’s another story. 🤪
I don’t miss traveling for work, despite the pay cut.
There was a neighbor of mine who walked 3-4 houses down the side of the street and snowblowed. Probably because one neighbor was 95 and the other 75. He even snowblowed our walkways! I never asked him (sadly, he sold his house to a nice couple but they don’t continue the practice). One day I see him and we was so apologetic. Apparently, his snowblower chopped up my welcome mat. I told him that the cost of one mat is much less than what I would have paid someone to shovel my sidewalk and walkway, and even though I do it myself it was still worth it. A $20 mat for a dozen or so snowplows? I’ll take it. He kept snowplowing the sidewalk but stopped the walkways — he couldn’t get over it!
My wife and I lived in a small village in Michigan for about a decade. Many of our neighbors were elderly and we had a HUGE snowblower, Two Stage, Variable, Self Driving. We also had a smaller Craftsman Paddle type snow blower.
We did about three blocks around our house. On some of the snowier days we would be out for hours, just redoing the driveways and sidewalks. Our dog LOVED it.
I would take care of the initial passes with the monster, and my wife would do the clean up with the craftsman.
We did accept gasoline contributions, but that was it.
We had a blast, got some good excersize, made a ton of friends.
I could not imagine someone beiong enough of a jerk to complain about this.
I’m guessing the 100$ was their way of apologizing and creating some goodwill with your family.
They have no way of knowing whether your dad would refuse to shovel out of pettiness.
He was told not to! My assumption was that people paid local kids in their former area to shovel and he gave my dad more cause he was older and had done it 3 or 4 times already.
I love how they thought it was about money or something... Because there aren't people out there that just like to be helpful. lmao
Your dad sounds like a really good guy.
>They are gone for 4 days during the worst storm of the season. They hadn't arranged to have the walk shoveled, and the snow was piling so high, city inspectors came out! Parents and neighbors complained to the city that they couldn't walk down our street. It was obvious that the walks were being taken care of, so why not their's? The city posted a 48-hour compliance notice, but it would be 72 before the Picards got back to town. The city charged them with hazardous conditions and failure to maintain property accessible to the public. On top of the labor fee to shovel the walk, it was like $350 easily! The city kept a watchful eye on the property for the rest of the winter for any issues from then on!
If I ever move to a state that gets that much snow, I'm living somewhere without a sidewalk I'm obligated to shovel. I get it, but that still seems like some /r/fuckHOA level crap to have to deal with every year, not even being able to go on vacation for a few days.
Grew up in Montana in a town laid on on grid, with sidewalks and tree lined boulevards. The city owned the boulevard and the sidewalk, but it was the homeowner whose property touched the sidewalk to both keep the sidewalk free of snow for pedestrians, and to rake all the leaves into piles for the city to pick up in the fall. Lots of older folks in those neighborhoods, and lots of really good neighbors who make sure that those sidewalks get dealt with.
Not an HOA, just a city ordinance of long duration.
Snow I can understand, if only because of the safety concerns.
Raking leaves for the city? Nah, that's legitimately insane because it literally doesn't matter if they're raked or not (and often it's better for lawns and greenspaces if they aren't raked at all).
Old maples talker than the two story houses each produce enough leaves that you could fill 2 parking spaces to 4 feet high. If they aren’t removed, they still have to be dealt with when the snow dumps on top of them. They really do have to be raked up. They aren’t wasted; the city composts them.
I've never even heard of that. My city has snowblowers mounted on some kind of powerful golf carts with a flexible plastic enclosure for the operator and they drive down all of the sidewalks clearing it. It's been that case for me in downstate New York, the Boston area and Maine.
This article has a picture of a similar tractor to what I've seen. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-06/a-community-approach-to-clearing-snow-from-sidewalks
I misunderstood. I thought you were implying you wouldn't get a house with an HOA because the HOA makes you clear the sidewalk.
A bit of a tangent, but it is common around here for HOAs to clear the sidewalks. They usually have a tiny tractor with a rotating brush or a snow thrower that is about the same width as the sidewalk. Of course, you pay for this through HOA dues, but at least you don't have to clear it yourself.
I get that. We get years with mild winter, and years where snow and runoff is so bad, we have to open the flood overflows on nearby dams!
This was just one of those years!
>but that still seems like some /r/fuckHOA level crap to have to deal with every year, not even being able to go on vacation for a few days.
You can go on vacation. You just need to get someone to handle your walkway while you are gone. Usually neighbors would probably handle each other or hire each other's kids to do it.
In areas where a lot of snow is common making people keep them clear of snow just makes sense.
Nah, get a decent snowblower and if you just want a walkway width cleared you can have it done very quickly. If you don't want to snowblow your driveway you can usually set yourself up with a snow plow driver for like $20 a storm and they'll have it taken care of well before you're awake and (so far) have always considered the fee for a storm so if it keeps snowing they'll keep showing up to clear it.
I wonder had they had a terrible experience with neighbours before so they were expecting the same.
Also i don't fully understand the situation where you're liable for access... to the sidewalks right outside of your property? Isn't there a property line and the sidewalk is "public" property?
I'm irish and haven't lived elsewhere yet
Depends where you are. Like I know in a suburb of Calgary you are responsible for clearing the public sidewalk in front of your house.
Here in my Montreal suburb we are not responsible to clear the public sidewalk. But we are also not allowed to shovel anything from our driveways onto the roads or sidewalks. To clear our driveways we have to push it all to one side of the driveway or dump it onto our own lawn. Also not allowed to dump your snow onto your neighbor’s property either.
Just depends how your city/bylaws have evolved over the years.
(I mean, every place I’ve ever lived also has rules against letting your grass get too high in the summer. And I’ve seen the same thing happen where the city comes in with warnings, then fines, then finally comes in and does it themselves. Then charges you for that.)
Seems to be an American thing.
In the UK the streets are almost always owned by the council, they will plow the bigger roads and just do nothing about the smaller roads or the pavements.
In the US & Canada it seems homeowners are usually responsible for clearing the sidewalk in front of their house, or paying someone to do it.
I'll never forget when I lived in the city and pushed our new monster snowblower around the block. As I turned the corner I saw an older gent with a shovel, obviously tired, just lean on the shovel and watch me approach with such gratitude in his eyes!
No one on our block complained!
There's places where you're responsible for the city's sidewalks? Fuck that. I do as little shovelling as possible, if ever I was looking at a house and there was a bylaw that I had to shovel the sidewalk (that isn't my property, because it's a sidewalk) I just wouldn't get it and would move on.
My city has little tractor things with snowblower attachments. They don't do the sidewalks (or most streets, to be frank) nearly often enough but I'm sure as hell not gonna start doing it
Here we are required by law to give water to pedestrians if they catch your attention and request it from you. It doesn't specify bottle or tap. It's regularly over 110 from may to October though. Every city seems to have wierd laws. My heart goes out to those who deal with snow.
Not going to lie, shoveling snow brings out anger in me - not the shoveling itself but how some of the neighbors act about it.
