In this post, from July 2, Cop Car left a comment about the house across the street: Getting that yard tamed is going to take some doing, let alone the house.
Well, it didn't take long. Monday, the new owners came and mowed down the yard. Tuesday I had to go into the office becuase the company was having VPN issues (that only affects remote workers). By the time I got home, everything from around the foundation was gone.
I wish I had been here to see it. Oh, and that box in front of the porch? That is shingles - notice that the roof was done except the ridge. You can't tell from the pictures, and I honestly didn't see that until they did the ridge on Wednesday. I don't think they stripped the old shingles off, although I could be mistaken.
That same day, when I got home shortly after 5:00 pm, they were tearing up rt 149 for a repaving project. I turned into another road and came up the back way to my house. Imagine my surprise that once again my yard/driveway seem to be a favorite place to park a truck (okay, normally people use my place to do a 5 point turn to reverse direction because that side street apparently makes it too quick and easy).
Shortly after I made the hard right turn into my driveway, the dump truck left to get rid of its load of broken pavement. When they returned, they parked 1/2 way into my driveway. The next morning I took pics of the tracks they left in both the driveway and next to the road.
Now, I have 3 empty house immediately around me, plus an empty lot along that side street (the lot adjacent to the house across the street). That side street is much less busy and is wide open, so they could have parked there. Oh, and they could have parked on another street that was closer to the work. Heck, they didn't even have to pull up so far and left my driveway open. But no, they park at my driveway entrance. I don't get what the draw is.
One of our neighbors, a retired USAF colonel, grew weary of having his driveway used for reversing course. He now keeps a small, orange traffic cone at the centered at the street end of his driveway. It must be effective, or he would have given up by now, it's having been there for about one year.
I've thought of petitioning the city to put parking meters along our 100' length of straight curbing. Some of our special taxes are calculated with the curb length in mind (for taxing purposes, the length of our curb is 140', but it is cut up by our driveway.)
Posted by: Cop Car | July 23, 2023 at 07:55 AM
As you know, we are surrounded by lots that have but 70' of curbing, including the one next door where their lot area is 1.5 acres. Two houses down the street is another double lot of 140 feet which accommodates the block's worth of cluster mailboxes. They get their share of traffic over that!
Posted by: Cop Car | July 23, 2023 at 07:58 AM
There are 3 mailboxes on my curb. On the northwest corner are mailboxes for the house across the street and the trailer next door (all mailboxes are on the east side of the street).
Interestingly, the postal service requires my mailbox to be toward the southwest corner. They won't allow it to be near my driveway, or next to those other two mailboxes. Then they skip my mailbox when they make the run down my street and I get mail several hours after everyone else on the street does.
Apparently it is too hard to make the intersection the landmark for the mail carrier to turn when they are coming back thru to go down that side street and hit the next street over. So my mailbox is their stop and turn place. It really makes no sense.
Posted by: bogie | July 27, 2023 at 04:25 AM
Sorry! I got a chuckle out of your mailbox tale. We don't all think alike, do we? Surely there must have been some reason for "their" choices. (One can only hope.)
Posted by: Cop Car | July 27, 2023 at 08:37 AM
A forum friend, whose wife works for the postal service, looked the route up for me years ago. I had related the tale of the post master threatening not to deliver my mail after I set the box at the end of my driveway and making me set it up where it is at. When I moved here, the previous owners had set the mailbox in the garage, so I had no idea where it had previously been placed.
She said the designated route specifically skipped my box during the early stage, then when they came back thru to hit other roads, they used my mailbox for the stop and turn. I would love to see what the pattern looks like since she said it goes thru parts of Deering before it comes back to me.
Sometimes when I get a substitute, they will go ahead and deliver with the rest of my road. So apparently it doesn't make sense to them either.
Posted by: bogie | August 06, 2023 at 04:52 AM
Weird!
I never did put out a mailbox in ABQ. I was on travel so much that I didn't wish to encourage the carrier to leave anything at the house. In those days, the boxes were house-mounted. At some time since then, they have gone to roadside. The only roadside boxes that we've ever had were in Seattle and at this house where we have aggregate boxes.
Posted by: Cop Car | August 06, 2023 at 06:44 AM