Dave Cushman said:

> Phone the Fire Brigade and explain what needs to be done
> and they will despatch a turntable ladder or a cherry picker
> type vehicle to assist you.

        Raining on Saturday AGAIN here
        on the east coast of the US...

Our emergency services are 100% volunteer, so one simply
does not ask for such favors.  It is also very expensive
for any emergency response unit to "roll trucks", something
like several hundred dollars in direct costs to dispatch a
pumper, a hook-and-ladder, an ambulance, and police cars to
a fire or car crash.  (The problem here is that emergency
vehicles must always start on the FIRST turn of the key, so
maintenance is based upon both miles and hours of use, raising
the cost of each mile, each hour of service, and each "call".)

The municipal electric co-op and the local cable company
both have "cherry pickers", and they both ask me to take
care of occasional "bees" that take up residence in their
equipment.

Now, properly sealed equipment is both weathertight and bee-proof,
so the overwhelming majority of these cases are wasp nests that are
uncomfortably NEAR their equipment, but this does allow me to
justify my occasional requests to "borrow" one of their employees
and his truck outside of their normal working hours.  (The field
employees have become smart enough to properly identify bees, wasps,
yellowjackets, and carpenter bees, which I appreciate.)

The liability implications of something like this are prohibitively
scary for any organization that owns such equipment, so both have
been negotiated simple waivers to address their concerns.  In short,
if I get hurt, its my fault, not theirs.  If I damage their equipment
in any way, it is my fault, and repairs are directly billable to me.
If I am working on one of "their" problems, I am a considered a
"contractor" from a liability standpoint, and must provide proof of
insurance for personal injury and liability if I am to be a "contractor".

But don't expect to be so lucky yourself.  This is a very small
community, everyone knows everyone, and there is little paranoia.
It is also a farming community, where nearly everyone owns tractors,
hay cutters, bailers, and other large, expensive, and dangerous
mechanical contraptions.  John Deer, Caterpillar, and Massey Ferguson
are the subject of more ad-hoc evangelism and heated discussion than
any religious or political issue.  Gangs of agrarian loyalists saunter
the streets identified by the color of their caps, and will often engage
in drive-by tauntings of rival gang members.

Some situations presented by the power co-op are simply too scary to
touch due to nearby high voltage lines in their "core" distribution
system.  It matters very little if the lines you face are 345 Kilovolt,
230 KV, 15 KV, or 12 KV.  They all have nearly identical sudden effects
on the unwary beekeeper.  What I do is "stand off" with a CO2 foam fire
extinguisher, and fire short bursts until the (most often, wasp) nest is
smashed and falls away from its support.  No one is going to cut power
to hundreds of homes just to remove a few wasps, but neither am I
interested in coming within an arm's length of anything above 220 volts.

For those really difficult residential jobs, one can rent staging from
any rental equipment yard, and most of them deliver and pick up the staging.

But I would never "borrow" any emergency services equipment.  It needs to
be ready for real emergencies.  Why do you think that fire engines are
backed into their firehouse bays?

                jim

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