Snow Removal Incompetance

I've never really thought too deeply about snow shovelling. In my mind it's pretty simple. When it snows you go outside, shovel your walk and get the snow out of the way. I usually shovel my walk (or at least I did before I paid condo fees and someone else now does it) and put the snow off to the side so that it wasn't blocking the sidewalk or my car. If I was to hire a kid to shovel my walk, I usually assume that mens he will also clear the snow out of the way. If he were to shovel my walk and then pile it all up in one big pile at the end of my driveway I wouldn't pay him because the job wasn't done. He needs to actually move the snow out of the way. Apparently not all snow removal companies have that same philosophy.

After the big blizzard last week we had a lot of snow. The next day we had one bobcat show up and start shovelling a little bit of the road right in front of the garbage cans...that's it. No sidewalks, no roadways, just the area in front of the garbage cans. Whatever, I didn't really care and figured they'd be coming back later. The problem was how incompetant that bobcat driver was. Although he cleared the snow away from the garbage bins, he piled all the snow up right behind my neighbors car. So now my neighbors car was blocked in with a 10ft high snow drift behind her car.

(Above) My car being covered in snow

from the "snow removal" people

Late that night I heard a loud machine outside and I peeked my head out. I saw a huge front end loader trying to maneouver around our parking lot and dig out my neighbors car (who by the way is a single lady and I'm guessing around 5-6 months pregnant). I talked to my neighbor later on and she told me she walked down the street and found this city front end loader and asked him to come and dig her out!

So luckily she could now get out and go to work the next day. But it wasn't over. I was working in my office with my window facing the parking lot out front. As the day wore on I would glance outside and watch 3-4 bobcats driving around and shovelling out our entire townhouse complex. I never paid much attention to it and couldn't see directly below into my own parking stall. After work that day my wife came home and asked if I had looked outside at our neighbors parking spot. I told her I had seen it and she had been shovelled out last night. My wife said I should look at the latest update. I opened my door and looked outside. There, in my neighbors parking spot, was not a car...instead there was a 15ft high pile of snow! Those bobcats had dumped all their snow from the entire lot right into her parking spot!

What is wrong with these snow removal companies. Do they not have any brains at all? This is not the first time they have shovelled snow out of our townhouse unit. They know where the parking spots are and yet they still piled all the snow right in her spot. Now she has to park in the visitors parking spot (which has no plug in by the way and it's been around -25 degrees out all week).

And it's not just our townhouse unit. I drove to Staples on Saturday and what did I see. The snow removal company had piled all the snow from the entire parking lot (about 30 ft high) right in the parking spots closest to the store. Those are prime parking spots! They should be dumping that snow in the far back corner of the lot where nobody wants to park! And to top things off, some of the places where they piled the snow were handicap parking spots! Now there are no designated spots for handicap people to park.

All I know is that if I ever run a snow removal company I would be sure to shovel it and remove it properly, or at least put it somewhere where it is not affecting anyone. It's common sense you snow removal people!

If anyone does needs snow removal services, a high quality and efficient company is called FastCat Services. He will do an excellent job without making these mistakes.