Every damn time I see sidewalks with bushes planted next to them, the only time the bushes aren’t growing out over the sidewalk are when they’re new. As the bushes get older, the owners either don’t trim them - or they only trim them to tidy up, refusing to trim the back behind the edge of the sidewalk. Some places you actually have to step off of the sidewalk to get around these gigantic, overgrown shrubs. I’d happily pay more in property taxes if the city would regularly drive a utility truck down the sidewalks, equipped with hedge clippers that ensure anything growing out over the sidewalk gets trimmed back. Giant bush now has a flat spot? Get out there and trim it round again. Too much trimming? Uproot your giant, overaged bush and plant some cute new ones.
Got bushes? Got public sidewalks on your property? Do whatever you want to with the short private walk leading to your front door - but fergodsake, keep that public sidewalk near the street clear. If you don’t, you’re an asshole.
It must be nice to have sidewalks. We don’t typically see a lot of them in the West, except in older parts and downtown areas of cities. On my neighborhood street? Fuggetaboutit.
Lodge a code enforcement complaint. the town next door has a city manager that freaks for sidewalk and yard offenses. Like he has nothing better to do than measure grass height
This one time, I was outside whacking this huge bush— really going to town on it— when out of nowhere, this woman walks up and starts screaming 'bout how my huge tool uses too much gas. And I’m like, naw, baby, mine’s electric! Totally true story.
I’m one of the assholes the OP is complaining about. My only defense is that I didn’t put the shrub-bushes up and never wanted to be a suburbanite tending lawns and all that, it just kind of worked out that way.
We got ticketed by the Lawn Police for not maintaining the sidewalk itself (buried under dirt, grass encroaching from either side) and for letting the evergreen hedge-thingie block a large part of it. Took three weekends to get it into shape. Not my idea of a good time. (They also made us remove a rose bush and a lot of volunteer self-planted flowers that had washed downhill from whoever planted them elsewhere, from the verge between sidewalk and street).
Speaking as a pedestrian, good for the Lawn Police. Personally, I have the good fortune at present to be able-bodied enough to navigate badly maintained and overgrown sidewalks on foot, but there are a lot of people out there using walkers, wheelchairs, strollers, etc., who really need a properly cleared smooth surface to be able to use the sidewalk safely.
If you (generic you) don’t want to deal with sidewalks, then move someplace that doesn’t have them. If you do have a sidewalk you’re responsible for, then you should maintain it properly. Thank you (specific you) for going to the trouble to fix up your crummy sidewalk, even if it did take a ticket from the Lawn Police to get you motivated.
I rarely walk sideways on a sidewalk, yet I have never been ticketed.
My neighborhood is new, I’m the first and only resident of my house (we bought the lot and home before it was even built) so this area is only around 7 years old. I live in what could be considered a suburb of Seattle so I live in the west. We have sidewalks everywhere. I’m fact, most new places I see in the Seattle area have sidewalks. I think that’s becoming a trend now.
Fortunately there are zero hedges at the sidewalks. I think our homeowners group forbids it.
Around here the notice would require the owner to fix the problem within, I think, 30 days or there would be a fine. The fine would be the cost of having city workers do the work, plus an administrative fee.
Let’s be clear about what was probably meant by “maintain the sidewalk,” at least the way it is where I live. It means keeping stuff from your yard (dirt, grass, other plants) from encroaching on or covering up the sidewalk in a way which impedes its usefulness for its purpose, i.e. being walked on.
There is a sidewalk near where I live that is on the only pedestrian route to the BART station, with a steep hill on one side that is actually the back yards of 5 houses on the next street. Their usable yards are fenced off above and they never see or care about what’s happening down by the sidewalk, where the walking area is routinely reduced by half (besides the hillside being an overgrown wilderness strewn with trash). Every so often, based on complaints I think, one or more of the 5 properties involved gets out there and whacks at the overgrowth and scrapes up the dirt that has migrated down from their property. The benefit never lasts long, but I guess they have no incentive to put time or money into infrastructure improvements.
We have that problem in my neighborhood (the houses average 70+ years old), but not much is done since I’m usually the only person that uses the sidewalk for the most part, and running/jogging is seen as suspicious and to be discouraged. The parts of my run where they’re cut back is due to kids with bikes and big wheels - the bushes were large enough to make kids swerve into the street to get by and local moms weren’t big on that.
Not fantasy at all! There was photographic evidence presented. I quite clearly saw a tiny blur which might have been a person, helpfully circled in red, and can only conclude that the anecdote was legitimate.