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Citizen complaint of the day: Ice as far as the eye can see, and it's all the yuppies' fault, at least in Southie

By adamg on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 9:04am

Complaints are ice-flowing into 311 about unshoveled sidewalks across our frozen tundra of a city, from Brighton to Charlestown to Jamaica Plain (where ice is ice, says Stan) and to the yuppie-encrusted ways of South Boston, where one disgruntled citizen gets particularly irate about condo owners:

People, just cause you bought a million dollar CONDO, IT DOESN'T XOME WITH ITS OWN SHOVEL. FROM EAST 8TH TO E .BROADWAY IS A SHEET OF ICE!!! WHAT A DEGRACE!!

Neighborhoods: 
South Boston
Free tagging: 
annoying people
ice
311


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Comments

By Mac B Nimble on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 9:10am.

Sorry, Southie townie, but most sidewalks in the city are a sheet of ice today regardless of the type of person that lives there. That's what happens in an ice storm followed immediately by subzero temperatures. You do you, though, and keep scapegoating people for daring to actually live in your neighborhood too. It'll all be gone by Thursday anyway.

By Murkin on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:39am.

Hey yuppie transient transplant, they make this white stuff called ice melt and sell it by the bag load at Home Depot. You should give it a try.

By rb on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:02am.

They rent.

But it doesn't matter. This thread is rife with the "WE HATE ANYONE WHO ISN'T US."

By Lmo on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:16am.

Of course they do

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:02am.

Actually Home Depot was sold out yesterday, multiple locations. You might have been lucky to find a few remaining bags of sand.

By Karen on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 3:59pm.

but if you went to buy ice melt, a shovel, a winter coat or snow tires yesterday, you're a moron. You should buy this stuff long before you need it.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 3:21pm.

Gotta love how you all think you can just call me and say "gee - I'm out of town - can you do my driveway", and never so much as hand me a beer, let alone buy me a can of gas to muck our your lazy townie blubberbutt. You and the other townie idiots seem to think "someone bought a snow blower and now we own him".

Go away. Grab a shovel. I ain't your servant. Break your leg and I'll help. Otherwise? I can see why people don't want to "know your neighbors" - you are all grifting users.

By Heather on Tue, 01/29/2019 - 9:43am.

This is the troooooth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By Waquiot on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:17am.

Perhaps people should be following the news closely.

If you cleared the snow off by 10 AM on Sunday and took another whack at the rain/ice around 6, you'd have a clear pathway. As it was, I was unable to do the second round when I want to, but another hour on Monday gave us a passable walk.

Home ownership has it's responsibilities. This is one of them. Most of the sidewalks I passed on the way to the bus were not dry, but you could tell who made the effort. Those sidewalks were walkable.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:42am.

Yeahh.... nothing important was going on or relevant to Boston during that time

By Waquiot on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 1:15pm.

Sorry, but those people don't worry about ice, except in their drinks.

But I'll assume you were talking about the possibility of not missing the 6:40 kickoff of the AFC Championship game. In that case, if you think it will take an hour, start at 5:30. Honestly, I did my second shift at 2:15 and went out for the evening at 3. Let's just say I was back after the AFC Championships ended. I still spent little time clearing up what I missed before, thanks to the abundant ice melt I put out before I left.

Meanwhile, my neighbor got started with cleanup Monday afternoon. Suffice to say I did not walk on his sidewalk this morning.

By cybah on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 12:30pm.

I did this. Homeownership is a skill. I didn't like shoveling 3 times, especially when it was crickets from the other two condo owners. But it has to get done.

I went out at 830.. got the heavy snow off. Went out again at 11 and did some slush clean up. And around 2, went out again.. which by that time the ice was starting to harden. Smashed it up, shoveled it away, and threw down some ice melt.

Went out at 7 to do some clean up and throw down some more salt. And by morning, Viola! Ice-free walkway.

It sucks to do but we all live here. It snows every year. If you don't want to do it, pay someone else.

By readville2 on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 1:42pm.

I shoveled at 8am and again at 2 & 5. I treated with ice melt. City plow went down the street during Pats game and pushed all the slush back onto the sidewalk and driveways. You can see the outline of where my neighbors and I shoveled but it was impossible to move. I was out there at 11:30pm watching the lunar eclipse and trying to chop at the now solid ice.

