20.3.09

Watch your head




All week I’ve been worrying about the ice on the roof. More specifically, I’ve been worrying about it sliding off and dropping on someone’s head, killing them instantly. It looks quite pretty – like an ice blanket draped over the eaves – but as with many things, looks here are deceptive; it has the potential to be lethal.

As I’ve typed away at my computer, I’ve noticed Knut and the other elderly neighbour, looking across at our house disapprovingly. They’re out every day shovelling the snow from their gardens onto their driveways, smashing it with their feet and leaving it to sit in the sun and melt away. Life’s too short. At least mine is, even if I live to be 100. Anyway, I think it'll be fun to have ice in the driveway in June. Something to blog about.

The thing with the roof is that it might actually make someone's life very short indeed, but we haven't known what to do about it. We’ve tried poking the ice down but it’s rock hard. My structural engineer husband has been unconcerned compared to me. Still I worried. And repeated over and over, like a parrot, 'watch out for the roof, don’t loiter, come straight in or go straight out the door, without stopping'.

Yesterday I arrived back from the school run to find these wooden posts set up under the porch. I gathered that Knut had called the landlord who had sent someone to erect this support, in case the ice fell on the porch and killed it. And you thought I was being paranoid about him watching us. 

Of course I was mad. I mean wouldn’t a phone call have been nice? A little courtesy. I was around all morning - why not call in and say you're going to call the landlord? It’s not that I’m oblivious to the danger hanging over us, I just haven’t known what to do about it, and to be honest I didn't really think it was the landlord's problem. Of course, I hadn't considered the potential damage to his porch, only our heads. 

Around 6 pm, the landlord showed up, and of course I wasn’t mad at all. I’d already got that out of my system ranting about rudeness on the phone to my husband (the kind of conversation that ends with him saying, ‘Are you finished?’). 

The landlord complimented my Norwegian while doing a good impression of someone lip-reading which was somewhat unnerving. He took photos. And he said that he was sending a man with a crane around today to remove the roof hazard.

There’s no sign of the crane yet, but as it’s -3 now, I’m happy that nothing else will budge that baby for a few hours.  Still if you’re in the area, watch your head, don’t loiter, come straight in or go straight out the door, without stopping.

p.s. while trying to put these darn photos into Blogger, I saw the landlord drive up to the house then turn and drive away again. Mmm.

 

6 comments:

The housewife said...

That does look dangerous girl! But at least spring is on it's way......

Mel said...

Sherbet. That would scare the crapola out of me. The everyday hazards you live with....so different to mine!

Batgirl said...

That's a lot of snow! I wouldn't have known what to do either - it's not like I'd be up there shovelling away :-)

Anonymous said...

the other day i saw a show featuring an american bloke whos job it was to clear the snow of roofs in yellowstone national park, maybe hire him?! he had quite an ingenious method of undercutting the snow with steel cables...

JEDA said...

That does loom rather ominously, doesn't it?

Most houses have snow rails along the bottom of the eaves to prevent that very thing from happening. Insist your landlord install some...maybe...?

In the mean time, hope this one gets sorted before anyone gets buried.

Unknown said...

Caroline - Spring is definitely on its way. Yehey!
Mel - this is the first year such a hazard has occurred, thankfully.
Batgirl - my geriatric neighbours were up on their roofs shovelling snow weeks ago but it REALLY is dangerous. We've no way of getting up there anyway. Thankfully :-)
Sam - interesting idea - what TV channels do you watch? Sounds more interesting than most of the stuff we have on TV here.
JEDA - we do have snow rails but in this case they did their job too well and then the snow just built up over them, turned to ice and slowly started to slide down as the temps rose. We were just waiting for the ice at the rails to crack then whoosh!