A New Sidewalk Rant
 

About a month ago I got a notice from the city. New sidewalks, curbs & water supply work was afoot. This week, they arrived with a vengeance. I was in NYC on Tuesday when they tore out the old sidewalk. Along with our 3 phone lines (2 are my 800 # & a fax line btw). Surprisingly, they missed the cable line which is a usual victim of any digging project.

Bell Canada repaired the lines on Wednesday. The sidewalks were poured that day too.

Thursday they pulled the forms & backfilled the area around the sidewalks. And took out our home phone line in the process. They other 2 still work.

Just before 5 today, they tore out the sidewalks . . . but no more lines . . . yet.

The Bell man (a nice Jamaican guy with far far too much cologne) was here an hour ago & confirmed that our phone was out. Gee thanks. He handed me a copy of the report he was submitting that said:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1273878892.jpg

He couldn’t do anything because there was no brown phone box nearby for a temp line & he didn’t have the underground wire detection equipment. We might see someone tomorrow.

Underground service might beautify the neighborhood but it is a royal pain when anyone digs a hole.

Ian

btw And yes, I have already started drinking which is why I am so calm. ;)

did you file a written complaint with the City?

Why? The usual routine is that they deny all responsibility & refer you to the contractor who denies all responsibility & refers you back to the city. BTDT. Endless hours wasted meandering through the phone maze. It is all N/C anyway.

And besides. We have 3 cells & 2 land lines + Skype . . . we are not phone deprived.

Ian

Around here, every several years the city checks the condition of the sidewalk in front of your house and sends you a notice listing the things you have to fix. Since it is technically your responsibility to maintain the sidewalk and the strip between sidewalk and curb. Offers from sidewalk contractors follow. It is pretty painless as long as you have a few hundred bucks, and we have nice, smooth, safe sidewalks. But it did surprise me some.

Man..... We don't have sidewalks out here.... don't have to worry about that crap...


Oh and we have the "OKIE One call" system... Call them before you dig and they send people out to locate everything.... then if you clip something that wasn't marked... You are in the clear.

Another gremlin appeared at 4 am this morning. . .

Two cops were banging at our door. They said that they had a 911 call from our house. WTF? I have no idea whether it is related to the ripped out wires but WTF? Four friggin' AM. I was not amused.

Ian

Bizarre. We lost our landline about 5 years ago for 3 days. I was so pissed that I got my wife & I cell phones & told Qwest to piss off. It only costs about $10 a month extra.

Fixed. The same guy that fixed it Wednesday after the 1st slice. He had run a new cable under the new sidewalk that the brain dead sidewalk guys had damaged with a shovel.

Next up: The water lines. That should be good for another round of service disruptions.

I doubt that I could ever be convinced that cells are better than a land line as a permanent solution. I hate the things. They are necessary but that doesn't make they less hateful.

Ian

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1273941657.jpg

Just wondering: why are these guys digging 6' down for a sidewalk?? I would think for a sidewalk you shouldn't need to go deeper than 1 or 2 feet. When we trench a conduit around here we go 4' minimum, deeper for water (frost).

They're not. The deep lines were toasted years ago when they ran new gas lines or cable lines or something . . . now they are shallow & vulnerable. Stupid.

Ian

Agreed- I think you'd be hard pressed to come up with a more hated utility and on top of that, specifically Qwest.