Yesterday I got a $25 small bag of ice melt (all that was left) and a huge box of cat litter. They did nothing to melt the slop.

My street is fairly busy and dog walkers and kids were forced to walk in the street this morning.

Don't be so quick to judge.

By Waquiot on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 3:38pm.

I mean, since it's all for naught, screw it, right?

Despite your snark, I do feel for you, and you should be griping to 311 about this, if only so the plow drivers can hear about it. That said, it was the plow driver who screwed you guys. I'm luck to have (other people's) cars in front of my house to avoid this. On the other hand, the houses up the street that have no parking in front of them and are on the side of the street plows direct to were able to clear their sidewalks, while houses opposite them don't look like anything was done at all.

By hundel on Wed, 01/23/2019 - 8:57am.

The idea that the plow driver screwed someone here implies a rule where plows cannot clear to the curb after the resident shovels. That’s unrealistic in even the wackiest lines of thinking. Although come to think of it there was a segment on the national news last year where some folks from Jersey were all worked up about that. The rest of the nation who have any snow experience rolled their eyes and you could tell the reporter wanted to as well. It’s tough. It affects me too. But get out there. Do your best. Do it for the wheelchairs. Do it for the elderly.

By Waquiot on Wed, 01/23/2019 - 9:25am.

Yes, I sincerely think that snow plows should not be putting snow on sidewalks.

By hundel on Wed, 01/23/2019 - 5:10pm.

Didn’t realize that was a common practice. We have neighborhood parking and most of the street is empty. Does it mean I should be shoveling the street onto my yard? The plow clears to the curb and I go from there. Seemed right to me. (They pack a full block’s worth of snow against my wall where a road runs into mine at a T so it’d make a big difference to me if you’re tight.)

By Waquiot on Wed, 01/23/2019 - 8:22pm.

If the plow is truly right at the curb, and, as is common practice, the blade is angled towards the sidewalk, the snow ends up on the sidewalk, unless there is a grass buffer.

I was walking by the Pagel Playground on Hyde Park Ave tonight. You could see that the Parks Department made an effort to clear the sidewalk, but you can also see where the plow got close to the sidewalk. Suffice to say, it was treacherous walking.

By Christa on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 8:07pm.

I think successful clearing depended a lot on the timing--which was tricky to predict, because this was one weird storm. The exact mix of snow, sleet, rain, freezing rain, whatever, that fell in a particular area probably had a lot to do with when the ideal clean-up times would have been. I shoveled the overnight snow/rain from about 5:30-7:30 on Sunday morning (there was a lot of it, and it was heavy!), and then went out around 11 am-noon, and again around 3-4 in the afternoon to remove the slushy, icy stuff. Put down a lot of salt each time. There still was thick ice everywhere on Monday morning, but because it was a holiday, I was able to spend hours chopping ice and salting more. The sidewalk was (mostly) clear down to the pavement yesterday, because of my trusty ice chopper. Yet still there were spots, that I simply could not clear of all the ice. Many of my neighbors had shoveled on Sunday and their walks were frozen over but, if one was wearing boots, it was OK to walk on. I worry when I see people trying to get around in these conditions wearing sneakers! (One guy I saw on Monday not only lacked boots, but a hat and gloves as well.) It's easy to criticize people for not having their sidewalks perfectly clear, but the clearing was VERY hard work, and not everyone is up to it. Also, surprisingly, I didn't see teenagers looking for shoveling jobs after this particular storm..not even one. Can't say that I blame them, though!

By hundel on Wed, 01/23/2019 - 5:14pm.

I did almost the exact same thing and mine came out dry. The number of people walking in the street because some blocks aren’t clear worries me. So do the elderly and handicapped. One slip is all it takes. Sad.

By bostnkid on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 9:13am.

almost impossible to remove. 50 on thursday? that might work.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 9:18am.

Or do a timely job clearing your sidewalk before the deep freeze hits?

By adamg on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:14am.

I did that (well, OK, my neighbor with his giant snowblower mostly did that, thanks, Marcos!), when it was still raining. Cleared our front steps and around the car parked at the curb, too. And then it rained some more and then it all froze, so I had to go out again that night to throw down some pink salt stuff (good to -20, the bag claims), then had to go out in the morning again to chip away at all the ice.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:16am.

