Littering

[pjmorgan.livejournal.com]

I witnessed a locally based contractor throw trash out his truck window. When I walked by I asked him not to litter and he didn't react at all. One time this happened before I called the police non emergency line to report a license plate and they just said thanks, but didn't say they would send a warning letter or issue a ticket. Will they?

I'm not going to post the name of the business in this forum even though i want to, unless the moderator tells me its appropriate.

I seriously would be OK with caning Singapore style for littering. There is simply no reason to litter, you can't feed your family by littering.

Comments

[ron_newman]

I'm a moderator and I encourage you to post the name of the business.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

SECONDED!

[pjmorgan.livejournal.com]

Bob Carroll Old School Roofing. Based out of Somerville.

Independent of the littering, I would say not to use him based on experience I had in 2004/5 timeframe when I hired him to do a small roofing job for me. Both business practices, personality and the actual work weren't up to snuff. But that is not informing how I feel about the littering, I'd forgotten all about having used him until after I saw the littering.

I can't say for sure whether it was him or an employee. So take with a grain of salt.

[ron_newman]

Thanks, and I'll now add the 'home repair' tag to this post.

[pjmorgan.livejournal.com]

This is making me want to think about putting together some Somerville centric review site of contractors. Any feedback on that idea? Would I be duplicating what is elsewhere?

I am a Somerville landlord/developer and I work for a contractor (so I see many subs that are good and bad) and I believe in investing in the Someville community so it would be a fun and relevant project for me, but want to see if folks think that would be worthy or not. And if anyone would like to assist. I know .HTML, which might be enough technically (or might not) but there is also deciding on content/layout etc.

[secretlyironic.livejournal.com]

Angie's List and Yelp ought to cover it, really...

[hikermtnbiker.livejournal.com]

Yelp maybe, but I was a member of Angie's list for over a year and used the service several times. I did not feel that a good Angie's list rating meant much in the end. Still lots of no shows for quotes, never following up after seeing the jobs and all had excellent reviews. I think that a locally focused list where no one pays to be listed or to subscribe and where person to person discussions can take place would be useful.

[spettacolo.livejournal.com]

There's actually a mailing list called "Arlington List" that has tons of local contractor discussion. I found a fantastic electrician there. It's Arlington focused, but being so close to Somerville, contractors are still relevant.

I do not like the whole concept of Angies list or any review site which is making money. This includes Better Business Bureau... which I've discovered is sort of a racket. Non-profit, non-ad, local discussion fourms are the only thing I'd really trust when looking for a contractor. It would not take much to register a domain name, install a free forum package and start something up.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Well, we could all try posting contractor reviews to Yelp. It's the most-used review site for restaurants and small stores, so why not contractors?

[rhean.livejournal.com]

Can you add an edit to your post with the business name visible?

[pjmorgan.livejournal.com]

I don't understand what is being requested. You mean edit the original post instead of my reply?

[rhean.livejournal.com]

Yes please! like a line that says something like:

Edit: Mods encouraged me to post the business name: it's Bob Carroll Old School Roofing.

[ron_newman]

Edit the original post in addition to your reply here. That way, when people later scan the 'home repair' posts, they'll immediately see your disapproval of this particular business.

[justjess.livejournal.com]

Just in case you're not sure how to do this, you can edit a post by logging in, going to the post's comments screen, and clicking on the pencil icon in the bar at the top of the screen (above your original post, below the LJ banner). That should open an edit window.

[davelew.livejournal.com]

If anybody wants to see just how much litter there is on the streets of Somerville, I'll be happy to take them on a walk with my dog. I have a food-obsessed beagle who can sniff out a crumb from across the street, and when I've counted he has average more than a hundred pieces of food litter per mile.

My pet peeve is the people who throw stale bread on the ground and claim they're "feeding the birds". Bread on the ground is eaten by rats, if people want to feed birds then they should get one of these newfangled contraptions called "birdfeeders"

[svilletheatre.livejournal.com]

Seconded! There's a very, um, anti-social woman who does this many mornings next to the Holland St. T entrance, and will not listen to requests to stop putting bread down. No matter how much I point out the various rat holes there...

There is an ordinance that prohibits this litter, but like so many, it is ignored.

[ron_newman]

Ian, if you're seeing this behavior consistently I suggest putting in a call to 311.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

It does almost no good, Ron.

The OWNER/occupier of a APT building I lived near in the Gilman square area was repeatedly fined for constantly leaving bread out, which contributed to the rat population in the neighborhood.

She continued to do it, and just paid the fines.

[alphacygni]

Huh. I had somehow always assumed that was Au Bon Pain ejecting their leftover bread all over the park. It's a frighteningly large amount of bread.

