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Citizen complaint of the day: Goddamn sprinkler
By adamg on Tue, 07/14/2015 - 12:06pm
A fed-up citizen reports he was so tired of waiting for the city to do something about an overactive sprinkler on Perkins Street that kept watering the sidewalk that he finally did something:
I ripped the sprinkler out of the ground yesterday, so I guess you can close both cases now. I was sick of having to choose between getting wet and walking on a busy street with my back to the speeding cars. You're welcome.
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Comments
One Man's Quest
Is another man's vandalism. Where I come from we call ripping a sprinkler off of someone's property crime.
yeah
This hero could have just blocked the stream from hitting the sidewalk by erecting a small makeshift barrier...or could just cross the street. Now the city probably has a bill approaching the thousands because this special snowflake didn't want to walk on the other side of the street. Hopefully they can trace the "anonymous" submission based on other things he's submitted and hand him a bill for the repairs.
But where could one possibly find
A small makeshift waterproof cylindrical barrier about five inches high? It's a pity nobody leaves things like that on the curb every week.
yep
Or strawmen, because we all know it would take just exactly a waterproof cylindrical barrier that's 5 inches tall to block water from advancing. Do you even think strategically, bro?
I think you're failing to understand something
The guy wasn't mad that the sidewalk was wet. He wasn't out there in his socks. He was mad that the sprinkler was hitting him while he was walking on the sidewalk.
This isn't sandbox play we're talking about, playing mini-engineer with twigs. It's stopping a sprinkler from spraying all over the place.
I'm suggesting that instead of ripping the sprinkler out of the ground, he could have just put a can over it. He's talking about two months. Surely he could have managed that instead of raging out. The homeowner might have gotten the clue, even without a local standard passive-aggressive note attached.
Adjustable.
Yup, they are cheap plastic screw in adjustable sprinklers. If they are the portable ones, they are adjustable or just have a shut-off valve. If the vandal just 'ripped it out' why did it shut off?
Dunks cups everywhere
in my neighborhood from large iced coffees, and venti frappe cups from that other place.
I detect a double-standard here
Would all of you have the same responses if instead of something that harasses pedestrians, it was something that harassed passing motorists?
Would you say: "Drive on the other side of the road"?
Would you say: "Put up a make-shift barrier"?
Would the city be so loathe to respond to intrusion of public space if that public space happened to be a lane for motor vehicles?
I doubt it. Pedestrians always seem to get short shrift.
Not an endorsement of his action, just an observation.
???
First, it was a private citizens sprinkler if you actually opened the link. And also, where do you live that a sprinkler head replacement would "approach the thousands" ... you can buy a replacement head for most systems for under $20.
If he thought it was a public
If he thought it was a public sprinkler, the "thousands" he thought it would cost would be the labor costs of getting city parks workers or DCR out there to replace it.
Woah, this happened in JP?
Someone didn't get the attention they craved in a timely manner so willful destruction of private property is obviously the only option they had left.
First, this person should be medicated.
And second, we need to build a wall around JP.
The real JP millennial way to
The real JP millennial way to do it would be to make a blogpost about the problem and link it on twitter and reddit until it gains a hashtag for the "victim" reblogged on boston.com and gawker sites, then organize a protest in support and then flashmob event to pull up the thing then an afterparty at some bar with a gofundme campaign set up to raise bail money for any "victims of police violence" arrested at the protest event for destroying the sprinkler.
Why are you so obsessed with "millenials"?
Seriously. Grow up and get the fuck over it.
I don't think the gawker
I don't think the gawker-reddit crossover population is JP millennials. We don't have enough basements here.
You know
I do call us the Cambridge of Boston when talking with Cantabrigians. Then again - I call Cambridge France. Even to my boss. (I'm a charmer)
Haha...
"And second, we need to build a wall around JP."
We'd be a day late and a dollar short on that one, my friend.
If we build a wall around JP, do you promise you will stay out?
.
That's logical
That's clearly the logical next step. Don't interact in any way with the homeowner. You should always gripe to the city and if that doesn't solve the issue you should lash out and destroy things. Now this person has actually committed a crime for what? Getting splashed with water? If I knew this person I would turn them in. You're welcome.
Did you try talking to the neighbor?
This is not really the city's job is it? There is no hint that this person ever reached out to the sprinkler-owner. If this person thinks this action is OK, they are wrong. NOW the city should get involved and make sure s/he pays the cost of having the sprinkler fixed.
Wasn't that a failed TV series pilot
Lack of impulse control + Entitlement
is never a good thing.
Unless
the sprinkler has a 360 degree head, it's possible to reach down and twist it so it points a different direction: that's how sprinkler installers adjust them.
This would have been preferable to vandalism if possible.
Knowing that sprinklers are
Knowing that sprinklers are adjustable like that requires a modicum of intelligence. That this person (a) complained to the city about a sprinkler on private property rather than just talk to the homeowner, or even just leave a note if he's too big a coward to talk face-to-face, (b) fumed about this for two whole months without ever once thinking to himself, "gee, maybe I should just talk to the homeowner, or even just leave a note because I'm too big a coward to talk face-to-face," and finally (c) ripped the thing out of the ground in a fit of rage, ...demonstrates we're dealing with someone with a wee bit less than that required modicum here.
It's a slob landscape contractor problem.
They didn't set the heads right. Some just require a screwdriver.
The miscreant is an idiot as ripping the head out just wastes more water.
Landscape contractors are often among the shabbiest of the trades. They'll sell a sprinkler system without mentioning the likely water bill issues and then they'll have half clueless summer job kids setting the heads, if they bother at all.
wow
What a whiney little bitch.
Whoa!
Not cool. Needs to deal with anger management/communication issues!
Well, that's good.
Maybe Citizens Connect can pass on the contact info for the vandal to the homeowners so that he/she can be prosecuted.
oh, god, can't believe I'm wading into this...
...but the entitled party may not be the person who is getting nailed by the sprinkler, but the homeowner/landlord who didn't bother to aim the sprinkler so it doesn't hit people on the sidewalk.
Having said that, leave an effing note, don't calling ISD/cops/Bat Man to handle it.