The new why bother posting this Adam?

By adamg on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 12:59pm.

Somebody said this wouldn't have been an issue if people had gone out and shoveled while the temperature was around freezing. I disagreed, so commented. As others have noted in this discussion, it took several trips outside to get a clear sidewalk, even with an initial shoveling.

By frobot on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:47am.

I had to go out three separate times, and I went through a LOT of salt, but I managed to clear the sidewalk in front of my apartment from edge to edge. First pass was in the late morning to clear what fell overnight and put some salt down. Second pass was just before the game to clear the surprisingly thick layer of sleet/freezing rain that had built up, plus more salt. Third pass was after the game to remove the boulder-sized ice chunks that the plows had relocated from road to sidewalk.

I'll admit I kind of enjoyed it, as clearing snow is about the only exercise I get during the winter. Call me crazy, but I even enjoyed 2015's snowpocalypse. Having a driveway, a sporty AWD vehicle, and a reverse commute made that the most enjoyable of the five winters I've lived in Boston.

By cybah on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 12:31pm.

I will also state that I'd rather have a foot of snow than this sleet/frozen rain mix.

Fluffy snow is so much easier to move.

By Belmont on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 12:36pm.

You're crazy. However, you get an award for your ice removal efforts in the past few days. In that never-ending part of the winter of 2015, I was able to escape to San Diego for about a week. I fully understood why people like living there.

By frobot on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 1:11pm.

I do my best to maintain the best-cleared sidewalk on the block (which is not very tough to achieve). For one thing, it might persuade others to put in a little more effort than just "good enough," but perhaps more importantly, it makes snow removal much easier for subsequent storms if you have a clean slate to work with. Leftover ice patches are like speed bumps for shovels, and I find nothing more aggravating than that when I'm out clearing snow.

By Gary C on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 9:23am.

If you got out in the morning and removed the overnight snow, then I proclaim you OK. (The slowly accruing all-day icing was basically impossible to remove.) If you waited until your walk was 5 inches of ice, you have not lived up to your civic duty and should be fined.

A side note: I saw one guy on Columbia Rd out attacking a snow pile with a small metal hammer. In Southie I saw a woman with a pot of boiling water trying to free the plowed-in wheels of her car.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 9:33am.

The overnight snow was fairly easy to push aside, but the following load of basically crushed "ha ha, fuck you" ice which slightly melted and then quickly refroze was a bitch. Thanks, weather. I thought I had trouble with this storm and messed up the cleanup, but then I drove to work... The roads are crap, so many drivers dumped their cars on the side, didn't bother to shovel out, and are now completely iced in, with huge berms of ice around them stealing a whole lane. If we weren't Boston - with 55 degrees and rain coming in a couple of days (hello, runoff) - and instead had the below-freezing temps linger for a while, we'd be fucked over until springtime.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 12:20pm.

That's because I went out around the time there was a dusting of snow and spread deicer.

I reapplied it after shoveling.

What doesn't freeze down doesn't stay down.

By Parkwayne on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 9:20am.

Neil Degrasse Tyson lives in NYC as far as I know.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:08am.

I still haven't forgiven him for the role he played in demoting Pluto, my favorite planet.

By SamWack on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:06am.

for a lot less than a million dollars, and it comes with its own super, who has his own shovel, and even some things that are better than shovels. Maybe they do things differently in Southie. It's a degrace, I tell you. It's probably because they deconsecrated all those churches.

By MattyC on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:11am.

I might not agree with the delivery, what with the fat fingered typos, numerous spelling errors, the over attention to shouting and the exclamation points, goddamn i just can't disagree with the point. My home has 3 floors of condos on either side, and the only residents who work the sidewalk are myself and the homeowner 2 houses down. Its a degrace disgrace. If you own a condo you are still required to shovel. If you can't shovel, hire someone.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:47am.

...should hire someone for snow removal.

By Sock_Puppet on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:47am.

It's all fine and dandy to exhort people to use their shovels, but if you went after that glued on ice with a shovel you were wasting your time.

By MattyC on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:58am.

