In my city there are laws about shoveling but they are not enforced unless a complaint is made. So if you hate your neighbor, and already have your own walk shoveled…well, you know what to do!
Here the city only requires folks, mostly businesses, to clear the sidewalks on about 20 streets downtown. The city themselves tries to have (according to their website) about 100km of sidewalks near schools and collector roads cleared and salted within 24 hours after a storm. A lot of the rest of the sidewalks are cleared within a few days as part of road widening with vehicle mounted snowthrowers.
Most interesting are the near-military-style snow removal operations. Lines of dump trucks attending to the needs of a team of snowthrowers, sidewalk and street plows and the occasional grader; widening roads and sidewalks and hauling the snow off to the harbour for disposal. You know it’s been a crappy winter when your street has had that happen more than once.
I don’t have a sidewalk
Fuck you. Shovel someone else’s sidewalk.
When I lived in Montreal in the 70s, the city would plow the sidewalks. They used these little snowplows the width of a sidewalk. If one was coming on the sidewalk you were walking on, you had to jump out of the way. As kids we used to play “chicken” with them on the way home from school.
I’m not sure what point you’re making - you don’t always shovel because you aren’t required to by law, but you’re a good guy anyway?
That’s totally on the landlords - it sounds like the students living in your neighbourhood are assholes, but the homeowner (i.e. the landlord) still has the responsibility to get the snow removal done somehow (do it themselves, hire someone, whatever).
In St Paul, if you don’t shovel your sidewalk, they’ll come out and do it for you .
When I lived with my ex in his corner lot house, I usually did it even though he had more time than I did. One time I had strep throat and was in bed watching the snow fall heavily and warned him to shovel. He said he’d get around to it. He never did and ended up with a nice bill that was a little over $200 for the five minutes of work the city did.
The one problem I had when shoveling were the pedestrians. If you see someone actively shoveling their sidewalk, go on to the street (if it’s safe) and let them shovel it without compacting the snow and making it more difficult to shovel. That made me feel like whacking someone with a shovel when they made it through the snowy part and then stomped their boots in the freshly cleaned part.
Dude lives in southern California. They drive to their parking places.
Oh yeah. Ottawa has a fleet of these, and usually within 24 hours of a storm ending, roads and sidewalks are clear. It’s great.
To get into the fun of the thread, fuck you - the city does it for me 
What if you’re a shut in? Do you get a pass then? D
I have a nice long sidewalk that I not only shovel and clean after every storm, but it is also lined with hedges that I trim and clean every summer as well.
Expect for this last storm.
I shoveled my sidewalk, but I refuse to shovel through a 5.5 foot high pile of solid chunks of ice block the sidewalk from the street. I have repeatedly called the town to have a plow just push this pile a couple of feet into my yard so it doesn’t block the sidewalk. No response.
Now the great part of this is that one side of the sidewalk is lined with tall hedges that are impassible anytime of year. The other side of the sidewalk that borders the road is piled with solid frozen ice about thigh high. The end of the sidewalk is blocked by a 5.5 foot high pile of ice. So a pedestrian will walk down my sidewalk and if they are not paying attention, go a good 100 yards before they are blocked in and have to turn around and walk back to the first possible exit from my dead-end sidewalk.
You want me to shovel it? Fuck you, call my town.
That’s good, they’ll be able to hear their tailbone crack quite clearly since you’re not making any noise.
[quote=“Cat_Whisperer, post:65, topic:570141”]
I’m not sure what point you’re making - you don’t always shovel because you aren’t required to by law, but you’re a good guy anyway?
QUOTE]
Much better than they are by far, considering their overall behavior.
People in my neighborhood rarely use the sidewalks anyway (at least in the winter, far more do in the warmer months), because so many cars are parked as to block it. And those who do use the sidewalks simply sidestep obstacles and continue on their way.
Besides, I’ve mentioned it snows only a few times a year to make shoveling necessary anyway. I live in a latitude between Memphis and Buffalo, so we get snow, but not nearly as much as Cat Whisperer.
As for noise, there are people whose cars have those loud coffee can type mufflers popular on tuners that roar through the neighborhood. So for all the years I’ve lived in my house, not one person has ever complained to me, or called the police. Nor has anyone slipped and cracked their tailbone. The point being there are people who live around me whose behavior is much, much worse. Whether that makes me a good guy or not really doesn’t matter.
