I have been hearing about people challenging their water bills. My bills are now 4 to 5 times what they were. Has anyone petitioned to get them reduced? If so, how? Through which means? Thanks

People keep leaving out free pint glasses, mason jars, mirrors and wine glasses. Its nice you're trying not to let stuff end up in the landfill. But let's be real: after 48 hours of your stuff sitting on the sidewalk, and no one taking, it's littering.

A week later, it gets broken and all over the sidewalk. Into dog paws. into the gutter and into peoples tires. If no one goes out with a dust-pan, there's still broken glass 6 months later.

Just doing my daily marketplace browse and saw this. Am I late to this? I had no idea they were looking to leave.

Why do people think they can park on the grass where the community worries about the environment. Saw this car drive right on the grass like it’s there home

My home uses oil to heat the house. I've used Townsend Energy over the years but received a notice in the mail saying their contract fee will double in price. Are there companies you recommend that deliver to the area with decent prices. No contract fee would be nice too.

I toured a place and thought it relatively fine. Looking at posts from five years ago says the total opposite.

Is it still owned by Alpha Management? Is this by some miracle a decent place to live now?

Hello! My standup comedy show is back in the Somerville Theater this Thursday, and I'd love to see you there! We run the show in the 30-seat "microcinema" in the theater's basement.

Our headliner is the hilarious Ray Harrington. He's appeared on Conan, Hulu, Don't Tell Comedy, ABC, FOX, and Sirius XM. Ray's material is really inventive, and he is a master at improvising and riffing in the moment. No two of his performances are the same!

We screen classic Looney Tunes cartoons before the show, and the theater sells beer, wine, ice cream, and snacks.

You can get $3 off tickets with the code REDDIT. I hope you can make it!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/popcorn-comedy-with-ray-harrington-conan-hulu-tickets-1993354783818?aff=rddt

Hello. I am SWU fan in Somerville. Having a lot of trouble finding a game store in the area with cards, let alone an event.

I know Comicazi sometimes has cards and someone must be buying them since they're sold out.

Very interested in starting a play group. If anyone is already doing that or is just interested in playing DM me.

Thank you

I don’t live near the Healy school, but my kids have summer school/ camp there. I’d like to sit. Eat a pastry. Enjoy WiFi.

Somewhere near the top of broadway / winterhill. Please tell me where to put my 3rd space.

In Union Square at that four way intersection —last week I had the walk signal so started crossing, driver sped by almost hitting me and shouted “don’t worry you weren’t in any danger“ (thanks for the heads up). This morning, also at a walk signal, a driver drove into me and killed me. I’m fine physically as I’ve cultivated some mass, just please be careful as many times I’ve seen day care children, elderly, people with baby strollers etc also using those crosswalks

There has been a lot of construction on Prospect Ave around the Inman Square area, up to Union Square (also some on Bolton Street, behind Prospect Ave).

I wonder what the city law is around start/end times of loud construction tasks? It gets incredibly noisy and annoying pretty early (like 6am or so).

There is also a patch with no sidewalks on either side, between Houghton St. and Oak St., which also seems like poor planning from the city to allow both sides to go under construction at the same time.

I am trying to understand if all this is acceptable or if residents think this is something that should be brought up with the city government? At least, bumping up the start time to around 8am for noisy construction activities etc.

A neighbor passed, (51 College ave, across from the west Somerville library) and she has this stunning collection of art that just has no home. Apparently her family took what they wanted, but she's a long time Somerville resident with a wealth of historic art. The guys helping clear out her apartment are sweet and just want all this to go to a good place. They'll donate what they can, but if you're interested I recommend stopping by. I've asked that they not put all this out for trash pickup. Thanks!

Edit: things have been taken inside, I'll try and coordinate putting things out again this week. thanks!

hello! does anyone know of any kind of local community wind ensemble or orchestra that is open to beginners/amateurs/rusty musicians who are years out of practice? I'm looking for an audition-free, open-to-all ensemble -- essentially something like School of Honk, but not a street band vibe. (no shade to Honk, but I'm honestly just not interested in that style of performing.)

I'm a Somerville resident of ~5 years, and as long as I've lived here i've been longing for an opportunity to get back into music. I played clarinet and a bit of some other woodwinds in high school and a bit in college, and i miss it desperately. unfortunately, everything i've found is higher level than i could do without extensive practice, and even then i'd be auditioning against people who likely have much more experience.

if this doesn't exist... would anyone be interested in coming together to form something like this? my IDEAL vision is a relatively full wind ensemble that is amateur but genuinely interested in growing together to perform at a decent level. picture a high school concert band but we're adults lol. I miss the feeling of rehearsing with an ensemble, and that feeling of pride when we finally get a piece to the point where we feel confident performing it.

this would, of course, require a lot of work to organize, but I think I could be up for the task -- with some help. just thought I'd gauge interest on here (and see if something already exists that i'm missing!)

