Much to our surprise, the District government sent a bobcat tractor to the alley behind our house and spent three hours plowing it late last night, trying to move the ice and snow that were preventing garbage trucks from getting in and cars from getting out. This “repurposed” parking place is where they dumped what they removed from a small part of it.

District regulations state that residents on an alley are responsible for clearing it, but due to the heavy ice, that was clearly impossible and would have prevented the city from collecting trash for weeks, so the city took action, amazingly enough.

Also, our heating guy came last night and found that the damper in our boiler was broken and did a temporary fix, so we at least had some heat last night. He’s here now installing a new part, so we’ll hopefully never again have to spend a day in a literally freezing house.

As if it couldn’t get any worse: No heat, posted earlier: