White Mulberry Blues

When our landlord had the exterior of our house painted like three or four years ago, he had the workers remove the corrugated roofing from our back porch and never had it replaced. I offered to replace it myself, at my own expense if necessary, but he cited "liability issues" and reminded me that it was his house and there was no city ordnance requiring people to have a roof on their back porch.

A white mulberry tree overhangs my side of the porch (it's a duplex). I can hose off the porch before my family leaves for somewhere and by the time we come back enough berries have fallen that we end up tracking the juice into the kitchen. This makes a mess and increases the workload for cleaning this house (that isn't even mine) considerably. This is from late May through late August.

What's more, the juice is slippery, especially if it's been raining (the porch gets wet, remember, because there is no roof over it). So Saturday June 20th I hosed it off again. Early Sunday afternoon I came back from taking a bag of trash to the trashcan and slipped on the mulberries that had accumulated in less than 24 hours. I landed on my arm, which I scraped pretty badly on the edge of some flagstone that wasn't laid completely flush on the porch floor.

Even before I rose to my feet, as I sat there counting my bones, I determined to put a tarp over the porch. Unsightly, maybe, but my family deserves to be safe. I made this video as soon as I got up and found the camera. Besides the scrape, I seem to have screwed up my shoulder and, perversely, even my collar bone is sore!

If this had happened to my wife, my mom, or my 8 year old instead of me, especially after I'd offered to mend the roof myself, my next stop after uploading this would be my lawyer's office.

I am a marketing and business professor in NYC, so what is particularly galling to me is that the landlord raised our rent about the time he removed the roof from the porch. We are paying more and getting less - something I tell my students never should be done to an existing customer.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• accident
• scrape
• fall
• mulberry
• injury
• porch

[chazzdaspazz]

Who the fuck do you think you are, its people like you that we have to have ridiculas health and saftey regulations all over.

you are a horrible pedantic and greedy person and you deserve slip on berries!!

[patrickbbishop]

@chazzdaspazz

So if somebody shows up at your place tomorrow morning to put ball bearings all over your front porch steps, you're ok with that, right? And you'd have no problem if someone sabotaged the only fire hydrant in your neighborhood, right?

[fantlawns]

You are a lawsuit hungry bum!! Just cut the damn branches and quit using your child as an offensive lineman!! Just cut the branches, whiner!!!!!You are the reason why people are so damn greedy!!!Quit hiding behind those women!!!

[patrickbbishop]

@fantlawns

Never said I wasn't a bum, but since I've never filed a lawsuit in my 42 years, I guess you're mistaken about that. Also, I'm smart enough to NOT damage someone else's property, since I like to avoid GETTING sued as much as I like to avoid suing others. All I want is the roof put back.

[xXK2KILLERXx]

Don't worry about these wankers Patrick, people here on youtube just go on hating people. Good thing that did not happen to your daughter or any family member of yours. Yeah you should get your roof fixed. Good luck.