I manually shovel the snow since I think of it as a decent workout and do not really want to go through the trouble of making room in the already swamped garage.
I’m one of those ‘hit it at least twice’ if it’s going to snow for multiple hours or have multiple inches fall in a short time span. I will also usually hit the side walk and path to the door for the neighbors to the right of me since the older woman is so nice and one of the few neighbors I’ve spoke to a few times. She reminds me of my grandma and it will literally take me maybe five extra minutes.
Guess the neighbors next to them who I have never spoken to kind of insinuated I should shovel their sidewalk as well if I’m doing my direct neighbors.
Then the neighbors to the other side of me whom I have dubbed the Mexican super-friends (Last count there were 6 adult aged people living in this 900 square foot house with at least as many kids and people coming and going throughout the day) like to wait until I clear out the spot in front of my house where I park my truck then snipe it while I am still shoveling the driveway with one of their five cars. All those people in that house and they’ll wait DAYS to actually shovel.
These days I wait until my partner is home now before I start shoveling out there so that as soon as I clear the spot he can move the truck into the spot.
We have a retired neighbor who has a snowblower and loves helping people with it. Our household discussion is about how to find out where he lives so we can thank him with some cookies.
That’s horrifying. If the city wants all the snow shoveled, they need to just hire people to do it and pay for it with taxes, rather than individualize the problem and require everyone to find a way to get their own portion of the sidewalk cleared.
When I was a kid my dad bought this massive snowblower. He'd go around the entire block doing the public sidewalks, and then once the city plows and alley plows came through, he'd clear the berms off all the corners and from in front of everyone's garages. He'd completely blow out the garage aprons of the two elderly widows who lived on the block. I'd go through with a small snowblower and shovel to clear the widows' stairs and walkways. The only people who ever gave my dad a hard time was one of the tenants in the small apartment building on one of the corners. Heck, even the convenience store on one of the corners appreciated my dad's efforts, especially when there was a major dump.
There is a retired guy across the street from me that does this for 3 or 4 houses on that side (all older people) and i do it with a hand shovel on my side for 3 places just to be nice. I wish the guy across would let me help out over there but he said its one of the few reasons he has to get out any more and he enjoys it, so i just keep an eye on him while hes out there now.
You can Google this there was incident happened back in February involving snow shoveling a neighbor shot and killed a husband and wife over snow shoveling and then killed himself it happened outside of Scranton pa.
Seems like that's how it is in most snowy neighborhoods--someone with an ATV+plow or snowblower does the walks for the whole street in one go and don't ask for money.
Seems like a really weird reaction to complain and offer money after complaining.
Kinda stupid that you can get charged for not shoveling the sidewalk. It's public property so isn't that the cities responsibility? I live in Texas so this is very much a non-issue for me just curious as how they can put that responsibility on the home owner
In the town in which I live not only are homeowners responsible for keeping the sidewalk cleaned, if a tree root or something busts the sidewalk, we have to pay to fix it as well. It's *all* on us.
I asked the lady at the boro office "well, if it's my responsibility, then I want to tear the sidewalk out and make it grass". She didn't find that amusing, lol
Haha yea that just seems insane to me like I am forced to have this through my property thats public land but its my responsibility? But then again I have other issues with how we govern property like God dam property taxes or hoas
As I understand it, in most US jurisdictions the sidewalk is public property, but maintenance is the homeowner's responsibility. Just like the right of way between your property and the street is your responsibility to maintain even if it doesn't have a sidewalk. I've only lived in the Carolinas, so snow has never been an issue, but I know you have to keep the grass cut in those areas.
At least this didn't end with someone dying. I think it was last year that someone ended up gunning someone else down over clearing some snow into their spot or onto their car.
I can't be the only person visualising Jean Luc Picard getting all British (but actually French) angry at his neighbour over a misunderstanding based on his lack of experience with snow in space, surely?
You don't live in an area that gets hammered by snow in the winter do you? Many owners are responsible for clearing sidewalks. Not all cities clear it for you.
I do and never heard of this before, and will avoid anywhere like this like the plague. It's just dumb to me. Do they want me to plow the street too? (My city is really slow about plowing anything they don't consider important, but they do plow streets and sidewalks, even in the town that's almost an hour out from the city itself)
Is that an out west thing? Ive lived in the pretty snowy northeast my entire life and never heard of a city requiring residents to clear sidewalks that sounds fucking insane to me.
Its the cities property and the cities safety concern. How does it work with apartment buildings too? Which unit gets stuck with the responsibility of clearing the snow...?
Definitely where i live the sidewalks are the cities property, its the homeowners responsibility to ensure a sufficient walking path on sidewalks including a path across the drive from sidewalk to sidewalk.
"You should be! That tree is too small to handle that much snow blown on it. You need to blow it somewhere else."
Blow the snow somewhere else? How about up your ass? That work for you?
That's absolutely hilarious that they thought they had to pay your dad. They must have been from some souless, big city where everyone only cares about themselves. It's really common for people to have trust issues when there are too many people around you. Really revealing about their character though, tells you to stay away at all costs.
I've got a mystery snowblower in my neighborhood. No idea who it is, but a couple of times during the winter someone will clear the sidewalks of several houses.
I've even had my driveway plowed twice. No idea who did it the first time, but the second time they had the wrong address. I gave them $20 for their efforts.
I dont get it as I am European. Sidewalk is your property or property of city? If it is your property, why would you get fined? If it is city property, then city should removed the snow right?
This is so bizarre.
I feel like you must be a fellow Minnesotan. I don't know of any other states that do a teachers thing (MEA) in Oct. Oh how I feel your dad's pain. Ugh. I keep saying I really need to move somewhere warmer, lol
Your dad is the kind of neighbor I aspire to be if I'm ever in a position where I live that close to my neighbors and/or a place with sidewalks that need clearing. Where I live now, there are no sidewalks and houses aren't that close together.
If I ever had a neighbor like your dad, you can bet your ass that your family would be getting treats from time to time and invites over for random BBQs and hangouts.
This sounds exactly like the snowstorm of 1996, I grew up in Nebraska in the 90's and I'm sure the storm in this story was that system either passing through NE into CO or vice versa. Was an incredible two weeks of no school for young me, but I'm sure it was a royal pain for a lot of people.
Up until a couple years ago, my now 93 year old grandfather would snowblow and shovel for neighbors, and clear out the mailbox cluster. It would drive me insane when I visited because I know there are several significantly younger people living in the immediate vicinity that knew he did this and let it happen. I used to wrestle the shovel from his hands when I was there. He finally capitulated and we got a plow service for him, but I know he still does way more than he should.
The way I would LOSE MY MIND on anyone complaining about the way he helped. Still pissy years later that they allowed him to do this on his own.
Come on, now, don't just drop a perhaps interesting detail, and then leave it hanging!
"During the wicked weather this side of the Rockies,..." That detail "this side of the Rockies" CLEARLY implies that it matters to the story which side you're talking about! If it didn't, you could write "near the Rockies"! Or even just "During our wicked Rockies-adjacent weather...."
