Longfellow was built out between 1906 and the 1920s along the streetcar lines — bungalows and Craftsman houses, a good number of them Sears catalog homes, on narrow lots platted with alleys. That platting decides almost everything about winter here.
Minneapolis requires houses and duplexes to clear the full width of the public sidewalk to bare pavement within 24 hours. The city inspects at that mark or on a 311 complaint, and will send a crew and bill you — with unpaid bills added to the property taxes. On a corner lot along 42nd Avenue that is two frontages plus the curb ramps.
Minneapolis plows roughly 400 miles of alleys as a municipal service and re-plows them to break down ice. If you have moved from Saint Paul, that is a real change: Saint Paul has never plowed an alley. What is still yours is the apron between your garage and the alley.
The third job is the one nobody budgets for. A 1910s bungalow has a simple eave run over an attic that was insulated decades after it was built, which is the textbook ice dam setup — and the local market prices a single-eave bungalow dam at $400 to $700. Your roof is almost certainly not going to collapse; design load here is 35 psf and undisturbed snow measures under 15. Clear it for the water, not the weight. What ice dam work costs.
One Minneapolis rule that catches Longfellow households specifically: a 36-inch path from your garbage and recycling carts to the alley, or $30 per cart if they are snowed in on collection day.
Narrow lot, alley garage, sidewalk frontage and whether you are on a corner. Those four decide the number here.
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