I’m curious if other people have the same take as me.
When you get big enough of a storm to make it worth it to break out the snow blower, what is your policy on immediate neighbors with whom you have a neutral relationship and no discussed arrangement.
My yard is on the corner and both of my plot edges end on a neighbors driveway directly. Now with a blower I sort of feel like a dick stopping dead at the end of my yard. But otherwise I would be blowing the show from their sidewalk onto their driveway which also feels wrong without previous discussion. I could clean their whole driveway I guess but to quote Homer Simpson, I’m just trying to get into heaven, I’m not running for Jesus(and seriously what if I chunk gravel into a window or a car?).
To complicate matters both of my edges are open sidewalk. One one side there is 20 feet to my front walkway,and on the other it’s 20 feet to my driveway. And there have been times where they got to the snow first that they clean on my sidewalks up to my walkway and driveway respectively.
I am slightly uncomfortable that I can’t return the favor, but it seems to me it is the “right” way.
I’d say that cleaning (snowblowing, mowing, raking, etc.) a little over the property line is the correct general answer. To rake right up to an imaginary line on a shared lawn is a little dick-y. I always mowed about one stripe extra, and raked a few feet extra.
Here the houses are much more widely separated, we don’t have sidewalks, and the properties are separated by bands of forest, so there’s no real issue of a line. But if I had to, I’d snowblow into a turnaround circle well onto the neighbor’s side.
I think that shows a little consideration and willingness to share the task, without going overboard or even intruding or sending a “you lazy slob!” message to someone who’s finishing their tea before breaking out the heavy clothes and blower.
Most snowblowers have a discharge chute that can be turned to change the direction snow is thrown. So unless yours is unusual, it should be possible to clear the sidewalk without throwing snow into their driveway.
I have a great snowblower arrangement: my next-door neighbor is a retired school teacher whose husband died about 10 years ago. She owns a high-quality snowblower, but is only marginally capable of using it. So when it snows, I use it to clear both her driveway and mine - which both of us find more than satisfactory. I also do maintenance (she is a fine person, but not competent to use a wrench or screwdriver).
I much prefer the arrangement I have. I have a semi-near neighbor who is just an awesome guy and owns a truck with a plow. Whenever there’s significant snow, he just shows up and plows my driveway, usually before I’ve had breakfast. I highly recommend getting yourself a neighbor like that. In the last two years of Vermont winters, I think I’ve fired up my snowblower twice.
I always figure since turning around makes a big mess of wheel tracks and boot prints and knocking snow down off the grass, it’s only fair that I go a few feet over onto their property. Say 5-10. That way they can shovel up the mess that I made, but in return I cleared part of their sidewalk.
That’s what I do for the neighbors I have no relationship with and I prefer to keep it that way.
For my other neighbors, we have about 15 feet of sidewalk between our houses. He’s on the inside ‘corner’ and really has no sidewalk to call his own. On top of that he’s one of those super nice guys that everyone loves. If I’m out first, I’ll snow blow that section, if he’s out first he’ll do it. It only takes a minute or two to do that section so it really doesn’t matter. I’ll do it because it’s mostly mine, he’ll do it because he’s a perfectionist and it makes his ‘frontage’ look nice. Furthermore a few times a year, we’ll do each other’s side walk just to be neighborly.
As for the driveway thing, I typically try not to send snow up into the driveway. I mean, why do their sidewalk and just put the snow in the driveway. But my snowblower can discharge the snow slightly behind me, so I send it that way and I can get to about the midpoint of the driveway and as soon as the snow isn’t going on the grass anymore, I move the chute so it’s going to the other end of the drive way.
Also, sometimes you’re just doing the sidewalk so the other person doesn’t have to deal with shoveling right then. They’re not concerned about where the snow ends up, they’re just happy to not have ice on the sidewalk when they get home from work.
Never had one myself but the neighbor did. He would go to the line and a little beyond unless he had a chance to talk to you and find out where you wanted the snow blown. Our cops can be hard on blowing into the street, there are cars parked almost solid along the street and the front yards are tiny grave-sized strips between the sidewalk and the porches. He and I were cool – “just blow it between my place and Verdi’s and if some gets on the porch don’t worry about it”. But some of the other folks who had these fancy piles they wanted added to had to break out their shovels.
I’d go a bit over the property lines. But tbh, it’s not that big a deal - if you’re a good, friendly neighbor in other ways, I doubt anyone will blacklist you for stopping at your property line. Or even notice.
There was a bit of that when we first moved here - the Quad Squad made a bit of a show to see who could get his quad-plow out first and push everyone’s driveway. it stopped about a year later; I don’t know why, as I was pointedly never a member of the gang. (Nor did my driveway get included after the first time.)