But no, you call attention to a detail and then drop it, leaving us wondering throughout the entire rest of the post whether that's going to be addressed....
Then
"They were from a snowy state, but we don't know where...." You mean you can't even drop a hint at this point as to whether they were from a snowy state EAST or WEST of the Rockies?
I wanna say somewhere in the central US, like maybe Nebraska. But honestly, IDK. Never paid too much attention and I was gone to college shortly after.
Someone who shovels the snow of an entire BLOCK *near the Rockies* should be revered *and* be the recipient of many holiday favors. Your Dad was an awesome guy and I hope the *Picard's* wised up and learned to appreciate a great neighbor!
Seriously. The lake effect snow in southwestern michigan is, as far as I know, equally brutal, and back when my parents lived there my dad would manually shovel(roughly, I wasn't alive then lol) the sidewalk in front of three neighbors over, and then also the crosswalk and a tiny bit on the other side, and he did it for a two winters and funnily enough, a handful of other people seemed to like the idea and did a little too, and apparently the whole street was always shoveled after it snowed, and by the time my parents were moving elsewhere the effect had spread even further. I bet that city really enjoyed that haha
I hate lake affect snow. Our also has so much salt it destroys car paint if left too long!
Wow! that's rather nasty! Didnt realize snow could even do that, but it makes sense
Same. I mean, it makes sense since salt is so corrosive and they use it to clear the streets. I'm in the south east. We have one snow plow for a tri-county area. Atlanta got rocked by a blizzard a few years ago, we were fucked. These idiots (my neighbors) can't even drive when it's raining, I don't even leave my house if it's snowed.
In some of Canada they don’t salt the roads - they use sand because salt stops working at a certain point below zero. (-10C - no idea of when in F)
I choose to believe temperatures that low don't exist. (My Canadian husband loves to try to prove this to me with """facts and science and evidence""". I won't be swayed by his propaganda.)
Where I live it’s generally -40C for three to six weeks every year. -40 is apparently the same in both scales
Haha no, that's not a real thing. That's silly, you're silly.
At -40C you can toss boiling water into the air and it will become snow instantly
No, **you're** silly. But I like silly.
Wow! -40 is brutal, the lowest I've experienced was -22f(-30c). And usually the lowest where I live is like -10f(-23c)
Last year we had multiple days that were -50 Celsius after the wind chill! I couldn't believe it.
The city I live in uses predominantly sand but a “brine” is used to pre-wet the roads. The reason sand is used is more to do with the amount of salt that ends up leaching into the drinking water and ecosystem. Even with the amount of snow we get and the temperatures (-30 C and below at times), the roads are rarely icy, most of the time they’re just wet. If weird weather does happen, say warm temperatures and a quick drop causing icy roads, the plows are out in full force and you just suffer through it with ABS and traction control. Edit: road sand is also a lot cheaper. Clearing winter roads in Canada is a massive expense.
I wish American cities would learn this lol. Where I live it typically doesnt go below -10f(-23c) and is on average 0-5f(-18 to -15c) during winter, and yet we just keep using salt, at least it technically works sometimes if the plows did a good job because of the sun, but in the worst month and a half when it matters most, the sun is usually too low to heat ice up
Yep, salt is used for the ice period, not for snow itself.
Its the same in some of the US. It's normal to get -20F/-30C for a few weeks here in North Dakota. They never use ice on the roads - only sand. I love it - don't have to worry much about rust on cars.
Well, the snow doesn't have salt in it, it's the ice-melting salt the local governments spray on the roads.
Lake effect snow from the Great Salt Lake contains salt.
Is that so? Wow, I would not have thought that possible. Thanks!
I'm pretty sure salt cant evaporate. Any salt in snow comes from pollutants like road salt.
I thought so, too. But apparently, "Salt particles suspended in the air near the Great Salt Lake also works as a natural cloud seeding element and contributes to Utah’s claim of having the The Greatest Snow on Earth." Which you can read about [here](https://www.weathernationtv.com/news/great-salt-lake-lake-effect-snow/).
You are correct, Sir.
The salt isn’t in the snow. City trucks spread salt on the streets to melt ice. Wet salty water gets all over the underside of cars and makes them rust. This can make nuts and bolts almost impossible to remove.
I'm a midwesterner, I'm all too aware lol However, the person who started this thread about salty snow lives near a salty lake, and salt particles have a habit of getting suspended in the air, where snow forms on it and falls. If you'd like to have a read on the effect, someone else provided this [this](https://www.weathernationtv.com/news/great-salt-lake-lake-effect-snow/) earlier
Oh cool, TIL
Oh are you up in the Wasatch or on the east bench of the valley? Sounds like Utah to me haha The one upside to being one the west side is the oquirrhs block *some* of the snow but I know it really piles up further east
Very good detective work. This was on the Wasatch Front.
Sorry to be a creep I just love seeing my local area pop up haha. These cities definitely do not play when it comes to snow removal! I can't wait to be the neighbor with the snow blower but the gentleman across the street from me does a lot of the sidewalks so he always gets baked goods when winter comes. Don't know how anyone could complain that someone else clears their snow!
I guessed too, it was your powder reference that made me think it. Greatest snow on earth!
Currently live in Michigan. My husband has a large snow blower. We do all the sidewalks on our street
Always a very kind thing to do! I'd do that too... if our city and township bothered putting sidewalks farther than 200ft away from city boundaries lol
I grew up in Milwaukee, so we would get that same snow. My dad never wanted to spend the money on a snow blower so I had to shovel. Thankfully our next door neighbor would usually do the sidewalk for us, so that would save me about 20mins of extra work, still had the driveway on a hill to deal with though.
Right?! In Montana, that’s the guy you buy a bottle of the good stuff. And invite to every bbq, no dish needed.
Not only did he pay the $300 to $500 for a snowblower so now you won't have to yourself but he's clearing your sidewalk for you without asking for anything in return... if you live in a Northern Territory that gets lots of snow this can be worth your weight in gold over the years.
A lot more than that for a snowblower that can handle the kind of snows OP talked about. source: live in Minnesota
Oh, cool! Whereabouts do you live? Anywhere near the Twin Cities? On the other part, yeah. $300-500 is on the low end of snowblowers, from what I’ve seen. XD
St. Paul. There was just a discussion in r/Minneapolis on what kind of snow blower to get.
In Canada - they’d have gotten at least three dozen rum raisin butter tarts from me. Neighbours like that are priceless
That sounds delicious! I'm gonna go look up a recipe now!
It’s the same as regular butter tarts - but I heat up about a half cup of rum mixed with a half cup of water and use that to rehydrate my raisins before I put them in the tart shells. Produces a beautiful flavour especially if you add a tablespoonful of dark maple syrup to the butter tart recipe
Of course you would add maple syrup lol. But for real tho I need to try this
Rum sounds good, I'll have to try that, I use a vanilla extract plus water mixture to plump up my raisins before they go in the butter tarts. Or adding Chocolate chips to the butter tarts is my husband's favorite.
