CI #60 -- My street's Cable/Power/Phone/Whatever-the-hell-it-is Infrastructure

*** UPDATED AT THE BOTTOM ***

One of the first things I noticed after moving onto my street 5 years ago was that the lady from across the street comes over to my side to feed the pigeons, resulting in massive amounts of pigeon poop near my door. Meanwhile, hers remains relatively unsoiled. Thanks, lady.

The second thing I noticed was all the friggin' wires. Take, for instance, all these friggin' wires.


Or all these friggin' wires.


I'm no engineer, but this can't possibly be safe. At the very least, it's an urban blight masquerading as a public safety hazard. At best, it's a lame blog post. Wires are meant to go somewhere, not hang into space. That's what wires do, go places, right?

I have no idea what these cables/wires do. If I were a smarter or more motivated person, I could probably do some extensive research, after which I'd conclude something like "This is what happens with privatization." So I guess I'll never know.

However, I do know what these cables are. They're my building's Cable cables.


How do I know for sure what these cables are?

There's about a four-month cycle that's been going on since I moved in. First, the cable goes out. Then, after my afternoon spent on speakerphone, a TimeWarner guy comes to fix it. He tells me he needs to check outside.

He comes back in exasperated. "What is this? This is a mess! Do you know which one is yours?" "Umm, no. I thought I paid your company exorbitantly to know that kind of info."

He then proceeds first to excessive sighing and then to checking the lines one-by-one. Eventually, he finds it, again reiterating how ridiculous the whole ordeal is. I agree. My cable works, he leaves.

Sometime over the next four months, the cable goes out in another apartment in my building. A guy comes out to "fix" it, and in doing so, leaves our cable unplugged as a result of trying to locate their line.

REPEAT.

*** UPDATE ***

Woke up this morning to find this going on:

So there's that.