Dear Neighbor,
I know you have hatred for us…but why? We employ your daughter as our babysitter (and pay her quite well, btw) for our very well-behaved 5 year-old, we have tried to have normal, friendly conversations with you (unsuccessful), and I also felt terribly sad when your wife passed away last year (I sent a card with condolences and chocolate chip cookies). You know my husband has a heart condition. Why did you walk past him yesterday to help another neighbor who **also owns a snowblower **while watching my husband struggle with shoveling the 10" of snow at the end of our driveway? I would have shoveled, but I was at work all day.
People with heart conditions should not shovel. That snow was a bitch. I spent hours shoveling yesterday and I feel like I spent the day lifting weights.
That is indeed un-neighborly, if not downright inconsiderate. But it’s worrisome that your husband is shoveling snow with a heart condition. Can you hire the other neighbor with the blower (or somebody) to clear your driveway? It really is dangerous for your husband to be shoveling snow.
Here is what is happening. You are thinking “That priveleged bastard next door has a snowblower and won’t help us”.
Your neighbor is thinking “It’s embarassing to have a snowblower when I am a healthy male who could really shovel if I needed to. Snowblowers are loud, expensive, and cause pollution. Hell, that guy next door has a heart condition and even he won’t borrow my snowblower or ask me to do it for him. Smug bastard”.
Yeah, I’d go over and offer him $20 bucks to bring his snowblower over and clear your driveway. (or less–$10? I don’t know how long it takes to clear a drive with a snowblower. I live in Texas for chrissakes! I’ve never even seen a snowblower except on television.)
If he’s feeling neighborly, he might come do it for free. If he takes you up on the $, then it sounds like it would probably be worth it not to have your husband out there shoveling.
The equivalent to snow shoveling in Texas is yard mowing, because down here it’s a 9-months-out-of-the-year chore and in the spring you need to do it at least twice a week and even in the dead of summer at least once. And because of rats and snakes, your HOA or city code enforcement won’t let you get away with not doing it for very long.
So us widows, single women, disabled people, and crazily busy people hire one of the neighborhood kids to do it.
Surely you can do the same up there. And I can’t imagine that shoveling a sidewalk in 20° can be much harder than mowing 1/4 acre in 106°, so surely it’s not hard to find takers.
Once upon a time when I lived in a house with a short driveway on a densely packed cul-de-sac, I owned a snowblower and was more than happy to clear the surrounding driveways and sidewalks when time allowed, and ALWAYS hit the house next door where the old folks lived. Like I said, the driveways on the street were all pretty short and it wasn’t like the extra fifteen or thirty minutes were spent throwing my back out with a shovel. I might add that I was raised to be generous and helpful because it was The Right Thing To Do.
Fast forward twenty years where I no longer own a snowblower and live on a rural street that never sees a county snowplow unless the driver is lost, and my driveway stretches for an eternity toward my house on a downward slope. If I don’t clear the slightest amount of snow as soon as it hits, my rear-wheel drive Dodge Dakota is stuck until I shovel and salt the hell out of it. My neighbours to the left and the one directly across the street have teenagers who don’t have mere snowblowers – they have fucking SNOWPLOWS on their riding mowers. These are both kids I’ve taken to school on occasion when they’ve missed the bus and their parents had already left for work so it’s not like they don’t know who the hell I am.
And you guessed it, both of them were out there yesterday with their little toy plows while I was killing my 45 year old back using a shovel. But you’re right, I could have offered either of them $20 which I can’t afford to clear the snow for me but by the time the thought occurred to me, they’d finished their plowing and gone back inside their toasty homes to take advantage of their snow day off from school.
I’m trying to decide what my rates will be the next time one of them knocks on my door at 7:35 in the morning after missing the bus. Little bastards.
Having mowed lawns in Texas in muggy summer heat (though I was sane enough to wait until evening when it was at least down to the low 90s) and shoveled plenty of snow elsewhere, I can assure you that shoveling even a few inches of snow (especially the heavy wet kind) off a good-sized driveway is lots more strenuous for the heart than pushing a mower around while wearing lightweight clothing in the summer heat. You can also stop and rest during your mowing (and sip a cool drink to replenish fluids). Pausing on a cold day while shoveling just makes you colder, stiffer and more conscious how damp and miserable you are.
Maybe I’m missing something, but why would anyone automatically expect someone to come over and clear their driveway? It takes me 45 minutes to clear our driveway with my snowblower. If time permits, I try to help out my neighbors by clearing at least the apron of their driveway. But time doesn’t always permit, and honestly, if they got upset with me for not doing it one day, I’d probably be less inclined to do it as a favor next time.
I really do try to be helpful, but I can’t clear the entire neighborhood every time, and it’s really not my responsibility, no matter how infirm some of them may be. This is Wisconsin, and around here, snow clearing is a basic task that any homeowner should be prepared to deal with in one way or another.