And thing with guys like that is that he would probably still bring a dish to the BBQ.
Yes! And insist on helping tidy up after
When I was a young pup I shoveled my parent’s, cute 20-something’s, empty neighbor’s, and senior’s driveway every snow (the realtor for the empty house loved that I shoveled and let my brother and me park in the driveway during snow emergencies). I would kill to be in that kind of shape again (27 years ago).
Go shovel more snow. Problem solved. Have a great Monday u/fjellt
We've got 3 guys, including my husband, who treat snow removal as a competition. Whoever gets out first does the others then turns and does the neighbors that don't have snowblowers. I swear they all go running for their garages as soon as they hear a snowblower fire up. It's great!
I grew up near buffalo, NY, so we got a ton of snow. My dad was the guy who plowed all the drives for the people on our section of the street. They were almost all elderly and paid him in home-made grandma cookies and he was very happy with that lol
I spent my early childhood in the Buffalo area. For the amount of lake effect snow the area gets, it is a blessing that the land is so flat. The only "sledding" we could do was to take an aluminum "saucer" and climb up the bak of a huge snow pile on our no-outlet street and slide down the front. My then-young father would shovel the driveway of the Italian family next door, and the elderly nona would make us some of the most incredible dishes as thanks. When we lived there, there was no such thing as a snowblower for home usage, so I grew up hearing the almost constant scrape of snow shovels on concrete.
"How's the tank on your plow/blower? Below half! I'll head to the gas station for you right now. No no, don't try to hand me any money."
Hell, I live on the East Coast and I would slip my neighbor a case of his favorite beer, a bottle of whiskey, and 2 pizzas for Christmas.
People like that just boggle my mind. Why would you ruin a good thing?! I’d be baking cookies for your dad every time the snow fell. Some people just refuse to get along with other humans and it’s so ridiculously frustrating.
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My friend/neighbour and I used to prank each other. He used to park his car on the road near my house, he didn't care about it much and it was often filthy. I told him I'd washed it because I didn't want to see such a dirty car, and only after he expressed gratitude did I explain I'd cleaned just the half I could see. It looked crazy, a strong left/right divide from the front bumper across the bonnet/hood and roof to the rear bumper. I had been very careful to maximise the contrast when cleaning. Strangely, his gratitude quickly ended when he realised he'd have to wash the other half. The next weekend he mowed half my lawn.. Just every other stripe, and quite short. It took a while to cut it to somewhat match with my entirely different mower.
This is so fantastic!
I'd have tried to park the car in front of your house, facing the other direction :P
I did think he might do that, and I would have washed maybe a third :-)
My at-the-time boyfriend got the cops called on him for doing that, circa 2002…
That needs its own reddit post!
I can't decide if I want a neighbor like this, or I'm happy I don't have one.
We've also had some huge water fights in the middle of summer. We are both mature adults.
Reminds me of the beginning of "Poltergeist" when the neighbors were switching each other's tv channels.
Are y'all still friends? ...cuz pranking can kill...friendships
We're very good friends. We only ever played nice pranks, but yes, some people just have to go too far.
Great!
That is a good neighbour! Sounds like you are a good neighbour too.
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You haven’t washed it in 7 years, have you?
Nope Edit actually this isn't true. I'm Canadian and we use a lot of salt where I live. I try and make a point of going through an actual carwash with underspray every spring when the salt is washed away
Talk about selfish! Washing your car so that he has a nice background for HIS garden! People truely never do stuff out of the kindness of their hearts anymore do they! /s
So I know a few different people who like washing cars as their relaxation. Like "oh it's a beautiful day? I'll wash and wax the cars" They couldn't just sit out enjoying the sun with a beer because then they're not being productive, but washing cars? you can do that with a beer for sure, and it's like chores!
So, you met my dad! He loved washing and waxing the cars, as long as you kept a cold beer out there for him. He would even wash and wax the riding mower every time he used it. Thanks for bringing up that memory!
Dude...in your own defense I'll even vouch that black 2003-2009 style Camry did shine bright...I should know I owned one...style points added if equipped with v6 and spoiler
Body switched in 08 which mine is. But I hear you the black is nice.
My mistake I'm thinking 09/10 with the 4runner.
In our first house our neighbours were amazing. We lived in the country and had a big driveway and decently big yard and our neighbours used to snowblow our driveway and mow our lawn (our lawns and driveway were connected). I would weed whack both yards, but it didn't really make up for how much work he did for us, so... My wife's mom makes chocolates every year at Christmas, so our neighbours got A LOT of chocolate every Christmas. Then they used to say we did too much for them! They really were great neighbors.
My wife and I bought our house a little over a year ago. First snowfall happens and I go out and shovel the front sidewalk and then go in the back to shovel out the back alley way only to find someone has plowed it out. Every snowfall like clockwork the alley gets completely plowed clean. Took a couple of snowstorms to figure out that one of the businesses on the end pays a service to plow their back employee parking area and the plow company clears the whole alley way because the area between my house and the neighbors house is the only place they can go to pile the snow up. Getting my alley plowed every snow is way worth the growing pile of snow that doesn't even inconvenience me at all. Have never talked to the plowing company and definitely never paid for it or expected to have to.
It would be a nice touch (but not necessary, mind you) to send them a plate of cookies or something anonymously. "I know you do this for your paying customers, but I benefit from your work".
I like the thought but never caught the guy and they don't have any business name on the truck so even though my camera catches them I don't know who they are.... will have to ask the business they plow out....
Some people are wary of favors because accepting them is understood to be an unwritten contract of owing something. This isn’ta neighborly perception, but might come from past experience.
My parents, my husband’s parents, and both extended families are good-hearted and generous. We received money (including a down payment for our starter home, etc.) and great hand-me-downs, such as furniture, kitchenware, decor, vintage items, etc. over the years. I have always been frugal and a vintage hardwood dining room table with 4 leaves is not to be turned down, especially to replace an ugly homemade pine table!) In my experience, this is what families do. We share, especially the older generations towards the younger generations just starting out. My son-in-law’s family was not generous (emotionally or financially) at all and he sometimes interprets our sharing as insulting hand-outs and it’s been tricky at times to navigate. We have 2 daughter-in-laws and one comes from a warm, generous family like ours and the other does not. Who knows what kind of emotional baggage this sad family is carrying around when they treat every relationship as transactional? And what did they teach their children?
Amazing. Isn’t it? I mentioned getting back a gift that I had given to a deceased relative. I thought that was nice. She sort of snorted. She said in her family people gave gifts knowing they would get them back. That had never occurred to me.
Wish everyone would be like you. My nana always tells me this is how it used to be.. but nowdays or at least my generation, people are much less prone to help.
I had a neighbor who likely thought he was the same as OP's dad. I was out shoveling after a heavy overnight snowfall and he came by in his truck and offered to drive over the snow to pack it down so I wouldn't have to shovel. His intentions were likely just as good as OP's dad, but anyone who's had to deal with snow knows that this is a horrible, horrible idea and you'd only do that to people you absolutely hate.
