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Hey crapper-
I've got a good story for you, with many guilty parties - both city government and snobbish homeowners play a role, with hapless renters of course being screwed.
Over here in Astoria, there are a ton of alleyways. Household trash is picked up in these alleyways instead of out front on the street like most other parts of the city. Let's say you're a renter who doesn't have direct access to the alleyway - you have to carry your trash to the nearest alley leading behind your house and leave it behind the house.
Carrying your trash all over the way around the block is annoying enough on the best of days, but in the winter it is absolutely batshit horrible. Absolutely none of the homeowners shovel the alleyways. The city has the alleyways listed on their snow removal map - but they absolutely never plow them - EVER. I've lived over here for a good 10 years and have never seen a single homeowner so much as shovel the space directly behind their houses. There is no drainage at all - so even when the snow melts it just pools in potholes (that no one fixes) and then ices over so every alleyway is just a long stretch of ice ice and more ice. It is very similar to trying to walk around Willets Point - you have to watch your step and pray you don't slip and fall - because unlike willets point no one will see you fall and you could end up laying there for who-knows-how long for someone to notice. You could hit your head and die back there and not be found until the next trash pickup day.
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At the very least, this is a large lawsuit waiting to happen.
The problem is that no one knows who actually owns these alleyways - none of the homeowners will admit it falls into their property line and the city never maintains them. I'm surprised the local trash men haven't complained to their superiors because they unfortunately have to walk and drive through twice a week collecting the trash. If and when they fall and go on disability, who's stuck paying the bill? You and I.
I know there's quite a few other neighborhoods in the city where trash is removed via alleyways - do they have the same problem we have, or is this just another huge example of astoria property owners who refuse to shovel anything, the city hall not giving a crap about Queens?
Do me a favor if you run with this - leave my name out of it since unfortunately I have to live over here a little while longer and have no desire to deal with these asshole homeowners in person. Everyone knows everyone around here. When you complain to them, they all pretend to not know English and then gossip to their neighbors at the local private social club.
-Anonymous
PS: attachments: a map of where the alleys are, and of course photos. The map is of course NYC's plowing map, screen grabbed direct from their website. The red lines are where the alleyways are. There's probably hundreds of homes here where you have to go to the alley to leave the trash, and only residents on the first floor have access to the alley without walking all over to get back there...
15 comments:
Chip in and buy a snow blower and pay some teens some money to remove the snow.
Problem solved !
Community drives are private property with an easement for neighbors to access their garage/parking spot.
Not city responsibility to maintain or clear.
I wonder if renters without access to the ally are occupying legal units?
This was a wasted QC post. Community drives are private. Homeowners are responsible for their maintenance. When ours needed to be resurfaced, all 20 homeowners chipped in to pay for it. Why is everyone always looking for a handout?
I don't think your getting it: if you're renting here (yes they are all legal apartments, usually with absentee landlords or landlords who occupy the first floor), you are not looking for a 'hand out' - you're looking for a solution. Unfortunately at least half of the homeowners around here are semi-slumlords who will not do anything beyond the bare minimum to maintain the homes. Some of the better ones would like to do something, but the others are too cheap to pitch in, and it's far too expensive for just a few of them to do.
'Get a snowblower' - really? Who wants to get a snowblower and spend hours on clearing an alley for their ungrateful neighbors? Most people wouldn't even shovel a small path in front of their neighbors homes on the sidewalk.
Unfortunately it becomes a city issue because the trashmen have to collect the trash in these alleys. When one of them gets hurt doing so with all of that ice, who;s paying the bill? The taxpayer. That's who.
The only no-cost solution is to let these shitty alleyways decay and move the trash pickup to the curb. I'm 100% for that because it costs no one nothing and lets the cheap idiot homeowners fester in their own crap.
They can have their shitty unmaintained alleyways - just don't force me to try to get back there to throw out my trash.
And don't tell me to 'just move' - believe me I intend to as soon as I can. I was once going to buy over here, but you see the way these cheap idiots are with maintaining anything and you want to run screaming.