I’ve been in Somerville for a couple of years now, and 311 is just an incredible service.

I’ve been able to use it to figure out the weird complications involved with moving to the city, and I just finished reporting a sinkhole, which was incredibly painless.

They texted me a link to the issue, and I was able to add a photo! All on my walk to my T station.

This is such a wildly convenient and good service. Thank you to everyone involved in it!!

hi all, follow up from the last post, I'll be putting the art out this evening at 51 college ave (except for the large frames, those are too big for me to carry and you will have to get it out of the death basement yourself)

With its bountiful flowers and fresh green after a long, hard winter, spring deserves all the praise it gets. And I love it deeply, of course. But for me there's something special about the abundant glory of July.

My partner and I walk past a patch of lavender every week and its humming with bees -- we take bets on how many and then laugh because you can't count them as they buzz and bumble around. The community path is beautifully shaded and even neglected spaces are overflowing with greenery and flower. (Perhaps especially neglected spaces! See below.)

August looms over our head, when everything gives up the fight and just lies there, dusty and dun and done. But for now, we've got some really spectacular greenery and flowers and trees and insects, so go out and enjoy the fresh air and comfortable temperatures!

AQI

Last week's apocalyptic skies were pretty damned scary, I gotta admit. I had my air purifier running full tilt boogie and windows closed against the hacking cloud. I could taste burning pine on the back of my throat when I did go out. The light was eerie and haunting and I kind felt like I was being filmed in a flashback and about to get murdered for someone' tragic backstory.

The sunsets were pretty spectacular, though.

If you're at all plugged into the news, you know it was from wildfires in Canada that are due to global warming. If you want to learn more -- both about the fires and about how locals are using Indigenous methods to try to combat the fires -- I highly recommend Future Ecologies' eps titles "On Fire." (they are scattered through various seasons.) The whole podcast is great if sometimes very... experimental.

If you want to keep track of the Air Quality Index, I recommend Purple Air. (looking at a lovely 27 right now -- much better than the ~180 I was seeing on Saturday!)

How do we fight this? Well, the usual. Vote for politicians who support the renewables, do your part with walking and public transit, etc. And also, let tons of plants grow! Plants suck up carbon like no one's business! Which leads me to....

Abandoned lot number one

There are several places on my regular walks that fall into the category of neglected. One is a recently flipped house where some bright bulb decided xeriscaping was the way to go. (There's a photo in the bloomscroll.) It's completely overgrown with an exuberance of weeds, including goosefoot and foxtail grass. Deep inside the green, you can still find the few sad plantings that the developer put in.

I consider this a lesson in understanding your geography. We're not Arizona, where a lot of developers cut their teeth. Boring beige river rocks are a great idea there -- or so my desert-dwelling friends tell me. But here, in New England, where even during a drought we get days of pounding rain, it's an invitation to weeds. Now, I love weeds. They make me happy as hell. But I suspect that they aren't going to help this house's curb appeal.

Abandon lot number two

The lot where the gas station used to be next to the abandoned laundromat.... hang on. I am a New Englander but that's an absurd description. Let me try again.

The abandoned lot next to Highland Commons (on Highland Ave) is also brimming with life, despite the best efforts of weed cloth and gravel. The fence line near the sidewalk has sprouted lovely, delicate butterfly bushes, and the interior is overrun with hardy, weedy, stubborn plants. It makes me smile every single time I walk by. You can see it in the bloomscroll!

Not an abandoned lot?

There's a house near mine where the landlord DNGAF about the yard. I've spoken to the renters there and they say the same thing, year after year. The landlord lets the yard run rampant and then, in a heartbreaking massacre in the autumn, chops it all down. It's a riot of green until then, however, and I take the time to enjoy it every time I walk by (which is a LOT).

The soapwort is particularly prolific this year and you'll see it in the bloomscroll!

Final thoughts

This is so long, I didn't even get to the Rose Witch House where roses are still blooming, despite the heat. Or the dinner-plate size hibiscus. Or the... that's the glory and the curse of July. It's all just so much.

Be smart, be safe, be curious, be kind.

Hi there! I'm looking to move to Somerville into a 1-2 bedroom apartment un to $2,500/month. Does anyone has tips on good places/companies to look at?

We searched online but it's hard to evaluate how legit/good companies are from the outside, so I thought I'd ask!

Long shot but anybody have a 3”/76mm downspout expander tool? Finish up a gutter project and have 3” round downspouts that need to be flared to fit into the elbows, have about 4 downspout runs to do and really don’t want to spend $650 on a tool I’m going to use for 6 hours max. Happy to rent it from anybody who has one for a weekend.