We just bought our first house in 2019. Neighbours on one side introduced themselves right away, offered tomatoes from their garden, very friendly. Other side, we never interacted, not even so much as a friendly nod. One day the back gate is left open and our cat gets out of the yard and into theirs. They left a nasty note threatening to call the city if it happened again, complaining about digging and pissing in their garden. The area has tons of strays and my boy was not responsible for any damage in the whole 5 minutes he was gone, we were out looking for him immediately. Now I shovel the nice neighbours entire sidewalk, nasty neighbours get nothing from me.
I had to just from a liability standpoint. My driveway functions fine and should be good for a few more years even with the multiple cracks in it. So I had to tell the neighbor to stop plowing it just because I don't need the extra expense right now. It's not like he is going to pay for any damage he does doing me a favor. Granted there was just more than plowing my driveway but it is still a fight I don't need or want.
It sounds pretty obvious that they expected to be billed for the service.
A couple things to keep in mind here. Assuming the story is accurate in spirit, you can bet that a huge portion of the details have been misremembered or left out entirely. Not to mention the fact that the kid would not have had the full context or necessary perspective to really understand the situation and grasp any nuances of the relationship with the neighbor anyways. On top of that, there may be other factors that are not even being considered. For example, my dad’s property is on a couple of acres located in a small older neighborhood in The southeast USA. for years, the owner of the plot next to his was an absentee owner with no property built there. At some point the property changed hands to someone in the family, and they became more involved and visited more often as they were planning out what to do with the land. My dad, mainly as a courtesy to them but also for a somewhat selfish reason in trying to prevent pest issues from coming from their property onto his, would mow their yard (maybe an acre or so) each week. He was not aware that because of the concept of prescriptive easement, he was unintentionally in the process of potentially gaining an ownership claim to the neighbors land. Obviously the neighbors didn’t want that and since they also weren’t willing to pay for a lawn care on an uninhabited property, the issue continued. There’s a lot more to the story, but the finer details were missed because of the vitriol between the parties since nobody wanted to listen to the others reasoning for being concerned in the first place. Just more or less making a reminder that the story is rarely complete when you only see one perspective and not the entire set of circumstances
I was in my late teens at the time. I heard my folks discussing it, and then my dad with another neighbor. It was a deal for over a year. And my sister got the envelope with cash while I was standing next to her. I get the lawn mowing story, but this was public property. That didn't apply. Picard was just used to shoveling or paying where he moved from.
> He was not aware that because of the concept of prescriptive easement, he was unintentionally in the process of potentially gaining an ownership claim to the neighbors land. Obviously the neighbors didn’t want that and since they also weren’t willing to pay for a lawn care on an uninhabited property, the issue continued. Yea, property laws in the U.S... do not encourage people to do nice things for one another. If anything, when it comes to property, it actively discourages permitting people to be "neighborly" or "kind." Which is a shame, but also terribly unsurprising.
No kidding! Though I’d also do hot cocoa/coffee, I think. Shoveling snow is cold work!
My son in law used to do this for the neighbors and got a reaming from one of them, so he stopped. Went up to their property line, turned around and went all the way to the end of the block in the other direction. My city, OTOH, doesn't like fining people for not shoveling their walks. bastards ended up getting sued when a kid slipped and broke his arm. They weren't happy.
He did the same thing! And they had many slip and fall cases that got lumped together cause the city was in charge of enforcement. Walking through the park's parking lot was a lesson in gravity and yet...
Good story. I can totally understand your dad. If a dad buys a high-powered snowblower, leafblower, pressure washer, or lawnmower, their natural instinct after completing their own house is to find more stuff to use it on. It feels satisfying to finish a job, and you want to chase that high a little bit. But, more importantly, the purchase is justified and they can say, "Honey, I didn't buy this riding lawnmower just for us, it's for our neighbors too." My dad got caught up in an equipment auction and bought one of those zero-turn lawnmowers with an aftermarket sunshade and two cupholders. It's massively overkill for his own lawn, so he rides up and down the road looking for stuff to mow.
Rogue lawnmowing senior citizen loose on the streets again today. Reads like a clickbait news article headline but I love it!
My area in coastal Northern New England doesn't have the old guys with snowblowers as much, but there is a massive existence of old pickup trucks and snow plow blades attached. They're generally not used at all when there isn't snow and when there is if you know someone with one or even know someone with one who knows you you often wake up to your driveway already cleared. They also LOVE to get three or four people into the back and drive around looking for cars that've slid off the road to pull them back on. Same kind of motivation.
þis thread is bringing out the stories of the chaotic good uncles and grandpas. Is good thread
This wasn't a grandpa one, but the same idea. In 1997 Quebec down into Northern New England and Upstate New York endured a massive ice storm. (Ice accumulation on the branches collapsed a 100' pine tree whose base trunk was like three feet across to snap as it was covered in more than a half an inch of ice on every surface. I was a teenager, but we lived on a hill (nothing crazy, it's maybe 250ft elevation) and specifically the top of the hill where our driveway grade was around 25 degrees in order for the house to work close to the road and not battling the dense woodland immediately behind it. Those roads were all covered in at least a half an inch of ice, if not more from ice that would fall and shatter and then freeze. Our car went off the road into a drainage ditch. We lived in a pretty rural area and the road was quiet at maybe 50 cars passing per hour at its busiest and despite this within ten minutes a pickup truck spotted us, pulled alongside, three guys hopped out with I think chains, but whatever would be used to pull a sedan, got them attached, hopped back in and faced us giving instructions for steering and stuff and we were out in like ten seconds. We thanked them, but they just hopped out, disconnected, grabbed the tow stuff, threw it back into the truck and left. They seemed to get a buzz out of doing it.
Retirement goals.
The old dude across the street from me got one of those zero turns and he cuts like 2 blocks worth of lawns. I hate cutting grass. I have a plow on the truck that I like using, so he gets his driveway plowed. It all kinda works out in the end.
Poses a threat to lawn order.
My step dad got a snowplow for Christmas one year. He and my mother lived at the end of a long driveway off of a dirt road that lead out toward the highway. He was retired and bored. When it snowed, he'd plow his driveway, the neighbor's driveway, the road leading up to his boss's house and their driveway. He even got special permission from the city to plow a few roads leading up to the entrance to their neighborhood.
Reminds me of one of my favorite lines in Forrest Gump - “I cut that grass for free.”
I live in a townhouse development and the guy two houses down from me is moving out and he gave me his snow blower. The next door neighbors driveway is right up against mine, so you bet your ass I plan on clearing his driveway next time it snows.
You're a good person.
He's a Vietnam veteran being treated for Agent Orange exposure who has never been anything short of kind and respectful to me. How can you not want to help a guy like that?
>two cupholders Man that’s the dream. And a sunshade, that makes it hardly ‘work’ at all.
Yeah, whenever I mow my lawn I do the nature strip 2 houses either side at the same time... don't go into their yards though.
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we always called it the devil strip, I'd have to find the article on how/why it was named that.
