The Fixer Blog

I am at the end of my rope when it comes to the relentless, maddening buzz of chainsaws.

They have sliced through my skull and pierced my brain. And there is no escape, short of abandoning home and hearth when their piercing whine fills the air, which has been happening daily for nearly a year.

I live in Guildwood along the Scarborough Bluffs, one of the most heavily treed areas in Toronto – a big part of why we bought a house here 20 years ago – and reasonably quiet, at least as it goes in the big city.

But it is under siege by arborists. The double whammy of a serious ash borer beetle infestation and damage from the devastating ice storm last Dec. 22 has created no end of work for tree specialists and their tool of choice, the deafening chainsaw.

Thank God for good corporate citizens like Brookfield Property Management, always on the lookout for a bicycle it can steal in the interests of protecting the public.

The Star’s story about a woman whose bike lock was cut and her ride removed from a pole on the sidewalk by a security guard at the Hudson’s Bay Centre, at Yonge and Bloor, has me wondering where the police are on this one.

When the woman realized her bike was missing, she went into the building and asked security about the possibility of surveillance video that might show the theft.

We’ve got your bike, a security guard told her, explaining that they cut the lock and removed it because it was a tripping hazard and a danger to the public.

I’m starting to feel sorry for Bell Canada – a choking admission, since I despise Bell and refuse to do business with it – over pedestal box vandalism.

For years, I have criticized Bell and other communications providers for the lackadaisical approach they take to maintaining pedestal boxes, those ubiquitous green, brown or grey boxes on boulevards that contain wiring for residential service.

Everybody has seen a coverless box with wires spilling out of it, and probably wondered if phone service on the street was about to abruptly end. It turns out the wiring is almost indestructible and impervious to tampering or weather, which is why Bell and the others don’t seem to be concerned.

When I’ve talked to a Bell media contact about it, they often mention that the boxes are a frequent target for vandalism. After my 14-year-old son came home Monday with a story about a boy and a box, I know for sure that it’s true.

You have to wonder about a school bus driver who drives through a crosswalk near a school, when a woman pushing a stroller is nearly half way across it.

I was driving south on Galloway Rd., south of Kingston Rd., about 3.20 p.m. Monday. I live in the area and know that with a school, a recreation centre and a park just down the street, and two more schools around the corner on Waldock St., you should take it easy when school lets out.

There’s a pedestrian crossing at the point where Coronation Dr. intersects with Galloway, just north of the Maplewood High School, marked by bright green school crossing signs and faded white lines on the pavement.

If you’re steamed about paper shredders shutting down traffic to mince documents, you are in good company.

Last week I wrote about five Shred-it trucks that took over Freeland St. as a staging area to shred documents gathered from the financial district, instead of setting up shop in the curb lane of busy downtown streets like King or Richmond.

I’d like to attribute their move to a not-so-busy waterfront street to Shred-it’s desire to be a good corporate citizen. But it has a lot more to do with $150 parking tickets hung on its trucks with increasing frequency, since fines were increased for blocking a traffic lane during rush hour.

People love to complain about ineptitude on the part of the city, but a lot of things it does right are never noticed.

My 14-year-old son burst in the door just before 5.30 p.m. Tuesday, eager to report that an accident had just happened at the intersection down the street, with a smashed-up car in our neighbour’s hedge.

We wandered down to take a look and saw that a pickup truck had T-boned a car in the intersection, pushing the car over the curb and into the hedge.

If we didn’t know before, we do now: The city doesn’t have the resources needed to keep trash containers in city parks from overflowing on busy weekends.

I blogged the other day about the appalling amount of garbage spilling out of receptacles in the parks along the eastern Beaches boardwalk last Sunday evening, after the first summery weekend of the season.

Some had large, disgusting piles of bagged garbage around them, mostly food scraps from picnickers, which raccoons would be delighted to find in their late night forays.

I wrote that it happens every summer weekend in busy parks. Since the city is well-aware of the problem, I questioned why it continues, and suggested that in the relentless search for gravy, emptying trash cans before they’re full is a “nice-to-have” frill, but not really necessary.