This is my first time living in a snowy place. I have a one-mile walk home from school and a half mile walk to the grocery store, most of which is moderately-traveled un-shoveled sidewalk…meaning it’s a huge ice slick. I’ve fallen twice already.
Snow sucks. Why did people build cities here?
That’s a good question; I’d like to think that there are some kinds of programs in place to help disabled people remain independent, but “independent” doesn’t necessarily mean your own stand-alone house; single-family dwelling ownership isn’t a right in either Canada or the US, as far as I know.
Nor is requiring someone else’s labor or funding to provide cleared sidewalks, “responsibility” aside.
Board rules prohibit the sentiment that I’d truly like to share, so we’ll leave it at that.
Got $12.95? Get some Yaktrax. They’ll make that ice a lot safer.
This is still the case. Of course, we’re apparently the snowiest city in the world with a population over 1,000,000, after Sapporo. (Cite: That Which Is Vaguely Remembered from Somewhere.)
Actually, this is all a bit of a revelation; it didn’t occur to me that there might be municipalities that received significant snowfall that didn’t make their sidewalks usable.
Heh heh. I’ll just send the 'phews - older one went on his fist skating lesson today. Give them 10 years of aging, and they’ll shovel fine 
Do you get free mail to your elected reps as well? I wanna sound off to my MP, I just write a letter, address it, and drop it in a mailbox, no stamp required. Taking frivolity out of the thread for a moment, honest question. Curious minds and all.
Yeah, heard from my Dad who was there on the weekend that you guys got dumped on again. This has been a pretty good winter in YOW. Only once so far have they needed to clear the snowbanks in front of my place - woke me up twice last night (stupid city is exempt from it’s own noise bylaws).
I like this thread very much, it’s provided a ton of fun, so fuck you all! 
Uh, yes, that *is what everybody does. Everybody who isn’t a self-absorbed retard like you, anyway. And I’m not speaking hypothetically here: I’ve lived in Milwaukee all my life. Maybe there’s just something about Ohio that turns people into selfish idiot bitches.
*Short of a bit over four months I spent in Japan, but I’m sure that doesn’t really count.
That’s not an accident. And accident is when you’re too busy jamming a finger up your nose in search of boogers to eat to realize that you’re about to come up to a curb and trip over it. What happened to you was negligence–the injury could have been prevented if the owner of the parking lot had fulfilled their obligation to keep it free from ice for pedestrians and drivers.
You’re a fucking retarded bitch. You’ve had it patiently explained to you–repeatedly–and you even acknowledge further down in this very post that you could just pay someone to do it if you’re physically incapable of doing it yourself.
To be blunt, if you aren’t capable of caring for the property, either yourself or by hiring someone else to do it for you, to the extent that it becomes a danger to others… Yes, you should not own a house. Just like someone who’s incapable of safely operating a car shouldn’t be allowed to drive. As the saying goes, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. Sorry if you lost sight of that in the midst of all the “differently abled” twinkie-ding-dong happy-crappy bullshit.
You said it better than I could ever hope to.
If I recall my days in Toronto correctly, the city would shovel the city-owned sidewalk of seniors and the handicapped at no charge. There were some restrictions–for example, if a senior or a handicapped person owned the house but had someone living there who was capable of shovelling, the owner was ineligible for the program. Also, it might be a day or two before the city sent a crew, but the program was there. My Grandmother was signed up for it. Not sure if Toronto still does this, but it certainly did once.
Most landscaping and lawn services will come and clear snow in the winter (for a fee, obviously). “Snow Removal” is even a pre-set search category on Angie’s List, for crying out loud. If you can’t do it yourself, then pay someone to come and do it for you, just as you would for any other homeowner responsibility. If you break your leg, do you just let your grass grow until it forms a prairie with amber waves of grain in your front yard? (Don’t answer that question.)
Do it yourself, or hire someone to do it. Unless you’re in an unbelievably remote location (in which case you probably don’t have a sidewalk anyway) there are lawn companies in your city that you can pay to come and clear the snow. And that’s if you can’t find a helpful neighborhood kid to do it on the cheap.
My husband is a mailman. So far he’s managed to make it through this winter without any falling-related injuries, but that’s pretty unusual. Fuck you, shovel your sidewalk. (And a path to your mailbox, while you’re at it.)
DC requires the property owner to shovel sidewalks. DC never enforces the rule as far as I know. I go out and do it when it stops snowing or if in a blizzard, I go out and do it a few times so it doesn’t get to be too much to do at once.
In practice what I’ve seen is that the sidewalks in residential areas are not well shoveled and vary from a small strip that is shovel width to a few feet. Apartments complexes and condomiums are usually well shoveled. Surprisingly, businesses can be iffy as well. The city has trouble enough handling plowing the streets. They don’t plow the alleys which makes getting a car in and out a dicey proposition. Last year, I had neighbors who were trapped for several days.
If you are unable to shovel the walk, it might be time to move into a condo or into place with an HOA that will do it for you.
This is perhaps the craziest part of LilyoftheField’s crazy rantings. “You want me to *shovel *my sidewalk? What, I suppose you expect that I’ll salt it too then?”. Are we supposed to read that and realize how foolish we had been to demand such things from her? Is she picturing us doing one of these :smack: and falling all over ourselves to apologize to her? Is she hoping we’ll realize “oh, Ohio - why that’s the coldest, snowiest place on Earth! Cut her some slack!”?
Of course you’re meant to shovel and also put down salt or sand. I can just picture Lily’s summertime arguments with her neighbours - “Look, I put my garbage out in the back yard…what, do you expect me to put it out on the curb too?” “Look, I mowed my lawn back in July…what, do you expect me to do it *again *in August?”
What a maroon. I also can’t believe she’s citing the fact that she fell and broke her collarbone as a *defence *of her actions. Lady, that is negligence, a just because you’re okay with it doesn’t mean it is actually okay. If I get injured in a car accident but I feel okay about it, does that mean that I can then go out and deliberately hit people with my car after that? After all, I didn’t mind!
Well, duh, Meyer. After all, shit happens. Anybody who complains about being run over with your car is just a whiner.
…
Well, you have my permission. Wait, you don’t live in Calgary, do you?
They buried my neighbor today. He was 38 years old. I don’t get how a 38 drops dead…but it happened. It’s a terrible thing…young guy, nice neighbor. He was a semi-pro wrestler. I can’t help but wonder about steroids…anyway, such is life and death.
This is what I came here to say! But AshLady beat me to it, goshdamnit!
..er wait. what thread is this?
Well the good news for both of you is that not only do I not live in Calgary, I don’t even *own *a car.
I’m going to have to find some other way to be a negligent asshole, I guess. I’ll brainstorm that.
Huh, that’s kind of tough - doing it with a car is the popular choice.
You could stop shoveling your sidewalk.