Snow & Ice: Who Does What

Your side of the driveway

• The lease assigns snow and ice removal to the tenant — sidewalks, steps, and walkways serving your unit. Most boroughs also have ordinances requiring sidewalks cleared within a set number of hours after snowfall, and the fine lands on whoever was responsible.
• Shovel early and often during a long storm — two passes of four inches beat one heavy pass of eight, and snow that gets walked on turns to ice.
• Salt before the refreeze, not just after the snow. Late afternoon is the money application — everything that melted during the day becomes a rink overnight.
• Pile snow downhill of walkways where you can, so melt doesn't drain across the path and refreeze.

Our side

• Roofs, gutters, and structural ice are ours to handle — your job is just to tell us: report heavy icicles over doorways, ice building up in gutters, or any ceiling/wall staining after a thaw via a work order.
• An ice dam (a ridge of ice at the roof edge backing water up under the shingles) shows up indoors as water stains near exterior walls — report that one as urgent.

Parking & plows

• Don't block sidewalks, driveways, or other vehicles — that's a lease rule year-round, and doubly important when plows need room.
• If your borough declares a snow emergency, posted routes must be cleared of parked cars — towing is at the owner's expense, and that's between you and the borough.
• The unofficial Pittsburgh parking chair is not a legal instrument. We stay out of chair disputes.

Freeze-thaw season

Pittsburgh's specialty is the melt-by-day, freeze-by-night cycle. Watch shaded spots on north-facing walks — they ice over when everything else is dry. And if a downspout is dumping water across a walkway where it refreezes, report it; rerouting a downspout is a five-minute fix that prevents a lawsuit-grade fall.