Dear People of Windham, Maine – Please Don’t Ruin The Nice Thing We Have
Sometimes we just can't have nice things because of some bad apples in the bunch. This message is for those bad apples.
As you may or may not know, I moved to Windham a little over two years ago. No one can afford to live in Portland, so we found a nice, quiet place in Windham and we absolutely love it. Everything we need is there and the town has some nice perks for its residents too. But one of those perks is on the verge of being taken away because some selfish people can't follow the rules.
The Town of Windham, like many towns in Maine, provides sand for residents during the winter to help keep their walkways and driveways safe, and boy is that handy. Thanks to the snow we got on Monday followed by a downpour of rain, we were left with a big 'ole mess. All that standing water froze up tight overnight and my driveway turned into a skating rink.
On Tuesday I grabbed my two 5 gallon buckets and drove to Windham Public Works where they have a shed full of sand available to residents. As you can see on the sign, there is a two, five-gallon pail limit per day and it's for residents only.
You shouldn't need much more than that. I spread my two pails of sand over my 100-foot long driveway and it was all I needed to get some good traction on what turned into a skating rink.
But some people are greedy and downright rude.
While I was there on Tuesday waiting patiently in a long line of cars waiting to get sand, I did see a car with an out-of-state plate. I wasn't going to be that guy and say something, even though I really wanted to. I just let it go figuring there was plenty of sand for everyone.
On Wednesday, the Town of Windham posted on the Facebook page, that there had been some issues after the rush for sand. Mostly, people were taking more than the limit of two 5-gallon buckets and suggesting that some of them may not have been Windham residents. One greedy you-know-what, decided they were going to load up 20 buckets of sand in the back of their truck.
The Facebook post goes on to say that when someone approached another person to remind them about the two bucket limit while they filled up 10 buckets and this greedy person decided to shout at the woman with some very colorful language.
So now more cameras are being installed to try to catch violators, but if this continues, the town may have to "alter" the program. That could be anything from it going away to who knows what?
Windham already lost a place to drop off loads of recyclables when non-residents were loading the containers up and people were leaving the entire area a mess. Like the saying goes, "this is why we can't have nice things."
So if you are one of those people hauling off enough sand to open your own beach, cool your jets huh? If you need more than two buckets, go buy some sand. And from now on, if I'm there getting my two buckets and see you loading up your truck with 20 buckets, I won't be shy anymore and will be happy to tell you that what you're doing is not fair to the rest of us who live in Windham.
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