As I’ve posted before (I think in the thread about chatty cashiers), I try to live the golden rule: I like quiet, unassuming neighbors, so I try to be one myself. However, if I don’t shovel the sidewalk, I don’t find it a big deal if my neighbors don’t. But I do trim the large shrub that borders my front walk so it won’t interfere with people walking in front of my house so it won’t scratch and inconvenience those who do walk the sidewalk.
This is relevant how?
Um, okay.
Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned working in the insurance industry, it’s that if something has never happened in the past, it’s a dead lock that it’ll sure as shit never happen in the future.
I guess it doesn’t.
You know, some of us just do ALL those things, instead of trying to justify not doing it with some weird neighbourly bartering system.
“I cut my lawn this week, so it’s no big deal if I don’t pick up my dog’s poop!”
“Hey, I raked up all my leaves, I’m going to pour motor oil down the sewer!”
“I was quiet all weekend, so I’m going to stand naked in my bay window with a ham sandwich on my head!”
Well, fuck me - I don’t shovel my sidewalk. I don’t care. I don’t have to. This whole thread has given me a new appreciation for the community that I live in. The city has the cutest little mini-plow just for sidewalks and it comes around in the wee hours of the morning to shovel out the snow so the wee bairns can make it to the bus stop without having to walk in the street. Even though the street is a cul-de-sac and therefore not heavily trafficked. Not only that, this same city sends workers around in the summer to trim trees that have branches hanging over the sidewalk, so the wee bairns don’t put their wee eyes out while frolicking in the summer sun. 
Not only that! this same city has its own power plant, so when the big city power plant goes down, leaving surrounding communities in the dark - we still have power. And heat! Tax money, well spent - that’s a phrase you don’t hear very often!
And after seeing my grandfather, grandmother, father, older brother and assorted other relatives drop dead of heart attacks at an age younger than I am now - well, let’s just say I’m not too sure that I’d be willing to shovel my sidewalk even if the city didn’t. I am disinclined to risk my life just to avoid your loathing and disdain - well, that’s narcissism for you! 
pixplzkthx
Sooooo how does it feel to be a selfish bitch who’d be willing to risk not only inconvenience but injury or death to others because she’s too cheap to hand the neighbor kid $5 to take care of her responsibility for her, should she feel unable to carry it out herself?
**Lily **the mother: “I wanted to buy a new handbag, so the kid can just wear the same diapers longer.”
**Lily **the driver: “My brake lights have been out for a week, but I don’t want to replace them. People will figure out I’m stopping eventually.”
**Lily **the pet owner: “I’ve been really looking forward to this month-long vacation, so I’ll just leave the dog chained up behind the house.”
Yeah, yeah, we get it. You live in Whoville. Fah who fuckin’ for-aze.
I love snow and I love shoveling. I don’t have my own sidewalk, but I usually dig out the front and back door of my building, and some of the shops downstairs from my apartment. I feel like a good person now (but I shouldn’t, the only reason I do this is because I like shoveling).
I live outside Philadelphia. We’ve gotten a lot more snow this winter than is usual, and this area seems to be right on the border of snow behavior; everyone whines constantly about any cold/snow/ice and how hard it is to deal with, and yet almost no one has learned to deal with it in a timely, reasonable or safe manner. A lot of people around here don’t shovel well, or at all. I walk or bike everywhere and have two dogs in an apartment, so it’s personally inconvenient to say the least. I buy good (and expensive) boots for tromping through snow and ice though, so I haven’t ever fallen.
I grew up in South Dakota where it was often below freezing September thru April, you only stayed in during a blizzard if it was near whiteout conditions. No one cried about it and they all shoveled their damn sidewalks (course if you didn’t shovel in a timely fashion our town would fine you IIRC), and did it right. Also, they knew how to drive in wintry conditions. People in PA are snow pussies.
If they did that here, they’d solve the entire American employment crisis. Problem is, we’d have no money in the budget left over for police, fire or education. 
waiting for it to stop snowing long enough that they can get to lower priority streets instead of just plowing the major arteries over and over
In truly civilized cities, the sidewalks shovel themselves.
Admittedly, no place on Earth has developed to that level of civilization, or is likely to in the next century or so.
Some buildings in downtown Milwaukee have heated sidewalks. I doubt they could cope with this blizzard, but they do a pretty good job of keeping up with lighter snowfall.