Today I am feeling highly frustrated and irritable. And so I am going to take it out on the city workers that are ripping apart my road for what I like to call ‘the handicap ramp to nowhere.’
Let me explain.
There is a little old lady who lives 2 doors down from me that had a stroke a few years back and is now confined to a wheelchair. We have no sidewalks at all on our side of the street. She called the city and told them that she needs to have them so she can get around and so the city made a plan to put in handicap ramps and sidewalks. The clincher? The homeowners are supposed to pay for it. Homeowners whose homes have been here since 1901 and have never had sidewalks. Homeowners who got wrangled into having our homes rezoned about 3 years ago into commercial property which now makes us non-conforming residential properties and means that we cannot touch the structure of our houses. TOUCH. We cannot add on, up, or out in any way, shape, or form to the existing structure of our home. Can’t build a shed, garage, replace a porch roof. NOTTA. I was not at all happy about the decision of the city to do this.
BUT NOW they want to change the structure around my house so all the rules change. Plus there is this problem of years ago when the drains were put in, a storm drain was put where the sidewalk should go (I know, it’s as if they never intended to put sidewalks there in the first place)and so now the city needs to move the storm drain, which involves moving it across the street and digging huge trenches all across the road to re-lay the piping.
Back in the fall, I was made aware of the pending sidewalks when a city guy knocked on my door asking if we would pay for the concrete and they would pay for the labor…how generous. I said no, my husband had been out of work for over a year and we could not afford it. (Really, we choose not to be able to afford it- yes I have resentment issues about the city’s decision to rezone- and the city in general) Come spring the mass chaos of the road construction began. Same city guy came and knocked on my door one morning and told me that they were going to start on the sidewalks and would need all or our vehicles/trailers/equipment/RV moved to the end of the road. We poo-pood the idea of moving EVERYTHING and told them that we would clear the front 1/3 of everything. You see, we could see through the need to have everything moved for the actual construction of the project and saw that they were going to use it a parking for their own vehicles/trailers/equipment. They also assured us that we would still have access to our house the entire time; we may have to wait a few minutes for them to move something, but we could park in our driveway and not have to park on the busy city street in front of our house, especially seeing as it was a no parking street and really we would be parking across the street in the Baptist Church parking lot.
So, come day one of construction, 8 am I need to bring 2 little boys to school. I get in my car, they ask if I can move my suburban before I leave so they can have a little more space (ahem, they meant to say parking) I obliged- making my 3 youngsters wait in a very cold car and making the school goers late. They also stuck their hand out before I drove away and asked that I park across the street when I came back- there would not be access to the road for a while. Ya. That’s what I said. No access when I was assured that I would have it the whole time. And this was day 1. I glared through them with the best ‘if I could kill you right now as a freebie- I would’ look and said fine. The next day, same story.
Then came Wednesday. Oh, did I tell you that city workers only work 2 days out of the week? True story. They ripped my road all apart, sidewalks too, and then left it to be a rained upon muddy mess until the next week.
THEN- this new guy showed up and was fashioning this very stylish ‘inmate work release program’ orange vest. So now that it was finally sunny, my children thought that they could go outside, but were quickly turned down when I saw Dude. I am stuck in the house. They are stuck in the house. My car is across the street. I feel that I now have to live under a locked everything. I am not happy. Not. At. All. 4 weeks now. And I can imagine about $15,000 in costs.
Today they are starting to repave the craters that they dug in my road so that they can FINALY start to put in the handicap ramps. That lead to dirt and gravel, or nowhere as I call it. These ramps that are pretty well useless to anyone. Especially the little lady who lived down the street but has since been put into a care facility and no longer resides there.
Today I am feeling highly frustrated and irritated.
Let me explain.
There is a little old lady who lives 2 doors down from me that had a stroke a few years back and is now confined to a wheelchair. We have no sidewalks at all on our side of the street. She called the city and told them that she needs to have them so she can get around and so the city made a plan to put in handicap ramps and sidewalks. The clincher? The homeowners are supposed to pay for it. Homeowners whose homes have been here since 1901 and have never had sidewalks. Homeowners who got wrangled into having our homes rezoned about 3 years ago into commercial property which now makes us non-conforming residential properties and means that we cannot touch the structure of our houses. TOUCH. We cannot add on, up, or out in any way, shape, or form to the existing structure of our home. Can’t build a shed, garage, replace a porch roof. NOTTA. I was not at all happy about the decision of the city to do this.
BUT NOW they want to change the structure around my house so all the rules change. Plus there is this problem of years ago when the drains were put in, a storm drain was put where the sidewalk should go (I know, it’s as if they never intended to put sidewalks there in the first place)and so now the city needs to move the storm drain, which involves moving it across the street and digging huge trenches all across the road to re-lay the piping.
Back in the fall, I was made aware of the pending sidewalks when a city guy knocked on my door asking if we would pay for the concrete and they would pay for the labor…how generous. I said no, my husband had been out of work for over a year and we could not afford it. (Really, we choose not to be able to afford it- yes I have resentment issues about the city’s decision to rezone- and the city in general) Come spring the mass chaos of the road construction began. Same city guy came and knocked on my door one morning and told me that they were going to start on the sidewalks and would need all or our vehicles/trailers/equipment/RV moved to the end of the road. We poo-pood the idea of moving EVERYTHING and told them that we would clear the front 1/3 of everything. You see, we could see through the need to have everything moved for the actual construction of the project and saw that they were going to use it a parking for their own vehicles/trailers/equipment. They also assured us that we would still have access to our house the entire time; we may have to wait a few minutes for them to move something, but we could park in our driveway and not have to park on the busy city street in front of our house, especially seeing as it was a no parking street and really we would be parking across the street in the Baptist Church parking lot.
So, come day one of construction, 8 am I need to bring 2 little boys to school. I get in my car, they ask if I can move my suburban before I leave so they can have a little more space (ahem, they meant to say parking) I obliged- making my 3 youngsters wait in a very cold car and making the school goers late. They also stuck their hand out before I drove away and asked that I park across the street when I came back- there would not be access to the road for a while. Ya. That’s what I said. No access when I was assured that I would have it the whole time. And this was day 1. I glared through them with the best ‘if I could kill you right now as a freebie- I would’ look and said fine. The next day, same story.
Then came Wednesday. Oh, did I tell you that city workers only work 2 days out of the week? True story. They ripped my road all apart, sidewalks too, and then left it to be a rained upon muddy mess until the next week.
THEN- this new guy showed up and was fashioning this very stylish ‘inmate work release program’ orange vest. So now that it was finally sunny, my children thought that they could go outside, but were quickly turned down when I saw Dude. I am stuck in the house. They are stuck in the house. My car is across the street. I feel that I now have to live under a locked everything. I am not happy. Not. At. All. 4 weeks now. And I can imagine about $15,000 in costs.
Today they are starting to repave the craters that they dug in my road so that they can FINALY start to put in the handicap ramps. That lead to dirt and gravel, or nowhere as I call it. These ramps that are pretty well useless to anyone. Especially the little lady who lived down the street but has since been put into a care facility and no longer resides there.
Today I am feeling highly frustrated and irritated.
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