I have a dry well in my driveway. A couple of downspouts flow into it and it has a cast iron grate that would let the water flow out the top if it were ever to over-fill (never been more than 1/3 full). And it’s one of those proper grates- same size and heft as the ones in the street. Even has “No Dumping- Drains to Waterways” stamped on it, along with a little fish. But it doesn’t connect to anything off my property, and it’s a solid 15 feet back from the road.
Someone, presumably in preparation for some roadwork, put a dab of hot pink spraypaint on all the castings in the road. I don’t know what this designates, since they’re pretty obvious without the paint, and as yet they haven’t done all the other digsafe markings.
But the fucker also put pink paint on MY casting. First, why? This thing doesn’t connect to anything in the roadway and won’t have anything to do with what they’re doing, unless they’re planning to give me a free paving job
Second, it really pisses me off that they would deface something on my property without so much as an explanation.
So there’s an FQ and a rant here. Thoughts on why the first, and if I’m being an asshole about the second?
I had a red stripe painted through the middle of my lawn to show where the high-voltage power comes into my house, and nobody is doing construction anywhere near my house or on the roads. Perhaps they’re planning something for the future. Who knows? Eventually, it will disappear as my grass grows and I cut it twice weekly.
There’s been a bunch of utility work going in my neighborhood in recent weeks: replacing ancient water service lines which were lead pipes.
In preparation for that, my yard, my sidewalks, and the street in front of my house were marked with a half-dozen different colors, as preparation work was done, and utility lines were being marked. Some of those lines were, indeed, pink, and this site says that pink is used for “temporary survey markings” (which is kinda vague). I might guess that they marked all of those with pink paint to indicate that they (the surveyors) had noted all of those iron grates.
On utility markings for digs, pink is also used for unidentified utilities or something requiring further investigation. So I’d guess someone saw the grate and marked it for someone else to check if it will be pertinent to the future roadwork or whatever. They can’t tell if it connects to the city line in the road just from the surface.
Assuming that’s the case and it wasn’t just some random yahoo, then yes it’s annoying, but yes you’re being a jerk if you raise a stink about it. The utility markers are just doing their job, they can’t knock on every door where they’re marking, and it’s better to over-mark than to leave something out that ends up being a hazard.
That sounds like a good educated guess to me. The OP knows that it doesn’t connect to anything, but the surveyors probably don’t, without getting the detailed information from the city.
Broadly, it’s called utility locating. There are assorted entities that have easements to allow, even against your wishes, access to your property.
Whether OP’s is legitimate and official is different.
Because your wagon was unavailable at the time?