[ron_newman]

I blame Mary Poppins for this.

[spettacolo.livejournal.com]

Bob Carroll did my roof about 10 years ago. It took him 9 months to show up for the job AFTER taking a 1/3 deposit. The day he arrived, he set up his ladders and asked for the second 1/3 payment. He finished the job in two days and left so much shingle debris and nails all over my and my neighbors property that I collected it all and filled a toaster-oven sized box with it. I was going to mail it to him, but I didn't feel like paying for shipping. I urge you not to hire Bob Carroll for your roofing needs.

[pjmorgan.livejournal.com]

My experience with him was some similar variation on that.

[laryu.livejournal.com]

He was on my short list for a small roofing job about 4 years ago, due to my preference for local vendors and very competitive price quote. He stopped returning my calls after I asked for proof of insurance.

[hikermtnbiker.livejournal.com]

Do you know if Bob Carroll Old School Roofing is in any way connected to Carroll Sons Roofing?

[pjmorgan.livejournal.com]

Yes they are in some way connected, it was explained to me once, but I don't remember how. Maybe family. I think they are independent busineses from a legal perspective. I don't know if the culture of Bob's business affects the other Carroll companies. I think there might be a third.

[masswich.livejournal.com]

I guess "Old School" means that they litter as much as everyone did back in the good ol' days...

What form of littering are you talking about?

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I'm just curious. I find beer bottles on my sidewalk at times, after neighbors have workers doing some jobs for them. It annoys me because my garbage can is just a few feet away.

Re: What form of littering are you talking about?

[justjess.livejournal.com]

Beer bottles should be recycled, not thrown in your garbage can.

Re: What form of littering are you talking about?

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

If it were up to me, alcohol would be illegal to begin with! Wanna vote for me next time?

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

Do you have any witnesses to corroborate your story? Not for nothing but you freely admit you had a business deal with this guy that you weren't happy with. So maybe you're exacting revenge by libeling the man here.

Can anyone else in this community vouch for pjmorgan's integrity?

I also disagree with you that "there is simply no reason to litter."

[hakamadare.livejournal.com]

I also disagree with you that “there is simply no reason to litter.”

ok, i'll bite.

Reasons...

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

They are all bad reasons, though...

1. they feel no sense of ownership or pride for Somerville
2. they believe someone else will pick it up, laziness
3. litter has already accumulated
4. perception that litter is not an important environmental concern
5. for some smokers, it has become an "accepted norm" to throw used cigarette butts on the ground

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

Ok it's a stretch, but it goes something like this...

It's naive to think that by bagging up your trash every week and putting it out on your curb for collection, you're not contributing to the ecological destruction of our planet. And yet how many people stop and think about the effects of their consumption habits? There's no impetus for doing so because every week right on schedule the trucks come and haul the evidence away... out of sight, out of mind.

If everyone littered, everywhere, all the time, in our communities, we'd start to get a sense of the scope of how wasteful our consumption model is and be forced to confront it.

Sea these (pun) stories about where some of our debris is ending up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_debris
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jul/10-the-worlds-largest-dump/article_view?b_start:int=0&-C=
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100302-new-ocean-trash-garbage-patch/

In summary:

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

To keep our towns clean in the long term, you suggest we submerge them in trash in the short them.

[davelew.livejournal.com]

Your argument is that, to prevent trash from going places we don't want it to go, we should put trash in places where we don't want it to go?

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

My argument is that we need to create less trash to begin with.

[floormaster.livejournal.com]

So in other words there is still no reason to litter. Thanks for making the point!

[spettacolo.livejournal.com]

I can't vouch for pjmorgan's littering story, but I can say from personal experience that Bob Carroll Old School Roofing was horrible to deal with as a contractor. He took 9 months to do a 2 day job, asked for 2/3 payment before doing any work and left my yard and my neighbor's yard littered with nails and shingle debris. So, yes, I can say that I saw him littering, too.

Sounds unprofessional....

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

...

Re: Sounds unprofessional....

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

There seem to be multiple "Old School Roofing" entities... Are they this one?

http://www.superpages.com/bp/North-Chelmsford-MA/Old-School-Roofing-L2057188674.htm

[ron_newman]

If the contractor disagrees with the opinions expressed here, he's welcome to post a reply.

And when is there ever a reason to litter?

[pjmorgan.livejournal.com]

I've been to 3rd world countries where the streets are lined with trash. The consciousness raising that you speak of does not happen.

I can assure you that the littering happened. And the work he did for me was 5 years ago, as I stated before I didn't even remember that I had a connection to him when I witnessed the littering.

Based on your third paragraph, I'm guessing your post is just trollish.

India is one of them...

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how people can live like that. But I guess you get used to it...