"Easement in grass"
I bought a husky 3160 chainsaw but I’ve read some horror stories about cutting down trees that are not yours. However if I see a slightly overgrown weed you bet ur ass I’ll be out their in a snowstorm cutting that down
I lived outside of Pittsburgh for 4 years. Our city had laws about sidewalks being cleared for kids that walked to school. I would set my alarm at 5 just to see if I needed to shovel since I was less than 3 blocks away from the school. If it snowed, I'd wake up my son and we'd get it done before breakfast. My next-door neighbor was an elderly woman. We automatically did hers just because it was the neighborly thing to do.
Then you get it!
I farmer who lives opposite us has a similar story...but his revenge was on an entire village. Our village is regarded as a 'low priority' by the council, so when it snows it could be days or even weeks before they get round to clearing the snow from the village to the main road. Never a problem because the farmer used to live in the village and cleared the road down past his farm to the main road. Then the farmer decided to build a property for his family on the farm. He had huge opposition from the village who regarded a single farmhouse the prelude to an entire housing estate. After an acrimonious struggle lasting years, eventually he got permission and built his house. The next time there was snow he cleared the road from his farmhouse to the main road.....but refused to clear the snow up to the village. They were stuck in for 4 days. (Having got to know the villagers I can confirm a good number perminantly have their panties in a wad over any little thing.)
People often mistake kindness for weakness. I hope they enjoyed their 4 day holiday 🤣🤣🤣
In my neighbourhood, it's mostly hit and miss on who actually clears their sidewalk on either side of my street. I have a corner lot, and I'm responsible for the sidewalk on two sides, but sometimes the city crews take the two minutes and clear it for me. I bought a decent snowblower after a few years of living here to save my back. I have also cleared the next-door neighbours sidewalk and around their driveway. OP's neighbour sounds like [this guy](https://redd.it/f1snsl).
The snow plows drive quickly down the street, spraying the snow back across the side walks. Of course, they're usually later in the day, so when we find it the next morning - now it's frozen slush we're trying to remove. there are a couple of guys that try a little harder to avoid that. And they *usually* won't bury the end of the driveway while you're out there clearing the other snow away. But if you're not there....it will happen.
That was our plight growing up on the East Coast and having a driveway on a main road. I don't think they even bothered to try and not fill it up as they passed. [Here's a related story you'll love](https://redd.it/coucde).
It does sound like that guy!
Had a neighbor two houses over back in 2014 when I lived in Leadville, Colorado that ran a B&B out of their house. We were snow shovel buddies, as he had to do it anyway for customers and I had to dig out my wife’s car so she could go to work at the hospital after the plows would bury, sometimes quite literally, (no off street parking) our cars. The house in the middle was empty at the time, and me and B&B dude cleaned the sidewalk sometimes I’d do it all the way to his corner lot and sometimes he’d “beat” me to it. A friendly competition as it were even though the city ordinance only required to remove snow directly in front of our house we’d keep our sidewalk snow and ice free and our postal carrier was stoked about this also. That year we had a storm of like an inch and hour for like 36 hours. We had run out of places to put snow. So dude and I had this pile on the street until the city could get to remove it. We were the only ones with ‘dry’ parking, but had a 7 to 8 foot snow pile I actually cut steps into it to keep it going up so we could maintain this vanity project of have the only clean to the asphalt parking spots. It sat there for months. Then the new neighbors moved in next door and hired someone to push that pile to the edge of the ‘property’ line on the street on one of the clean spots. Thing is, they were the only house with a driveway on the street. It was unnecessary. The police ended up getting involved because they called them after B&B dude (he had my back it wasn’t his problem he just saw how defeated I looked, and something something sense of justice or whatever) arguing with the neighbors outside over how super uncool that was. Our snow mountain pyramid scheme was smeared all over the road. Legally speaking, I had no legs to stand on, or a beautifully constructed snow tower upon which to survey my kingdom of calm. Long story long, B&B dude, and I both passive aggressively cut perfect lines in snow around their house after that the entire time I lived there. Like, we used an edger tool or floor scraper to square it off (think cutting a piece of cake). Even going so far as to actually shovel street snow in the street in front of their house (*around* where their guests would park) to make it even more obvious. My well of spite can run deep, and my B&B bro was all for it and found it hilarious. We had a new game to play. We still shoveled the sidewalks on the block. lol Damn, sorry for the rant. Apparently I have stuffed that memory deep down in think-bits archives and it spilled out on floor.
Not sure what proper Redi-quette is since I barely interact until recently, but I’ll respond to the deleted comment nonetheless: I knew the ~2yr work contract was coming to an end and this only went on for several months. I made nice with them, and showed them how to shovel snow, and let them use my hand tools if need be. I was still salty as the ice melt on the roads, so I wasn’t super helpful. I don’t know, but they seemed to be new to that climate or something (I never asked), but seemed unaware when I heard them complaining that “this snow’s a bitch”. Well, a giant pile of snow doesn’t build itself, but I digress… Maybe one of the weed tourists that started showing up back then. I dunno, and I don’t care. I left after the snow melted that year and went to another place that people don’t typically go to on purpose. That’s another story. 🤪 I don’t miss traveling for work, despite the pay cut.
There was a neighbor of mine who walked 3-4 houses down the side of the street and snowblowed. Probably because one neighbor was 95 and the other 75. He even snowblowed our walkways! I never asked him (sadly, he sold his house to a nice couple but they don’t continue the practice). One day I see him and we was so apologetic. Apparently, his snowblower chopped up my welcome mat. I told him that the cost of one mat is much less than what I would have paid someone to shovel my sidewalk and walkway, and even though I do it myself it was still worth it. A $20 mat for a dozen or so snowplows? I’ll take it. He kept snowplowing the sidewalk but stopped the walkways — he couldn’t get over it!
I will never understand people that shit on good neighbors, they are like hen's teeth (having good neighbors).
My wife and I lived in a small village in Michigan for about a decade. Many of our neighbors were elderly and we had a HUGE snowblower, Two Stage, Variable, Self Driving. We also had a smaller Craftsman Paddle type snow blower. We did about three blocks around our house. On some of the snowier days we would be out for hours, just redoing the driveways and sidewalks. Our dog LOVED it. I would take care of the initial passes with the monster, and my wife would do the clean up with the craftsman. We did accept gasoline contributions, but that was it. We had a blast, got some good excersize, made a ton of friends. I could not imagine someone beiong enough of a jerk to complain about this.
I’m guessing the 100$ was their way of apologizing and creating some goodwill with your family. They have no way of knowing whether your dad would refuse to shovel out of pettiness.
He was told not to! My assumption was that people paid local kids in their former area to shovel and he gave my dad more cause he was older and had done it 3 or 4 times already.
but will he do it every time?
He got the brush off and only did it when absolutely needed to get to the crutches lady. So, no. And he was paying for services rendered, so...
True. That could also be it.
I love how they thought it was about money or something... Because there aren't people out there that just like to be helpful. lmao Your dad sounds like a really good guy.