(I am so terribly butthurt that a group of insurance management types who play woodsmen on the weekends didn’t think a guy with no quad or motorcycle was fit company. Terribly. I assure you.)
I think going that smidgen extra pays many dividends, and builds the idea that you’re a stand-up, committed neighbor. Meticulously staying at your property line smacks of isolation and me-first-ism, even to those who only casually observe. IVMHO.
Very nice! We pay a guy - it’s a long driveway and we just have an electric snowblower for lighter-weight jobs. No neighbors who would be affected by thrown snow though.
We have a VERY helpful neighborhood in this regard. My sister has a neighbor with a snowblower who does all of her sidewalks and driveway for her (she’s on a corner lot) because he knows she’s single and has no snowblower of her own. He does that for lots of people in the neighborhood–he’s retired.
Three blocks down the same street, we all pitch in to help each other, all the time. The norm is to shovel/blow the sidewalk all the way up to the neighbor’s driveway if you get outside first. We don’t really have any slackers. It’s “Iowa Nice”–everyone is eager to help, and to pay back any help they receive.
I am perplexed at the idea that you would have to blow snow onto someone’s driveway. The snowblowers I’ve seen have output chutes that can swivel to change direction. Perhaps you have an odd property configuration? Everything is pretty much square here.
I just bought a snowblower this year, so I’m still in the honeymoon phase. I live in a semi-detached, so I snowblow my sidewalk, then skip my dickhead neighbours who are attached to me (because fuck them and their four kids who do gymnastics until midnight every night).
Then I snow blow the sidewalk halfway down the street until I get to people I don’t know. Then I snowblow three of my neighbour across the street. One has foot problems from diabetes, the next is an elderly lady, and finally the one whose daughter cat sits for us.
It takes 45 minutes to do my drive with a plow truck that is chained up on all four tires. (the good news is I don’t have to mow grass in the ‘summer’)
My neighbor has a Jeep CJ plow chained up on all four. I’ve a winch on the back of my truck. We help each other out. Getting one of those vehicles stuck turns into quite the ordeal. You really, really avoid it. Ruins your day.
Mostly though, we don’t plow each others driveways unless we are looking after the others house if we are away for a bit on vacation.
Yeah, I don’t get it either. Neither of the snow blowers I’ve owned would present this as a problem because of the adjustable chute. Just turn it so you’re blowing back towards your property, not into their driveway.
We don’t have a snowblower, but we shovel to the driveway on either side of ours.
Once after a snowstorm dumped about two feet on us, a neighbor across the street whom we don’t even know that well cleared our sidewalk with his snowblower. I sent him a thank you note.
I think some posters don’t understand the OP’s situation. His section of sidewalk goes all the way up to the neighbor’s driveway. In order to do the neighbor’s sidewalk (to return the favor for the neighbor doing his) he has to start with the section that passes across the driveway. Once you’re in that section a little way it’s hard to not end up with some snow blown onto the rest of the driveway. The shoot can only aim back so far and older models, like mine, may not aim back much at all. I think mine only covers about 9-4 o’clock, but it’s also over a decade old.
In my neighborhood the neighbor and I usually do up to each other’s driveway and the section of sidewalk between us is about 60% mine and 40% his. I’ll also shovel up to his drive if there’s not enough accumulation for the blower. The driveway edge presents a natural stopping area so I can understand the OP not wanting to encroach further.
How common would a “country boy” have a next door neighbor with sidewalk? Certainly not where I’m from. It’s a legitimate question as far as neighborly customs and etiquette is concerned.
I will do their sidewalks. As long as I am out there blowing, it doesn’t take long.
I will do everything in my power to make sure no snow is blown in their driveway. Where I lived (just moved to a condo in December) it wasn’t a problem because the driveways were far enough apart. When I do my daughter’s driveway, however, her driveway and her neighbor’s are only about twenty feet apart. When the wind is blowing in a certain direction, everything I blow goes into that driveway. I aim the chute low enough so that it hits the ground in the beginning of the season. Some years, however, the piles of snow are high enough that I have to aim a little higher to clear them. That’s difficult.
They have done some of your sidewalk(s) - that would morally obligate me.
How much I would ‘snowblow’ of their snow depends on a few factors that you didn’t include.
How old and healthy are they? Do they have a snowblower? Do the street plows dump snow across the apron of their drives? Who normally gets up first?
I don’t get the ‘can’t do the sidewalk across the driveway’ part. At all. There are techniques for that. I’d bet there are youtube videos that show how to do it.
Thanks for this. In my neighborhood, we don’t clear across someone’s driveway without asking them what they prefer first. If they have to shovel by hand, or if the snow is very deep, snowblowing the sidewalk across their driveway can hinder more than help.
Of course, you can always clear the whole driveway for them, which some people in our neighborhood do.