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Old 12-28-2012, 11:41 AM
 
7,380 posts, read 15,624,193 times
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i have to walk past a building owned by the water authority to get to the busway and they NEVER clear their sidewalk. in a cold winter it's a bumpy expanse of ice for pretty much a whole block. it's so cruddy. i don't even know who to call to report it because their sidewalk is in edgewood but their building is in wilkinsburg. but i think you call 311 (in the city) or code enforcement.

i generally just walk in the street when it gets bad but i sort of want to walk on it, fall, and sue their butts off.

and yeah, 3 days is PLENTY of time to clear a damn sidewalk. i have a job and was also driving home all day wednesday, yet i have managed to keep mine clear! it would be harder to make time if i let it turn into ice and had to chip it off, which is why i always clear it as soon as possible after it snows. also if you're a landlord, maintaining your properties is PART of your job!
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Old 12-28-2012, 01:23 PM
 
2,277 posts, read 3,941,994 times
Reputation: 1920
Could be out of town too. Whatever. I'm sure code enforcers will do whatever they do. Sidewalks are a luxury other places don't have. Maybe the city should look after its own property if its such a public hazard.
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Old 12-28-2012, 02:42 PM
 
Location: About 10 miles north of Pittsburgh International
2,458 posts, read 4,184,874 times
Reputation: 2374
Quote:
It is fairly common for a lease to state that the tenants are responsible to snow removal. I'm not sure if that holds up in court, and as far as I know, the owner is still liable. If anyone know the case law, I'd like to hear from them.
FWIW, I was in the snow removal business for 19 years, and in addition to plowing parking lots, we had a number of sidewalks we were contracted to maintain. One property consisted of five single family rental units with a shared driveway, which we plowed, at the landlord's expense. Several years in a row, one unit was vacant during the winter, and the landlord paid us to shovel and salt the sidewalk of the vacant unit. In all the times I was there, I seldom saw any of the other units with their sidewalks cleared.
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Old 12-28-2012, 04:41 PM
 
Location: Troy Hill, The Pitt
1,174 posts, read 1,579,861 times
Reputation: 1081
Quote:
Originally Posted by UKyank View Post
Ok, I know that removing ice/snow from the walk in front of your home is the owners responsibility but who is contacted to enforce this? While I hate to play the part of the old fuddy duddy on my street, this year 3 of the homes passed ownership from their long time residents to rental properties and those properties have done nothing at all to clear their walks in this first snow & is currently a sheet of ice there.
It almost looks comical in that the sidewalk on the street is 100% clear of any snow or ice apart from the solid block of ice fronting those homes.

On a side note, if anyone needs lawsuit $ and doesn't mind breaking something I can forward you the addresses

Find out who insures their home and call them. They're going to be the one's who pay out when someone gets hurt.

By all means be a fuddy duddy. If there were more fuddy duddy's in the world I wouldn't have had this happen in 2009 on someone who neglected their sidewalk:




Before someone makes a comment about the "decision" to walk on ice: I was in the cleared street and stepped onto what appeared to be a snow covered curb to avoid a car. The snow on the walk had thawed and refrozen numerous times, and it hadn't snowed in days.
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Old 12-28-2012, 05:05 PM
gg
 
Location: Pittsburgh
26,137 posts, read 25,783,846 times
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The city nor the state takes care of their sidewalks, why should residents have to? They plow the snow on top of the sidewalk on the Highland Park Bridge. Believe it or not, it is actually used quite a bit, but does that state care? Nope. Why should anyone have to shovel their sidewalk if the state itself doesn't? When they shovel and take care of things, then they can enforce it, but until then to be quite honest, I don't feel the authorities should be able to do a thing. It would be up to people living there to take care of things as their conscience dictates, but certainly not law. Just my take. Citizens shouldn't have to be enforced to do things beyond what the state and city do. That is just common sense IMHO.
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Old 12-28-2012, 05:44 PM
 
Location: About 10 miles north of Pittsburgh International
2,458 posts, read 4,184,874 times
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It's an ongoing worry for snow removal contractors--The "slip and fall" lawsuit.

Suffice it to say that if I'd taken care of my contracts to the same standards as most publicly owned pavement, Edgar Snyder would've had me on speed dial...
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Old 12-28-2012, 05:47 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh
6,782 posts, read 9,528,967 times
Reputation: 10245
Quote:
Originally Posted by h_curtis View Post
Citizens shouldn't have to be enforced to do things beyond what the state and city do. That is just common sense IMHO.
That's absurd. If the government is half-assing its responsibilities as a landowner, that doesn't set a precedent any more than if a slumlord isn't keeping up his or her property. Call whoever is supposed to maintain the roadway, assuming it is in location where sidewalk clearing laws apply.
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Old 12-28-2012, 08:27 PM
 
Location: Marshall-Shadeland, Pittsburgh, PA
32,606 posts, read 77,287,663 times
Reputation: 19071
I slipped and nearly fell today on Parkman Avenue in Schenley Farms because a lot of the a$$ hats who live there have plenty of money to pay "the help" to edge their lawns in the summer yet still haven't shoveled or salted their sidewalks. Those of you advocating for laziness can make as many excuses for these negligent homeowners as you'd like, but I can assure you the moment I get injured and lose a day's wages I'll be giving Edgar Snyder a call. I have a very stressful job with long days. Guess what? I spent 45 minutes when I arrived home from work on Wednesday shoveling and salting our sidewalk down to bare pavement. It's not that hard, unless, like I said earlier, you're an a$$ hat.
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Old 12-28-2012, 08:53 PM
 
Location: 15206
1,860 posts, read 2,564,755 times
Reputation: 1301
I put in my leases that the tenant is responsible for it in a single family house and that the owner is responsible for it in a multi-unit.

on the other hand, I removed the snow on Weds and by Thurs there was another inch or two, which took until today to remove.
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Old 12-28-2012, 10:15 PM
 
1,445 posts, read 1,963,077 times
Reputation: 1190
I'll admit that I didn't clear my sidewalk until this morning but in my defense, I was in California until today. Sorry to anyone trying to walk down the 800 block of Beech this week.

Of course the street hasn't been plowed yet either, not sure when that happens.
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