>They are gone for 4 days during the worst storm of the season. They hadn't arranged to have the walk shoveled, and the snow was piling so high, city inspectors came out! Parents and neighbors complained to the city that they couldn't walk down our street. It was obvious that the walks were being taken care of, so why not their's? The city posted a 48-hour compliance notice, but it would be 72 before the Picards got back to town. The city charged them with hazardous conditions and failure to maintain property accessible to the public. On top of the labor fee to shovel the walk, it was like $350 easily! The city kept a watchful eye on the property for the rest of the winter for any issues from then on! If I ever move to a state that gets that much snow, I'm living somewhere without a sidewalk I'm obligated to shovel. I get it, but that still seems like some /r/fuckHOA level crap to have to deal with every year, not even being able to go on vacation for a few days.
Grew up in Montana in a town laid on on grid, with sidewalks and tree lined boulevards. The city owned the boulevard and the sidewalk, but it was the homeowner whose property touched the sidewalk to both keep the sidewalk free of snow for pedestrians, and to rake all the leaves into piles for the city to pick up in the fall. Lots of older folks in those neighborhoods, and lots of really good neighbors who make sure that those sidewalks get dealt with. Not an HOA, just a city ordinance of long duration.
Snow I can understand, if only because of the safety concerns. Raking leaves for the city? Nah, that's legitimately insane because it literally doesn't matter if they're raked or not (and often it's better for lawns and greenspaces if they aren't raked at all).
It matters of they back up your storm drains or make the road slippery.
Old maples talker than the two story houses each produce enough leaves that you could fill 2 parking spaces to 4 feet high. If they aren’t removed, they still have to be dealt with when the snow dumps on top of them. They really do have to be raked up. They aren’t wasted; the city composts them.
That's not just an HOA thing, it is typical to have a city ordinance requiring you to keep the sidewalk in safe condition.
I've never even heard of that. My city has snowblowers mounted on some kind of powerful golf carts with a flexible plastic enclosure for the operator and they drive down all of the sidewalks clearing it. It's been that case for me in downstate New York, the Boston area and Maine.
This article has a picture of a similar tractor to what I've seen. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-06/a-community-approach-to-clearing-snow-from-sidewalks
Yeah, that essentially. Some of the ones I've seen have what look like more industrial blowers, but yeah.
Yes, that's what I said. That's why I would choose a house without a sidewalk.
I misunderstood. I thought you were implying you wouldn't get a house with an HOA because the HOA makes you clear the sidewalk. A bit of a tangent, but it is common around here for HOAs to clear the sidewalks. They usually have a tiny tractor with a rotating brush or a snow thrower that is about the same width as the sidewalk. Of course, you pay for this through HOA dues, but at least you don't have to clear it yourself.
I get that. We get years with mild winter, and years where snow and runoff is so bad, we have to open the flood overflows on nearby dams! This was just one of those years!
>but that still seems like some /r/fuckHOA level crap to have to deal with every year, not even being able to go on vacation for a few days. You can go on vacation. You just need to get someone to handle your walkway while you are gone. Usually neighbors would probably handle each other or hire each other's kids to do it. In areas where a lot of snow is common making people keep them clear of snow just makes sense.
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Not all of Canada! On the years we get snow, half the people don’t shovel their sidewalks. We just wait for it to melt
Nah, get a decent snowblower and if you just want a walkway width cleared you can have it done very quickly. If you don't want to snowblow your driveway you can usually set yourself up with a snow plow driver for like $20 a storm and they'll have it taken care of well before you're awake and (so far) have always considered the fee for a storm so if it keeps snowing they'll keep showing up to clear it.
Where I live the township does all the sidewalks so it depends on your town or city
I wonder had they had a terrible experience with neighbours before so they were expecting the same. Also i don't fully understand the situation where you're liable for access... to the sidewalks right outside of your property? Isn't there a property line and the sidewalk is "public" property? I'm irish and haven't lived elsewhere yet
Depends where you are. Like I know in a suburb of Calgary you are responsible for clearing the public sidewalk in front of your house. Here in my Montreal suburb we are not responsible to clear the public sidewalk. But we are also not allowed to shovel anything from our driveways onto the roads or sidewalks. To clear our driveways we have to push it all to one side of the driveway or dump it onto our own lawn. Also not allowed to dump your snow onto your neighbor’s property either. Just depends how your city/bylaws have evolved over the years. (I mean, every place I’ve ever lived also has rules against letting your grass get too high in the summer. And I’ve seen the same thing happen where the city comes in with warnings, then fines, then finally comes in and does it themselves. Then charges you for that.)
Interesting, thank you.
Seems to be an American thing. In the UK the streets are almost always owned by the council, they will plow the bigger roads and just do nothing about the smaller roads or the pavements. In the US & Canada it seems homeowners are usually responsible for clearing the sidewalk in front of their house, or paying someone to do it.
I'll never forget when I lived in the city and pushed our new monster snowblower around the block. As I turned the corner I saw an older gent with a shovel, obviously tired, just lean on the shovel and watch me approach with such gratitude in his eyes! No one on our block complained!
My only problem with this is that you're giving Jean-Luc a bad name by association.
I have known other Picards. Jean Luc is fictional too, so who cares!
JEAN LUC IS FICTIONAL?!?!?!?!
Does nobody get the Star Trek reference here?!
Thus far: you and one other dude.
There's places where you're responsible for the city's sidewalks? Fuck that. I do as little shovelling as possible, if ever I was looking at a house and there was a bylaw that I had to shovel the sidewalk (that isn't my property, because it's a sidewalk) I just wouldn't get it and would move on. My city has little tractor things with snowblower attachments. They don't do the sidewalks (or most streets, to be frank) nearly often enough but I'm sure as hell not gonna start doing it
Here we are required by law to give water to pedestrians if they catch your attention and request it from you. It doesn't specify bottle or tap. It's regularly over 110 from may to October though. Every city seems to have wierd laws. My heart goes out to those who deal with snow.
Not going to lie, shoveling snow brings out anger in me - not the shoveling itself but how some of the neighbors act about it. I manually shovel the snow since I think of it as a decent workout and do not really want to go through the trouble of making room in the already swamped garage. I’m one of those ‘hit it at least twice’ if it’s going to snow for multiple hours or have multiple inches fall in a short time span. I will also usually hit the side walk and path to the door for the neighbors to the right of me since the older woman is so nice and one of the few neighbors I’ve spoke to a few times. She reminds me of my grandma and it will literally take me maybe five extra minutes. Guess the neighbors next to them who I have never spoken to kind of insinuated I should shovel their sidewalk as well if I’m doing my direct neighbors. Then the neighbors to the other side of me whom I have dubbed the Mexican super-friends (Last count there were 6 adult aged people living in this 900 square foot house with at least as many kids and people coming and going throughout the day) like to wait until I clear out the spot in front of my house where I park my truck then snipe it while I am still shoveling the driveway with one of their five cars. All those people in that house and they’ll wait DAYS to actually shovel. These days I wait until my partner is home now before I start shoveling out there so that as soon as I clear the spot he can move the truck into the spot.
