It's Raining, It's Pouring . . .

And all of it is backing up in front of our house!


This is in front of our neighbor's house. The hazard cones are in front of our house.
The right-hand side is sort of what it's supposed to look like.





Many, many years ago, Myrtle Avenue had cobblestone gutters to handle all of the rainwater that flowed down the street. They worked, but not terribly well. We complained to the town, because the street was collapsing in front of our house, creating a hazardous circumstance (along with many of the neighbors, our cobblestones had long been paved over) (one of our other neighbors had a far more dangerous circumstance as well). Eventually, the town came in with a plan to put underground pipes to carry the water, and belgian block curbs to make the street look nice. But the head of the historic preservation group lives two houses up from us, and so the project had to be reengineered to restore all of the gutters. This would have required an additional assessment, but the town was going to get an historic preservation grant from the state. So far, everyone was reasonably happy (the project was delayed a year, but we could live with it). Then came March, and the town announced that it didn't get the grant but it would do the project anyway. They came in, start taking down trees and digging four - five foot deep trenches. We were all confused, but figured they knew what they were doing. Then they started laying cobblestone (actually - very large rocks) and we realized that this was it - the plan was for a four foot deep trench (or moat, as we all like to call them). Imagine the cars falling in and not being able to get out! Imagine small children falling in and not being able to get out! Imagine the (literally) hundreds of emails circulating among the neighbors and the town! Long story (relatively) short - the mayor comes to view, issues a 'stop work' order, the plan gets (again) reengineered, and they should be starting up again this week. In the meantime, since they're half done (of course, the 'stop work' order came through after digging our moat, but before installing the cobblestones), all the water rushes down the street and now deadends in front of our house. Instant swimming pool!