r/HomeMaintenance • u/Helpful_Ad_7757 • 21h ago

Sidewalk

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Got quoted $6k to fix two pads of my sidewalk. What is a more reasonable quote? I’m just gonna do it myself if it’s that expensive.

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u/_ParadigmShift 10h ago

I bet the original commenter would love to know!

Listen. I’ve done this work, I know a lot of people who do this work. Cities rarely get around to compliance checks in a very timely cyclical manner. The major change in that person’s neighborhood would have been them buying the house, and within a short while then having a random inspection on that block is so unlikely that there is an extremely high probability that someone reported it. The idea that it just so happened to line up with the exact time(they didn’t rush over when the complaint was made) is too coincidental.

This person got stuck with over $2k worth of needed repair extremely quickly after the sale of their new to them home. You can believe that’s coincidental but I believe it to be the slimmest likelihood.

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u/sacrelicio 8h ago

What's wrong with someone reporting it? I've reported bad sidewalks before.

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u/_ParadigmShift 8h ago

There’s nothing wrong with reporting it, the timing is extremely suspect. Not sure how that’s not coming through.

This person bought a house and a sidewalk that’s been out of compliance gets reported the exact same week? Cmon, you know better than this line of questioning and are being willfully ignorant to what I’m saying at this point.

Usually a sidewalk that’s in need of replacement is years in the making, passerby reporting it the exact week the house sells is so unlikely that it’s not even worth thinking about. Coincidentally? So unlikely it’s insane.

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u/sacrelicio 8h ago

So who do you think did it?

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u/_ParadigmShift 7h ago

Someone that knew better and knew the last owner should have done it, waited until the exact week of the sale, and then reported it.

Imagine you’re the buyer, person sells you a house and the inspector doesn’t make it plain to you that replacement is necessary before purchase and then immediately upon signing paperwork you get notified the sidewalk is out of compliance. Knowing now what I’ve told you about cities working off of complaint basis usually and cyclical processes that are very slow usually otherwise, do you find it more or less believable that this happened by accident and that someone didn’t know they were sticking a brand new buyer with a $2k unexpected bill? An inspector would have made it known and this commenter couldn’t say they didn’t know, and for an inspector to turn and immediately report sidewalk wouldn’t be a very effective way to keep their book of business full. It would have been arbitrated in the selling process if that were the case.

I don’t have to point a specific finger to say what I originally said, someone knew what they were doing, and it’s pretty shifty.