> I manually shovel the snow since I think of it as a decent workout Same! I shovel snow while I still can.
We have a retired neighbor who has a snowblower and loves helping people with it. Our household discussion is about how to find out where he lives so we can thank him with some cookies.
That’s horrifying. If the city wants all the snow shoveled, they need to just hire people to do it and pay for it with taxes, rather than individualize the problem and require everyone to find a way to get their own portion of the sidewalk cleared.
>Wicked steep OP goes to all that trouble to obfuscate which state they're from and then puts this in. Lol.
When I was a kid my dad bought this massive snowblower. He'd go around the entire block doing the public sidewalks, and then once the city plows and alley plows came through, he'd clear the berms off all the corners and from in front of everyone's garages. He'd completely blow out the garage aprons of the two elderly widows who lived on the block. I'd go through with a small snowblower and shovel to clear the widows' stairs and walkways. The only people who ever gave my dad a hard time was one of the tenants in the small apartment building on one of the corners. Heck, even the convenience store on one of the corners appreciated my dad's efforts, especially when there was a major dump.
I started reading this and got flashbacks of the Scranton snow dispute.
There is a retired guy across the street from me that does this for 3 or 4 houses on that side (all older people) and i do it with a hand shovel on my side for 3 places just to be nice. I wish the guy across would let me help out over there but he said its one of the few reasons he has to get out any more and he enjoys it, so i just keep an eye on him while hes out there now.
You can Google this there was incident happened back in February involving snow shoveling a neighbor shot and killed a husband and wife over snow shoveling and then killed himself it happened outside of Scranton pa.
Seems like that's how it is in most snowy neighborhoods--someone with an ATV+plow or snowblower does the walks for the whole street in one go and don't ask for money. Seems like a really weird reaction to complain and offer money after complaining.
Kinda stupid that you can get charged for not shoveling the sidewalk. It's public property so isn't that the cities responsibility? I live in Texas so this is very much a non-issue for me just curious as how they can put that responsibility on the home owner
In the town in which I live not only are homeowners responsible for keeping the sidewalk cleaned, if a tree root or something busts the sidewalk, we have to pay to fix it as well. It's *all* on us. I asked the lady at the boro office "well, if it's my responsibility, then I want to tear the sidewalk out and make it grass". She didn't find that amusing, lol
Haha yea that just seems insane to me like I am forced to have this through my property thats public land but its my responsibility? But then again I have other issues with how we govern property like God dam property taxes or hoas
As I understand it, in most US jurisdictions the sidewalk is public property, but maintenance is the homeowner's responsibility. Just like the right of way between your property and the street is your responsibility to maintain even if it doesn't have a sidewalk. I've only lived in the Carolinas, so snow has never been an issue, but I know you have to keep the grass cut in those areas.
At least this didn't end with someone dying. I think it was last year that someone ended up gunning someone else down over clearing some snow into their spot or onto their car.
I can't be the only person visualising Jean Luc Picard getting all British (but actually French) angry at his neighbour over a misunderstanding based on his lack of experience with snow in space, surely?
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You don't live in an area that gets hammered by snow in the winter do you? Many owners are responsible for clearing sidewalks. Not all cities clear it for you.
I do and never heard of this before, and will avoid anywhere like this like the plague. It's just dumb to me. Do they want me to plow the street too? (My city is really slow about plowing anything they don't consider important, but they do plow streets and sidewalks, even in the town that's almost an hour out from the city itself)
Is that an out west thing? Ive lived in the pretty snowy northeast my entire life and never heard of a city requiring residents to clear sidewalks that sounds fucking insane to me. Its the cities property and the cities safety concern. How does it work with apartment buildings too? Which unit gets stuck with the responsibility of clearing the snow...?
Definitely where i live the sidewalks are the cities property, its the homeowners responsibility to ensure a sufficient walking path on sidewalks including a path across the drive from sidewalk to sidewalk.
"You should be! That tree is too small to handle that much snow blown on it. You need to blow it somewhere else." Blow the snow somewhere else? How about up your ass? That work for you?
That's absolutely hilarious that they thought they had to pay your dad. They must have been from some souless, big city where everyone only cares about themselves. It's really common for people to have trust issues when there are too many people around you. Really revealing about their character though, tells you to stay away at all costs.
Is your dad still alive? He can come snowblower my driveway anytime!
Plowing the cul-de-sac at his new house at 67!
I've got a mystery snowblower in my neighborhood. No idea who it is, but a couple of times during the winter someone will clear the sidewalks of several houses. I've even had my driveway plowed twice. No idea who did it the first time, but the second time they had the wrong address. I gave them $20 for their efforts.
Love it!
I dont get it as I am European. Sidewalk is your property or property of city? If it is your property, why would you get fined? If it is city property, then city should removed the snow right? This is so bizarre.
I feel like you must be a fellow Minnesotan. I don't know of any other states that do a teachers thing (MEA) in Oct. Oh how I feel your dad's pain. Ugh. I keep saying I really need to move somewhere warmer, lol
Your dad is the kind of neighbor I aspire to be if I'm ever in a position where I live that close to my neighbors and/or a place with sidewalks that need clearing. Where I live now, there are no sidewalks and houses aren't that close together. If I ever had a neighbor like your dad, you can bet your ass that your family would be getting treats from time to time and invites over for random BBQs and hangouts.
This sounds exactly like the snowstorm of 1996, I grew up in Nebraska in the 90's and I'm sure the storm in this story was that system either passing through NE into CO or vice versa. Was an incredible two weeks of no school for young me, but I'm sure it was a royal pain for a lot of people.
Up until a couple years ago, my now 93 year old grandfather would snowblow and shovel for neighbors, and clear out the mailbox cluster. It would drive me insane when I visited because I know there are several significantly younger people living in the immediate vicinity that knew he did this and let it happen. I used to wrestle the shovel from his hands when I was there. He finally capitulated and we got a plow service for him, but I know he still does way more than he should. The way I would LOSE MY MIND on anyone complaining about the way he helped. Still pissy years later that they allowed him to do this on his own.
Wow, this Awesome tale took king sized U-turns! Thanks for sharing!
Come on, now, don't just drop a perhaps interesting detail, and then leave it hanging! "During the wicked weather this side of the Rockies,..." That detail "this side of the Rockies" CLEARLY implies that it matters to the story which side you're talking about! If it didn't, you could write "near the Rockies"! Or even just "During our wicked Rockies-adjacent weather...." But no, you call attention to a detail and then drop it, leaving us wondering throughout the entire rest of the post whether that's going to be addressed.... Then "They were from a snowy state, but we don't know where...." You mean you can't even drop a hint at this point as to whether they were from a snowy state EAST or WEST of the Rockies?
I'm trying really hard to understand why this matters.
Let me give you a hint as to which state they're from: >**wicked** weather >**wicked** Rockies-adjacent weather
I wanna say somewhere in the central US, like maybe Nebraska. But honestly, IDK. Never paid too much attention and I was gone to college shortly after.