Iced in - Someone wants to scrape the streets

I have been in quarantine and then an ice storm hit. Our neighborhood has been iced in since Monday. Basically all the roads until today have been deemed impassible and/or closed. We live in the south which treats their roads entirely differently than the north or even TN. Long story but we don't have salt except for bridges and overpasses. The south doesn't have a need for stockpiles of salt/sand as we usually have only 2 snow events a year. Plows are limited as well. They are expensive. Most cities here may have only 2 in their fleet. (If that).

This isn't about all of that. Just setting the background of the situation. Of course if you live in a neighborhood on secondary roads, your not going to see a plow, salt, or any road assistance. We don't really have many companies that service snow removal. It's more like "Joe Bob" has a truck and put a plow on the end of it. Now going to sell that to anyone who will pay them.

As you can guess it.., We had some people who decided they want the HOA to pay for ice removal. We then had some "Joe Bobs" in the neighborhood saying they would do it. (You can see where this is going...). Our Management company is closed due to the weather. I spoke up and stated "If you want the HOA to pay for it, then you will be asked if your licensed and insured". Well you can just imagine the clutching of the pearls moment that caused!

Little miss "Karen Joe Bob" chimed in. She was like "We can do it ourselves. We will do it for free". Even better proposition! Yeah! I told them that need to call the MC first. Ask them if you can do it. My bet is they are going to ask if you are licensed and insured. Her response? "I will do it for free and plow your mother on the house". She didn't like that pointed out "legalities" when she wanted out to get Taco Bell. My response? "Thank you. My mother died after suffering from cancer. I do not want unprofessional putting my neighborhood at risk."

Maybe it's the COVID and Cabin Fever speaking... but one doesn't simply hook up a plow to their front fender and drive it through a HOA. Plus did I mention it was ICE!!! One of the cities actually decided to plow their streets. You could watch in horror as all they did was make it a black ice nightmare. Plowing ice is a bad thing. Especially if your not treating it with Salt and temps are below 20 degrees. It all just refroze solid within minutes. They stopped. Can't convince these people though...

Had to vent... Thanks!

There are people from the north that live here who do not understand. I am from the north myself. So, I understand Northern weather and the clearing of snow/ice. It is a completely different story when it comes to the south. People up north always say "Southerners don't know how to drive in the snow". That is completely FALSE. We do not have "Snow". We have ICE! No one can drive in ice.

It's funny as every year you get these people from up North who come down here. Their first winter they are "Winter Karens" about how we clear off roads. Don't do this, don't do that... We can't drive... They are ALWAYS the first people I see in a ditch or drive around to avoid. I know they are the first ones who is going to wreck the rest of us.

One winter we had boss from Chicago. We got 10 inches of snow. By the time he got to work that night, he was apologizing to ALL of us about how "Southerner's can't drive in snow". He learned his lesson that day. Changed his tune since.

Mind you that I have worked mission essential jobs for over 20 years. I had to drive in the worst of it. Trying to tell these people to NOT plow ICE because Mother Nature is a better melter is driving me bonkers!!! Good thing I have been locked up in my house for over a week!

You have to be licensed in Alabama to spread salt or plow snow?

if you logged off facebook you would save yourself a lot of drama. people just go to FB to vent, Not sure I've ever seen anyone do anything about something they complainted about after they typed it.

someone in our HOA picked up literally, one hand full of trash in the park. It fit in one hand, went on facebook and said the HOA needed to hire someone to clean up the park, even though that's never been done for 25 years. That was a year ago and not a peep since and nothing has changed.

While we're complaining...

Our new board has been making some questionable decisions around finances, and one of the decisions was to change our snow removal policy. We have to get three inches or more before they'll have the streets plowed and we have to clean our own driveways and sidewalks. (Two inches is the norm around here.) The board decided that it was more important to keep assessments where they were, even though we're underfunding our reserves, among other things, and assessments should have gone up.

Predictably, we got yet another email from the board president this morning. Apparently the community blew up his in box with complaints from people who didn't want to clean their driveways and sidewalks when the temperatures were in the single digits. Imagine that. In fairness to him, we were warned about this. In fairness to the community, people don't usually buy condos in order to shovel driveways and sidewalks. We expect to pay for these services, so "we don't want to pay for this" rings a little hollow, especially since there have been some questionable expenditures lately. Our treasurer also resigned abruptly in fall, and the remaining board decided not to fill the position until the annual meeting even though they had qualified volunteers.

I predict that there are fights about money in our future, as well there should be. On a positive note, we've now had a demonstration of what "keeping assessments low" actually looks like - so maybe we'll be able to have some realistic discussions around the topic.

I would assume HOAs want to deal with businesses who have a state issued business license as well as liability insurance.

That my dear is another can of worms... We are in 2 different cities. If that doesn't sound crazy enough. 2 streets are in one city and the other streets are in the other. We have 2 different developers. The one developer owns the HOA. Whom are the worst developer between the 2. Plus the MC they hired just had our "handler" quit a few weeks ago. She was a piece of work...

The issue is many are new to the HOA world. Plus new to the area. They have never seen this weather before. I have a few times in over 30 years. It's not pretty and it's VERY VERY rare. We were just not prepared for the ICE. Snow is usually not a big deal. It goes away in a couple of days. This ice lasted a week! (We still have ice).

It's just been frustrating. However, having someone decide to put on a scraper and run the hood without insurance/license is just dumb. People were parked on the side of the road unable to move their vehicles. One swipe of a car and done.

I have never heard of "scraping" the ice off a road. I know all about snow plowing bit ice scraping is new to me. I am familiar with "salting and/or sanding the roads.

Scraping is same as plowing except the ice was so thick it needed scraping.

David I feel your pain. that is what I am trying to explain too. Developer did nothing. Which I did not expect they would. This person popped off because I pointed out if you want the HOA to pay you, then best be licensed and insured. That is when they offered to do it for free and to plow my mother. Class act.