County piled 10 foot wall of snow...

January 26, 2016 12:10 PM

Hi, so after the NE snowstorm over the weekend, the county trucks came plowed our side street. They piled on a tonne of snow on the entrance to our driveway and it is about 10 feet high. Now every snow-remover person is refusing to plow our driveway (long, approx. 100 feet) unless we pay exorbitant prices. The county won't send the plow truck back again to remove their pile of snow... and we're under house arrest, essentially.

What can we do? No snow plowing company will remove the county's piled up snow from the entrance to our long driveway, we don't own a snowblower etc (had just moved into a new house we bought about a year back). Some of the companies are citing very high costs to clear up the county-generated pile ($400?)

We called the county folks, and they said "it was very unfortunate, it shouldn't have happened, but well, good luck with it, we can't do anything". We've been trapped for 3 days now. We finally got out yesterday and shoveled a bit of the driveway by hand for 5 hours, but the 10 foot wall still stands as it is, and it isn't realistic trying to remove it by ourselves. We ordered a snowblower today as well, but it will only arrive by Feb 5.

In short, we're really mad and exhausted now, about this problem we didn't create, or foresee (new home owners) and its ending up being too expensive to rectify, more so because it feels like it isn't our mistake in the first place. We were prepared to deal with snow on our driveway by hiring a snow removal person, we just didn't anticipate the county trucks might pile up tonnes of snow to the entrance of our driveway, essentially cutting us off from the street.

What can we do? Any help, ideas, thoughts?

Thanks!

posted by greta_01 to Home & Garden (20 answers total)

When you spoke to the county, did you speak to public works/the plow people, or did you speak to your elected representative? A call to your county representative might make public works magically more responsive.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:13 PM on January 26, 2016 [25 favorites]

I live in the NE too, and got plowed in during the street clearing with this latest storm (like we do for every storm). For my city at least, you're SOL. They are always going to plow you in and it's your responsibility to clear your own driveway. The one trick my husband and I have started doing is shoveling our driveway entrance and placing the snow downhill from our driveway. This at least lowers the amount of snow that we have to manually clear when they plow us in again.

Sorry that this happened. Hopefully someone else has a better answer
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 12:14 PM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

Refuse to take no for an answer. Call your state senator, or your state representatives. Tweet at them, nonstop. Be obnoxious. This won't happen again.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:16 PM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

Take pictures with one of you next to the wall, and tweet the pictures to every local news outlet (from the most local newspaper up to your closest local news stations), and to your local representatives.
posted by kimberussell at 12:17 PM on January 26, 2016 [32 favorites]

Let your town mayor person in charge know that there may be a medical emergency and if problems take place because of no snow removal, they will be held legally responsible.
posted by Postroad at 12:23 PM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

A snowblower won't solve this.
$400 seems very cheap, much cheaper than a visit to the ER when you blow out your back shoveling. Or have a heart attack.

I'd gladly pay $400 to solve this.
posted by littlewater at 12:32 PM on January 26, 2016 [7 favorites]

This is very dependent on your region, of course, but I'm seconding the suggestions to twitter-shame. Someone in my neighborhood got so tired of a giant foot-deep pothole that they started taking scale-themed pictures of it (filled with two cases of water; filled with 12 packs of toilet paper; filled with... you get the idea), then tweeting it to the local blogs/news outlets/district supervisors. That thing had been around for years, but suddenly was repaired to no fanfare. Sounds like this might be a good time to try something like that.

Also, pointing out the fire/medical/public safety hazards at the same time can't be a bad thing. Those hazards motivate public policy like no others.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:35 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

In my locale, it's officially the owners' responsibility to clear out their driveway from what's plowed in front. During bad snows, it's taken me longer to handle the pile the snow plow left than it's taken me to do my side walk, my neighbor's sidewalk, and the driveway. For seniors and disabled people I believe there are city serivices that can be contacted, but I believe they also need to be shown that paying for removal is beyond your means.

You've seen how much work it is to fight this pile of compacted snow; that's why 3rd parties are charging so much (along with they're probably being over worked, so they're charging extra to shed the load). Unfortunately, if calling an elected official doesn't get any results (if you're able bodied during a snow emergency, I guess it's less likely to get results) it looks like you're shoveling or paying out the nose. If it's literally 10 feet; I'd almost be happy to pay that money.

I'll also say that the longer you wait, the worse this will get as the lower layers start to ice up along with getting small amounts of melt during the day and refreezing at night.

