How to drag large garbage can?

[Higgs Boson]

WALTER, ARE YOU LISTENING?

I hope by now you have reached out to your local government, municipal, county, whatever, for assistance, as well as to the Senior Center, and/or to a house of worship, if you belong to one (though somebody who signs "rationality.net" may not be affiliated

Somebody in this thread -- maybe more than one poster -- mentioned slipping on the ice.

Here's "Dear Abby" for today:

"DEAR ABBY: Early this year, my mother went to the curb to collect the empty trash bin and put it away for the week. As she wheeled it behind her home, she slipped on the ice and BROKE HER HIP.C She lives alone and was in the back of her property where NOBODY COULD SEE OR HEAR HER. Fortunately, she'd had the foresight to GRAB HER CELL PHONE before she went outside. Because she was unable to stand up she could have frozen to death. She called 911 and within minutes an ambulance arrived to take her to the hospital.

Mom had surgery to repair the hip and is recovering, but it was a close call. This is a reminder to your readers that if they live alone

-- or have parents who do -- to make sure to have a cell phone available at all times. -- RELIEVED SON IN ELKHART, IND.

DEAR RELIEVED SON: I'm pleased to pass along your important message. Your mother did, indeed, have a close call. It must have been her guardian angel who handed her her cell phone as she left the house that wintry day. Please tell her I said so and that I hope she's better soon."

I don't go for that "guardian angel" crap; maybe the mother was just being "rational".

Reason I'm posting this is to reinforce what seems to be a NG opinion that you are taking big chances, mickey-mousing your trash collection by the various means you have outlined.

Take your sword and cut the Gordian knot before it's too late!

Hypatia

[Metspitzer]

I think you can get Monster Truck Scooters now.

[Steve Barker]

Hire a boy to take it out for you.

[krw]

Though I've certainly seen it, I'd never buy a house lower than street level. Hauling garbage cans would be the least of my worries.

[Steve Barker]

I've seen dozens that lay like that. And many of them right in town.

[aemeijers]

Chuckle. Try living in a lake-front house on most man-made lakes. Hill slump is a big problem, and you have to design the utility feeds and foundations accordingly.

[krw]

Sure, but it's something I'd run far away from long before I turned 80. In fact, about 30 seconds after the agent drove us up (down?) to the house.

[krw]

Good point. I was thinking about doing just that in a few years. Maybe not.

[Joe Carthy]

Steve Barker wrote in news:iuKdncmx1LoNnn_WnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

yuck, I'd never buy one.

[aemeijers]

Depends on how the lot was graded, and how much further downhill the lot went past the house. Rainwater running into garage and basement can be an expensive PITA. But if the house is in a bowl, the whole damn thing can flood. If at all possible, you want the house to be the highest point on the lot. But as I have learned from sad experience, having a driveway that rises around 8 feet over a 60-foot run, can also be a problem if you live in snow country. After losing one transmission, I now have resigned myself to plowing before trying to get up the drive, if I can't see the pavement through the snow. I suppose that is one of the reasons this place sat empty for six months before I bought it at a discount.

[Roger Shoaf]

Get a smaller cart and fill the bins at the curb. You have to make more trips that way but it is a whole lot better than hurting yourself.

You also might get a trailer that you could pull with the garden tractor. The trash company could probably deal with the cans on the trailer.

[keith]

When I lived in Vermont (classifies as "snow country" ;-), our driveway was like that. No big problem at all. It sure beats a driveway sloped the opposite direction. At least I could get home (before removing the snow) without worrying about losing the garage door. Snow melts, too.

How in the world did you lose a transmission?

[Rudy]

Especially in Nashville

[tmclone]

You really need to get out more. PLONK!

[aemeijers]

My driveway slopes up from street to house. Driveway is asphalt. Until I realized FWD transmissions (esp mopar minvans) were not as solidly built as RWD transmissions back in the old days, if there was only a couple inches of snow, I would sometimes drive uphill through the snow. Made it through about 1.5 winters before tranny told me that was a bad thing to do. At that point, the value of the van with a good tranny was the same as the cost to rebuild the tranny. I have a snowblower and a good leaf blower now, so I seldom have to hand shovel very much. But I do have to get up half an hour early on snowy days to clear drive, even for only a couple inches, because if I drive out over it (which presumably does no harm), I have 2 stripes of ice to contend with at the end of the day.

The best-remembered lessons are the expensive ones, etc. I'm sure an AWD or 4wd baby SUV would have no trouble with this driveway, nor would an old-style RWD with actual snow tires in rear (not 'all season') and a few sandbags in trunk.

[Oren]

I'm just shattered.

You don't have a kill file for me?

Like I asked before, are you the same "h" as the poster "tmclone"?

[krw]

Same. Makes the garage door harder to hit. ;-)

I had a couple of minivans, though they were standards. I also had a couple of intrepids, no issues with snow. The trannies were junk (on all Chrysler crap), but I still don't understand how a little snow got to them.

Yep, my '93 TSi got scrapped because of the tranny, too. The '96 Intrepid got sold at auction before it got that far (we chickened out).

Yeah, I had a snow blower, too. If I got any ice on the driveway it tended to last all Winter. I did usually have to shovel out the end of the driveway, though. That stuff would be either as hard as a rock, or slush. Either would plug up the snow blower.

I still don't know what was so tough on the tranny. Spinning wheels is counterproductive.

[The Daring Dufas]

Oren wrote:

Researchers have always believed there existed more than one specimen of the fabled Plonkasaurus. Ancient data storage devices once used on the predecessor of The Universe Net or Versenet as it is more commonly called today have given a number of data diggers (electronic archaeologists) great hope in finding out more about The Cult Of Plonk and those who belonged to it. As for Versenet, the younglings call it The Verz or simply Verz. I see younglings walking around talking to themselves and I thought they were mentally ill until I realized they had the new retina implant videophone. At least when you see someone talking to their thumb, you knew they were using their implanted thumbnail video interface. When I was a youngling, I recall my great, great, great grandfather telling me about oldtech called bluetooth that people once used in conjunction with those really huge communicators called cellphones. When my 3paw said bluetooth, I said "3pop, people get any color tooth they want today, why could they only get a blue tooth?" When 3paw explained that he saw people walking around talking to themselves like they were crazy, I didn't know then that I would have the same thing happen to me some day. My 3paw was a cool old guy, he still wore things called eyeglasses. My 3pop died at age 150 of TOF when Obama General Hospital told us he didn't qualify for any more organ replacements or regenerations. The last thing he said to us was "What a ride, what a ride" It's amazing that when I was a youngling, people died at such an early age. I still still think about my 3paw every day and how much he taught me.

TDD

[Gloria]

Leave the cans at the end of the driveway and carry the trash to the cans. I live in a rural area too and have a long driveway. I leave my can sitting unobtrusively beside my driveway. On trash day, I only have to move the can about 15 feet and it's at the street. After the collector's come, I move the empty can back.

Gloria

[towabin]

Walter , there is an easier way to move trash bins over long and steep driveways, check it my website, it is a simple bracket to tow wheeled bins.It is called TOW-A-BIN.

------------------------------------- Don;t Drag It!Tow It!