And, frankly, it is freaking cold out there, and sometimes I don’t want to stay out for another 45 minutes just because my neighbors declined to invest in a snowblower. There were plenty available at the stores this fall, and every fall that I can remember.
I don’t expect someone with a snowblower to come clear my driveway just because I don’t happen to have one at the moment. However, I do expect the teenagers for whom I’ve done favours by getting their irresponsible butts to school when they’ve missed the bus (about half a dozen times in a school year) to be considerate enough to return a kindness when the snow is as heavy as it was this time.
Why is your husband with a heart condition shoveling snow in the first place vs hiring a kid to do it? Does he have a death wish? Neighbor issues aside isn’t a suicidal husband a more pressing issue than a bitchy neighbor?
I think a very fair exchange would be one ride to school equals one driveway clearing. It looks like you have to spell it out to these young fellers that one hand washes the other.
A person with a weak heart can safely shovel snow if careful, one small shovelful at a time.
As for why should someone help? It’s called ‘Being neighborly’. In my last house, I was always the first out and would clear a path from the corner to the woman next door’s drive, four houses, so people could walk on the sidewalk. The spouse would help a neighbor or two clear the snow from behind their cars, and the neighbor with the blower would clear our drives while we were at work.
In two other neighborhoods, everyone just shoveled until the sidewalks were clear; no-one stopped at the property line. You got cold, you took a break, but everyone kept shoveling until it was done.
This neighborhood? Three neighbors have blowers, and they never offer. The kids never rent themselves out either. I make a point of helping anyone I see who’s shoveling by hand.
I’d have to weigh which of us was more inconvenienced by the favour. I work midnights and by 7:30AM I’ve been home for about two hours, which means I’m showered and in my PJs, getting ready to sleep. I just stopped to calculate how much time I lose between changing my clothes and travel time during the morning rush along the main drag to the high school. It’s about an hour in total that I could have spent snuggling under my covers. I’ve done it for both of them because they’ve always been polite, normal kids, because I don’t think there is anyone else on the block who works hours where there is a little bit of leeway like there is in the midnight shift – and most of all, I remember the shitstorms I faced from my folks when similar things happened to me thirty years ago. Plus, I’m a pretty nice person and generally like teenagers better than little kids.
After witnessing the blatant thoughtlessness from BOTH of them in disregarding the need of someone who has gone out of her way to keep them out of hot water, I’m done. I’ve decided that the next time either of these little shitheads knocks on my door for a ride to school, they’re SOL and I’ll tell them exactly why. I realize that kids think the world revolves around them but by the time a kid is a teenager he should be beyond that somewhat. Parents might still allow their teens to be selfish little snots at that age but I’m not their parent. I’m their neighbour who has been enabling their irresponsibility and now has a very sore lower back… as well as my traditional Christmas Season Upper Respiratory Infection. Alas, as much as I’d like, I can’t blame the URI on them.
Otherwise I’d probably not even bother ranting about it (although you can bet that I’ll make a comment about trading favours the next time I choose to change out of my flannel pants and sweatshirt to fire up my truck for them.) I’ve been down with fever, chills, and an unrelenting sinus infection since before the first snowflake fell. And nobody at home will let me whine. So uh, disregard my extreme outrage, I guess, because it’s really more about me feeling like crap right now rather than rage against teenagers being teenagers.
But I’m still going to set terms the next time I play Otto The Bus Driver. Thanks for the suggestion.
If you have an extra couple of hundred (if not up to $1k) to buy a snowblower, good on ya’. I have a great snowblower in my garage. Too bad it’s dead and I can’t afford to get it into the shop. Shovel here I come.
A few years ago we got hit hard with over a foot of snow. I could not get out of my garage and the snowblower crapped out then. I asked a neighbor if he’d at least plow the end of the driveway - nope. I’ll pay you? nope. He’s no longer on my “being neighborly” list.
I don’t expect anyone to help, but it is a neighborly thing. I shovel one neighbor out as needed (or mow in the summer) and in turn they keep an eye on my house when we’re gone. It’s nothing spelled out, it just is.
I guess I don’t get it. When I was younger we knew everyone in the neighborhood, always helped them out, kept watch, socialized. Now, no more than 2 miles from where I grew up, no one knows each other. No one pays attention to what’s happening past their lot line. It’s kind of sad.
I have a small snow blower that can barely handle the snow my small house gets, but I used to do the walks on both sides once I got it out. Of course that was before the daughter of the guy on my right nailed my car and covered up the evidence and his response was “well, I’ll talk to her”. :dubious:
A $500 deductable later and I’m not feelin’ much like doing his walks.
(And if a little snow from my sidewalk lands on their driveway or if the town plow blasts an icewall up their apron, I don’t sweat it so much. Heart attacks are bad; maybe my neighbor should take asprin?)
