Quote:
Originally Posted by DoubleF
I have a gas snow thrower and it made decently quick work. Worth every penny and the city bylaw for noise is 7AM so I'm not violating any rules. I had to do the road a bit too or I'd get stuck just trying to back out. Did both my neighbors' sidewalk too, because I could.
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I did the same this morning. We have new neighbours on one side and when I'm out there with the snowblower I just do their front walk while I'm at it.
I know you have 24 hours to clear it but we're sandwiched between a Jr. High and an Elementary school, so if you dont get to the walks soonish it gets trampled into an icy mush and the kids have to walk through the deep snow.
They can deal with their driveway in their own time, but it takes me like 1-2 actual minutes to clear just the sidewalks and kill the clock with the snowblower.
Our last neighbours were a collective of renters and they were all EMTs so their schedules were wild so I'd just clear their sidewalk so they didnt have to worry about it.
We were chatting over beers a few years back and they were telling me:
"Yeah, we work crazy schedules and sometimes you're out there at a perfectly reasonable time but maybe our heads just hit the pillow or we have a couple hours before we have to get up for a shift and there goes your snowblower, but it saves us from having to worry about it until we have down-time, so we still really appreciate it."
They were really cool about it. Theres not much I can do, I have no way of knowing their shifts, I'm just trying to make it so that they dont have to stay up late or wake up early to worry about the snow on their sidewalk. They can take care of their driveway whenever.
It helped them and its really no sweat off my back.
We had a rental property next to us for about 7 years until recently and we were blessed with some amazing neighbours, the guy that owned that place really put great work in on vetting his tenants.
Prior to the EMTs we had Rwandan refugees and that was wild. Some days you'd wake up 6 or 8 Rwandans and their kids clearing snow like some sort of ruthlessly efficient chain-gang.
They were out there shoveling completely unprepared, no toques, no gloves, light coats and SANDALS! Some of them didnt even have shovels! They were using their hands. But they were not letting anything stop them.
I invited them and their families over for drinks early on and that was fantastic, just such a wonderful group of people.
I remember telling them:
"Dont waste your time and energy on my property, if you do, just the sidewalk. Because if I havent cleared the sidewalk it means I've been working and havent gotten around to it yet.
I do not possess a great deal of skills, what I do possess however is stuff. I have 3 kids that moved out and what they left behind is a smorgasbord of winter gear!"
So my wife and I put together all of our excess winter stuff, invited the Rwandans over drinks and dinner and told them to take whatever they needed/wanted or fit them.
Toques, gloves, coats, boots...take it! Take it all! You take it or it gets donated and they were STOKED.
Then I gave them my mom's business card, she works at Lowes in commercial, she will kit you out with shovels and whatever else you want or need at a discount.
Aw those guys were great.