And don't tell me to 'just move' - believe me I intend to as soon as I can. I was once going to buy over here, but you see the way these cheap idiots are with maintaining anything and you want to run screaming.
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"If you don't like it move!" is the prevailing wisdom by the governing class and community board in Astoria.
This is front and center a legacy of the Vallones and their general lack of interest in anything but new sweeping construction. Their philosophy, dangerously linking these local clods with the polished ex-mayor, was that the community is worthless - its people, its buildings, everything - but the dirt in the ground.
That is gold.
Their fostering greed rather than community building is one of the reasons that they will get elected time and again by people that feel as they do
- families that maintain residency there but have all but moved away and are milking their property to the max
- to say nothing of their buddies in the ce-ment trade that are busy converting innocent 1950s capes into ludicrous MacMansions in 'Astoria HEIGHTS.'
Greedy homeowners are now renting out the garages and parking their cars on former right of ways. They have barbecues in the alleys right next to the property.
Violations of the fire code without a doubt.
Any yet all we hear in Astoria are excited discussions on how people should have brought there in the 80s
- barely mentioning the inadequate infrastructure and crowding that is sharply eroding its once excellent quality of life.
Help is on the way, just sit tight, the mayor's wife is now in charge of all things outer boroughs, immigrants and children. They are going to fix everything that is wrong
You're 100% right - 'if you don't like it, move' is the prevailing philosophy. My idiot greek landlord complained that the water bill went up and said I shouldn't shower after 11pm (yeah right - I'll shower whenever I want). When I told her she could install modern toilets and save a ton of money, she suddenly only spoke greek. In my old apartment there was once flooding in the basement, which my apartment had direct access to without a door upstairs. When the carpet down there molded and I got sick, I went down and found the problem. The idiots pumped out the water while I was at work and left the wet carpet that they installed. I didn't pay them rent that month and threatened then with doctors bills instead. If I didn't have insurance the ER would have cost an absurd amount.
This is the mentality of the old generation of assholes that own homes around ditmars: do the minimum and if there's any chance that it is someone else's fault/problem - blame them.
I grew up around here, and I can't fucking wait to buy somewhere else.
Help is on the way, just sit tight, the mayor's wife is now in charge of all things outer boroughs, immigrants and children. They are going to fix everything that is wrong.
Help is on the way? We hear this every four years.
My help is on the way comment was sarcasm, sorry you didn't understand it
To the submitter of this piece, if you looked at the PlowNYC map properly, you would see that the alleys are not the city's responsibility. It absolutely sucks that the homeowners there are lazy schmucks, and there should be some consequence there, but in this instance they are the ones to initially blame for the snow.
As for bringing your trash around the block in that mess? Eff that. I'd leave it right on the front stoop.
The problem is renters. If they got into a proper rentable property, a true apartment building and not just living in some dudes house, this would not be an issue, now would it?
Own, or move.
My help is on the way comment was sarcasm, sorry you didn't understand it.
Far better than you, bub.
The problem is renters. If they got into a proper rentable property, a true apartment building and not just living in some dudes house, this would not be an issue, now would it?
Own, or move.
EXCEPT THAT PEOPLE HAVE ALWAYS SHARED DWELLINGS - BUT NOW LANDLORDS ARE ENCOURAGED THE MILK PROPERTY AND HAVE NO SENSE OF COMMUNITY.
But again, the problem is not only trash pickup, but parking in these common drives, having parties in them blocking the other people.
Today, everyone is encouraged to be selfish. There is no sense of community in Astoria and we have have to place blame for this at the top.
Thank God the Vallones are gone. Lets make sure the vampires don't come back!
Next, the community board has to change and get some real people that give two shits about the community instead, like the library board of developers, simply a network for 'opportunities.'
I don't understand why you don't have access to the rear of the property? If you live on the second floor of a legal 2 family house, just bring the trash down to the first floor and ask the LL or first floor tenant to put it our back when they do theirs. As for plowing? GOOD LUCK! Wait until the driveway needs major repairs - NO ONE wants to pay for that!
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