But I managed to clean my sidewalk and driveway, all the way through the concretion that the plow made at the end. I'm no Superman. I'm not even Aquaman. It took me about an hour, which might be 3x what it would have taken had we not gotten all the freezing rain and ice, but it still got cleared, and 150% of the sidewalk for which I'm responsible is clear to ADA (AAB) standards.

I also wouldn't be concerned if this were a one time event. It's perpetual. It's every snow.

By Pete Nice on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:14am.

You could have gotten everything to the pavement. But if you shoveled at 6am on Sunday and came back out at 3 to do some more you were screwed.

By MattyC on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:16am.

True facts. I actively made that decision based on how I saw the forecast moving during the day. Safer to walk on crusty snow than to go ice skating across the front of my house.

By section77 on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:23am.

2 and 3 unit condos often are big problem come snow day. One owner doesn't chip in, the other owners get BS and then no one is shoveling. Everyone who lives there will point at someone else. Calling it a Yuppie thing sounds like fun, but its a real thing. He ain't lying.

By cinnamngrl on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:13am.

I have been lucky in that my condo mates have managed to take turns. On my street it’s renters. They don’t have to shovel I agree but on my street they block the sidewalk with snow from the driveway.

And I’m not blaming the renters, it’s the owners responsibility.

By section77 on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:34am.

But it isn't always so. Or, they should pay someone to do it from the common funds. So many ifs.

I know what you mean about it not being a renters responsibility, but I still have a problem with a house full able-bodied people (every bedroom w at least 1 person), sitting around all weekend waiting for their landlord to show up. (I am a fully-confessed Grumpy Old Man.)

By cinnamngrl on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 1:56pm.

it depends how much you are paying for rent. If you are paying half your salary for rent, then you probably feel that your landlord should do their job. My gripe is blocking the sidewalk with snow from your offstreet parking.

By adamg on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 10:45am.

By SC from JP on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:12am.

I salted ahead of time, the crew I hire for the winter came out and shoveled/salted , I salted some more, the crew came back and salted some more.

The sidewalk is still solid ice. Snow to freezing rain to 4 degrees is just not solvable.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 12:12pm.

Not true. My sidewalk is clear, but I admittedly lucked out with the timing of the 5x I went at it.

By Kapil on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 11:46am.

The people that try to shame others into shoveling their sidewalk are expending pointless energy. Nobody really cares about their neighbors. You could live in South Boston for 10 years and never lay eyes on them. No way yuppies with somewhat high incomes are taking time off from binge watching Game of Thrones and Internet posting to chip ice off the sidewalk. They will sit on their couches drinking a craft IPA being like "haha, whatever.... you're out there trying to shovel this? Really?? Really???"

Stop shoveling your sidewalk while passive aggressively looking at the neighbor's sidewalk or posting photos on the internet. Nobody is adopting your view of morality or civic duty. You gotta start fining people for not shoveling. People only respect power.

By anon on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 12:45pm.

That might get some attention.

By lobster nanny on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 1:03pm.

This storm in a storm was unusual, but I'm throwing my aught two cents in as a disabled pedestrian. The curbs adjacent to crosswalks in Cambridge, at least, are so piled high with footprint embedded ice that it made getting from the subway to a house 4 blocks away a very scary trip.

Now I'm pretty much entombed until the ice is gone by melting. It makes scheduling appointments like visiting physicians, banking, etc. a crapshoot. So mostly, I forgo being out and about, and live on pantry foods and solitary indoor pursuits.

I don't think those who are of school and working ages give those of us who are more limited much thought at all. It's no kind of life, that's for sure.

By Max Filth on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 1:30pm.

Funny how everyone in here is a homeowning superhero that cleared their sidewalks to the pavement, yet you can’t actually find a clear sidewalk in the entire city. Sure thing, folks.

By adamg on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 3:04pm.
sidewalks

That's my sidewalk (OK, with way too much salt) and my neighbor's, and their neighbor's.

Sorry your street sucks such much, my dude.

By frobot on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 3:14pm.

Jackass.

For the record, I don't even own my home. I rent, so it's technically my landlord's responsibility. Does that make me a superduperhero?

By cybah on Tue, 01/22/2019 - 3:13pm.

My outdoor NEST came is having an issue so I can't show you my front walk. But here, have a view of my kitchen. I see my maid has been in...