The Crippling Blizzard of '16

[ny biker]

After 28 hours of snowfall (and counting).

[Pax]

So, how are all the blizzard impacted folks doing??

[ny biker]

I shoveled for hours today. Our condo association is supposed to plow the parking lots and shovel the walks, and we have to shovel around our cars. But they've really dropped the ball -- no walks have been touched, some lots are still unplowed and ours just had a once-over the width of one car. Some residents were out today trying to shovel the lot but it's still a mess -- I watched an SUV try and fail to get out to the street -- and the plow left a giant pile behind one car so they're completely blocked now. A few of us tried to clear sidewalks too but others dumped snow from their cars onto the walks so the snow there is now chest high or higher. So if the hired shovelers ever show up, they'll probably just leave without trying to clear the huge piles. Our side of the lot gets no sun so we won't have sidewalks again until March.

Now my arms and back ache. I will work from home tomorrow. My car is not totally clear yet so I will have to go back out again with the shovel and snow brush in the afternooon.

I'm feeling very cranky. Mostly because I pay good money for condo fees that are supposed to cover snow removal but I and a few neighbors are having to do it all ourselves.

[lauraelmore1033]

I've been thinking about you and your positive attitude about the storm as we experience what I consider to be an unreasonably wet winter, and it's made me reduce my whining by at least 75%. Hope your ordeal resolves itself soon!

[rocknrollgirl]

My husband did a round of clearing during the storm with the snow blower, and then Sat night we go 3 more inches. No big deal until we went to the end of the driveway. They plowed use in, and because we had a lot of sleet mixed in, the end of the driveway was thigh high boulders of concrete. So my husband attacked that and I did the walkway and cars, then we did our neighbors. Four hours later we were able to get out.

Not fun.

[Crankin]

NY, that does not sound right. Do you have a management company running your condo association, or is it done by the people who live there? The place where we are moving switched to a management company, right before we bought, and I am glad. If your association contracted for plowing/shoveling services, then it should be done! I understand that a storm of that magnitude has extenuating circumstances, like we had last year, but it sounds like they did nothing.

[emily_in_nc]

Yeah, that is crazy, NY. I think too many condo associations fall down on their duties and just let the fees accumulate in an account instead of using it as it is intended.

We had the opposite problem when we lived in a small, rural subdivision in central NC. We had a very low neighborhood HOA fee paid yearly, and almost everyone in the subdivision wanted to pay extra for snow plowing on the rare occasions when we had a snow, since the amount in our HOA account wouldn't cover snow removal. We didn't, because we knew that in most cases in NC, the snow will melt within a day or three, and by this time, my DH was retired, and I could work from home in case of inclement weather. We had a huge pantry filled with food stores and a woodstove so didn't suffer too much even if there were power outages, and we didn't mind being snowed in for 1-3 days; we actually enjoyed it! I guess in an emergency, we might have felt differently, but in general, we were just not so important that we had to get out. So we balked at paying extra for this, but we were consistently outvoted.