Okay, I should be clear here as to why this is more vitriolic than “I shoveled out a public resource, now I can’t use it upon my return”. Others in the situation can back me up on this, but basically:
If a space is shoveled out before you leave in the morning, the effort is low to medium–it’s fresh snow, maybe with a plow ridge confined to the side of your car but there’s not much packed down or under where the car is.
If a space is shoveled out at the end of the day after it’s had a car driven out of it, you’re looking at needing an ice chipper due to compressed snow from tires and boots combined with the daylight cycle causing some melting-refreezing, plus the plow bump’s been pushed further over the whole space if the plows have run again, and it takes about three times as long and there’s no place to put your car while you’re doing it.
That’s what it boils down to–if it was the same amount of work at the end of the day as at the start, I would care less than I did, but since the fact of the matter is that end of the day shoveling is much more painful than early shoveling, I have a little vitriol for the lazy-ass who not only mooched the work I did, but did so in a way to generate more work for me if I want to park safely.
Frankly I think it’s incumbent upon the city to make parking permits or ordinances on streets like that so that people who own the houses facing the public resource share the labor in keeping it a useful resource–either that, or the city should clean it up themselves. My current home has a sidewalk-shoveling ordinance, for example, and I follow it even if it’s kinda nonsensical from a getting anywhere standpoint, and I would do it even if it wasn’t an ordinance because frankly, part of polite living in a snow zone is clearing your portion of the commons if the city can’t be arsed to do it.
I have lived in the city and I have had these issues with parking. I never blocked my spot with a chair. However, I did have a very small car so if someone stole my cleared spot, I could generally find another spot that I’d fit in.
Right now, we have a huge driveway and a two car garage. We have one (very small) car. So, parking isn’t an issue.
Our issue is that we don’t have a snowblower. The purchase on this place isn’t final yet. We’re living here because the sellers were nice enough to sign a rider allowing us to (the condo sold before we could close on this place). My boyfriend doesn’t want to buy anything big, like a snowblower, until we’re certain the purchase isn’t going to go tits up.
We have a problem though. Both of us have had back surgery in the last few years. In addition to that, I had surgery on my arm over the summer. My back surgery was about 90% successful. My boyfriend’s was closer to 50% successful. My arm surgery was a flop. So, neither of us is capable of shoveling out this huge driveway without causing some lasting pain or possibly lasting damage.
In comes our new neighbor. Larry is awesome. He has this tractor thingie. It has a plow attached. He drives around the neighborhood, clearing out driveways. He charges $20 per storm and he comes as often as is needed to keep up with the storm. This most recent one, he had to come at least twice. Our driveway was always clear for us and he even plows our walkway. It works out well for everyone. His enclosed plow is nice and toasty and it takes him about 5 minutes to plow our driveway. We don’t have to go outside in the cold and we don’t have to risk our backs (or arms).
Considering that we used to pay the condo association over $200 per month for them to do things like clear the driveway and they never managed to have it cleared within 8 hours of the snow stopping, paying Larry $20 per storm is more than worth it.
Yep. I used the snowball analogy on purpose. This kind of thing picks up momentum quickly.
Maybe you’re not familiar with the labor involved. The last big snow we had here I spent 8 hours shoveling. My garage is at the end of the alley and I shoveled it out plus the sidewalk next to it and a few feet into the street. My neighbors had to shovel their section of the alley to connect to mine in order to get out. The cars in the street were buried in drifts. Not only did they have to dig out their cars but they had to do it again when the plows went through. Anyone who took one of these spaces was asking for trouble.
I’ve lived over half my life in Minnesota and North Dakota. I’m very familiar with the labor involved. That’s why I would do what I could to avoid it. I wouldn’t be worried about repercussions from people with a false sense of entitlement to a public space. If they want to commit a crime against me or my property, the police can deal with them.
Best of luck getting the police to follow up on 2 inches of ice on your windshield that you claim is retaliation for your appreciation of other people’s labor.
Who pours ice over the car anyway? I bet the cops laugh their asses off at the guy who reports me for shoveling my car off and piling the snow on top of his the day after he pulls that shit–after all, his car is parked in a public place, no problem with me throwing snow there! Enjoy all that delicious dirty packed plow-bump junk piled on the front windshield where it’ll refreeze nice and solid.
Granted, this entire debate is why I’m glad I have a driveway.
Ski masks are cheaper. Of course, having manners costs nothing.
I don’t understand why anyone would advocate taking advantage of someone else’s hard work to clear a spot instead of doing it yourself (and going to the trouble of setting up a video camera knowing what you did begs retaliation). At best it creates ill-will between neighbors. At worst, it ends in violence.
Chicago Mayor’s official position: Mayor Richard Daley said last winter, “If someone spends all their time digging their car out, do not drive into that spot. This is Chicago. Fair warning.”
The reason not to do it myself is because some prick is just going to take the spot as soon as I’m done. In the jungle, it’s better to be a predator than the prey.
Two can play the car sabotage game, by the way. A little extra snow on the car or some ice on the windshield is for amateurs. If someone does that to my car, I’ll ice weld the fucker’s tires to the street.
To those people who are suggesting that they would mess with an individual’s car if a driver occupied a parking space they had cleared, do you consider that to be a proportionate response? I guess I can understand your frustration, but ISTM that by damaging the offender’s car, you are escalating things. In which case, wouldn’t it be entirely appropriate for the driver to escalate things further?
I used to live in a row house in DC, where the house was barely as wide as a car is long. People tended to park right in front of their houses of course, as far as they could. Sometimes the preacher a couple fo doors down would park his huge Caddy in front of my house and I believe it was actually longer than my house was wide. Anyway, he apologized once or twice because there ws no other room on the street, so, he was taking “my spot” but he wasn’t an asshole. When we had a lot of snow and I dug my car out I really didn’t expect to find that spot empty when I came home from work. The spot is sort of “mine” but I can’t really expect it to just sit there empty all day.