If you see / know a neighbor who has a snow blower, perhaps you could rent it, or bribe them to help you. Note that I don't own a snow blower, so I'm unsure how useful they'd be with compacted snow.
posted by nobeagle at 12:38 PM on January 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

We had a similar problem last year, when all the sidewalk on my block were plowed up with 3-4 feet of snow. I emailed (paper trail!) the Commissioner of Streets daily, for THREE WEEKS, cc'ing every official I could think of, and he finally sent out a Bobcat and a truck and they worked all day to scoop the rock hard snow up and haul it away. Good luck!
posted by Riverine at 12:44 PM on January 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Calling your local tv news to cover the story wouldn't hurt, either, if the officials are unresponsive.
posted by Riverine at 12:45 PM on January 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

To an extent, you're dealing with a hopefully once in a lifetime type storm, and this is just one of those unpredictable things that they warn you about when owning a home that you budget for, just like hot water heater repair or redoing the gutters.

Did the snow plows deposit all the local snow in front of your driveway or are all of your neighbors in similar situations? If it's the former, you're pretty justified in complaining to your representatives/mayor/etc., but if it's the latter, it's a bad situation but you're not likely to get any traction.

The points about it being compacted and turning into ice are well worth heeding - it will only get worse and harder to remove the longer it sits. If you can't stomach the $400, you might be able to hire a couple teenagers for $100 to demolish it. A snowblower seems unlikely to do much against it.
posted by Candleman at 12:47 PM on January 26, 2016 [13 favorites]

greta_01: "Hi, so after the NE snowstorm over the weekend, the county trucks came plowed our side street. They piled on a tonne of snow on the entrance to our driveway and it is about 10 feet high."

There is a difference between "the berm of snow that is left by a plow in the normal course of operation" and "a 10 foot pile of snow plowed to or dumped at our specific location". The response from the county that it was "unfortunate and shouldn't have happened" suggests the latter to me. Did they not realize they were piling snow at the end of a driveway? If they actively piled the snow there, then they should indeed deal with it for you. If this is just the standard berm that resulted all along your street, then it is your responsibility. When I lived in New England, I dealt with that issue by noting when the plows went by and going outside shortly after and tidying up the end of the drive, even if I wasn't doing a full shoveling job at the time. It's not always possible when they plow late at night, or when you are out of the house, but it's much easier to keep up with it as it goes than to wait for the end of the storm. A quote of $400 for a 100' driveway with a 10' berm at the end does not seem exorbitant to me.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:06 PM on January 26, 2016 [11 favorites]

This may or may not help but you could see if there are people who use Snowcrew in your area. I concur, this is a good thing to call or hassle your elected rep about and make sure you are clear about a few things

- this is NOT just the berm left by people plowing past your driveway
- county people have refused to help
- you are literally trapped in your home
posted by jessamyn at 1:37 PM on January 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

Do you have kids? boy could you rev up the sympathy on a local newscast. Tweet them pictures, especially if you can get the kid to cry.
posted by desjardins at 1:42 PM on January 26, 2016

Dump a few bags of rock salt on it?
posted by disconnect at 1:47 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Start with the lowest-level elected official for your area that you can find.
posted by SemiSalt at 1:49 PM on January 26, 2016

Call the county again and ask for a manager, be very polite. Often the frontline folks just say no, you ask for their supervisor, ask them to come out and take a look.
posted by Oyéah at 3:54 PM on January 26, 2016

The bureaucratic and media avenues are absolutely a great way to have this handled officially, but don't discount the power of a large fire in your driveway.
posted by a halcyon day at 5:54 PM on January 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

If there is nowhere for this snow to go when removed (i.e. it has to be trucked away), then $400 is very reasonable. If it can just be placed to the side, you should be able to get a guy in a bobcat to do it for a little less, but perhaps prices are very high locally right now, so it certainly doesn't sound too far out of line. 10ft of plowed snow is a lot!

Can you clarify if this is 10ft of snow specifically in your driveway somehow or 10ft of snow all along the edge of the road, including your driveway? Those are very different situations.
posted by ssg at 7:48 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

For this storm, you're probably SOL. Call your elected officials, but it'll thaw before you get any action.

Going forward, guard you driveway opening. When I lived where it snowed we parked our car in front of the driveway for big storms. That way the plow didn't deposit a wall of snow for us to remove. Normally, parking in front of a driveway will get you a ticket, but in a snow storm parking is a free-for-all.
posted by 26.2 at 10:04 PM on January 26, 2016 [1 favorite]