I started to think maybe I’d had enough of the giant sewer project in my neighborhood the day I was driving, by necessity, down the wrong side of my street, met a neighbor driving the other way, and had to back up 100 feet and into someone’s driveway to let him pass.
Fortunately, paving was soon to follow, restoring two-way traffic.
First, they filled in the hole in my front yard and poured a new curb.
And then they spread asphalt into the side of the street where they laid the pipe. I walked out the next morning barefoot to get my mail and the asphalt was still warm!
And then… they did nothing for two months. Actually, they were out destroying the main road and laying the main sewer line. They removed the pavement along almost half a mile of it – that’s when I drove off the paved road onto the dirt six inches below and broke all the ground effects off the front of my car. If I hadn’t been sure I was ready for this project to be over before, I was certainly sure then.
Finally, they came out and leveled the mounds of dirt in our front yards. Several days later they spread grass seed and straw.
And summer…
…turned to autumn. My neighborhood’s streets continued to be ignored while the main road got all the attention. We got some heavy rain, turning it into a mud bog for weeks. My poor car was covered in mud up to the windowsills! Finally the sewer line was laid, the road was graded, and a first layer of asphalt was put down.
They then turned back to my neighborhood and began to lay final asphalt. They managed to pave only about half the neighborhood, stopping right in front of my house, before ignoring us again for a few more weeks.
This is the scene now. All of my neighborhood’s streets are paved; new grass is growing well. All but the last layer of asphalt is down on the main road.
It’s becoming hard to tell that our lives were ever disrupted by this project.
They say that come May, when the sewer line under the main road is connected to the rest of the city’s sewer system, they’ll send us letters telling us we can connect our outgoing plumbing to the sewer hookups in our yards. That’s when I have to write checks totaling about $6,000.
Have I mentioned that my house is 43 years old and is on its original septic system? Have I further mentioned that you can expect to get 25 to 40 years out of a septic system? Oh, I was going to pay sooner or later. It’s better to pay for a permanent solution!
Ah, homeownership. Read about the time a storm damaged my little ranch house.
