There's been so much snow, Fargo residents are paying to get it hauled away from homes

FARGO — After working straight through the weekend — and after a few Z's Monday — Chase Curtis was back at it.

"I'm used to it, but this is extreme," he said. "I knew what I was getting into, but it’s always crazy when it snows this much."

He had no clue that this winter his snowplow would take him into customers’ yards. In many of them, he says, snow is halfway up trees and piled up high on boulevards, making it difficult to see.

It's getting to levels never seen before, says Donovan Clever, operations manager at Precision Lawn & Landscape in Fargo. There's just nowhere to put the snow and winter is just half-over. Some snowplow companies are now taking measures for customers they haven't taken before.

Clever said hauling snow is usually a specialty service that many businesses take advantage of, but in March last year, some homeowners started doing it, too.

The company now has been hauling snow from homes for the past month, something this it has never done before.

"You can only push it up until you are out of room,” Clever said. "You can try blowing it, but the blowing will drift and those piles will fill up someone's yard."

Clever blames the problems on a number of issues. One is the amount of snow the area has gotten already, which he says is more than double what the area had received at the same time last year.

It isn’t just the amount of snow, however.

“There have been several days of blowing and drifting snow,” he added. “And yards are getting smaller and smaller in denser neighborhoods.

Clever’s company has been working 24-hour shifts between storms just to get yards ready for the next storm. Already, he said, his company is running out of snow storage.

"We had this big empty lot out here for that reason, but that got filled up after the storms," said Clever, showing the lot at his company's main shop.

Another local service, Fargo Snow and Ice Management said there has been such a demand for the service that they started offering it this year.

While some might be excited for spring, these workers are just happy to see no snow in the forecast, meaning they can just work 12-hour days.

"We have some nice weather coming up, so that will be a nice break at least," Curtis said.

Residential hauling services cost anywhere between $75 and $400. Both Precision Lawn and Fargo Snow say they are always taking new customers, and can help within a couple of days of getting a call.