I’ve recently been inspired by landscaper Saad Tekiout, the local Robin Hood travelling about Montreal patching up peoples’ worst potholes — for free.
So far he’s patched well over 100 craters, earning himself the local moniker “Mr. Pothole.”
Some city officials have questioned his do-it-yourself (DIY) approach, but many residents love it and think it’s saving their streets and punctured tires.
In fact, given the state of our city, I think we need more do-it-yourself initiatives like Tekiout’s, in our financially-strapped town.
Why spend billions on services we complain about when we can make Montreal a new DIY city?
How? For starters let’s all be inspired by Tekiout’s generosity and adopt a pothole ourselves. Just pick a big crater near your home which your car keeps crashing into, and adopt it.
Then get your neighbours to look after others on the street.
You can fill your pet pothole with any dense material you think works like gravel, rocks, silly putty, or ramen noodles and super glue.
Or just self-hardening poutine.
You could ask the city for some of its asphalt, although their pothole repairs crack so often your superglue/ramen might work better.
You can name your pet pothole and call it Crunch. Or Crater. Or Axle(breaker).
Then top your repair off playfully with some upside-down shoes, so it looks like someone has fallen in.
In 2012, a smartphone app staged this scene as a publicity stunt. François Shalom / Montreal Gazette files
City officials worry that Robin Hood amateurs won’t repair holes well and they’ll crack again soon after.
But no matter how often you fix your hole, it’s better than the city’s been doing, with many of its “pothole patching” machines out of service and needing patching.
If my Personal Pothole Plan works, let’s expand it to other wobbly city services that obviously need our help, like:
A man shovels unplowed sidewalks in Old Montreal on Jan. 15, 2026. Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette files
Snow removal: After most blizzards, our city deploys vast battalions of machinery and workers to clear streets and sidewalks that just get buried again the next day.
Meanwhile we all sit idly in our homes at night watching the Weather Network and staring out the window saying:
“Geez, it looks like the North Pole out there. Where are the snow troops?”
Perhaps we should help them out and adopt-a-snowbank?
Just pick one on a sidewalk by your house. Then take responsibility for it before it grows too ice-hard for the city to remove till spring, as happened frequently last winter.
You could start by throwing a bucket of boiling water on it every two hours.
Or string an extension cord outside and attack your snowbank with a portable hair dryer. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours to dent, with a Hydro bill to match the GDP of a small nation.
It’s probably simpler to get in your car and run over it repeatedly until it’s ground to snowdust. Frankly, Quebecers have been using that method for years to rock our cars out of snowbanks.
Occasionally, you could just let the sun handle it. That’s what Montreal did much of last winter, with a much larger budget.
Other sectors where do-it-yourself might come in handy:
Frederic Hore /Montreal Gazette files
Leaf collection: Who needs those fancy leaf blowers used by city workers walking half-kilometre an hour?
Let’s get our block’s neighbours to rake our leaves into one giant collective pile, like we did decades ago. Then our kids can jump on it till it’s pulverized.
You could replace broken street lights if only the city would give you a tall enough ladder. John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette files
Street lights: Pesky light out for the last six months? Perhaps you could replace it yourself, like you do house light bulbs?
Simply ask the city for a ladder, that’s the least they can do to help.
You’ll just have to fill out a form called Streetlight Procurement Agreement (règlement 77ZDB3, annexe B), and attend a mandatory six-week seminar on “ladder safety and management procedure.”
Then your ladder will be ready in six months. Just make sure you have very good insurance.
Perhaps we can even help out on bigger “neverendum” city projects that need an “endum.” For instance:
The construction site at Guy St. and Ste-Catherine St. on Wednesday. Perhaps it’s time we pitch in to finally get it done. Dave Sidaway / Montreal Gazette
Downtown: West of Peel St. is a vast, hideous cone-struction zone with stores hidden behind bulldozers, cranes, fences and cones.
Also tiny signs supposedly showing a way through this maze to reach stores increasingly decorated with “À Louer” signs.
Ste-Catherine St. has been under siege by construction for over eight years. So maybe we should all go down with our shovels, garden spades and big metal serving spoons to help workers dig out our businesses, before more go bankrupt?
Abandoned construction cones littler the median strip on Côte-des-Neiges Rd. on May 7. If we hoisted them like the Stanley Cup, they would eventually disappear. Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette
Leftover cones: The city keeps promising to eliminate more orange cones, but they’re still everywhere.
Recently many Canadiens fans have been doing it themselves, grabbing cones to hoist in the air when celebrating wins.
Yes, it’s illegal, but every cone they brandish in the air is one less eyesore on the streets. If the Habs manage to win the Stanley Cup, there may finally be no cones left anywhere.
The bottom line: my DIY city plan could save Montreal money and help create a sense of community.
But if it works there’s one last service we should handle ourselves: collecting municipal taxes.
Currently we pay the city to do all this work for us. But once we do it instead, we should really collect the taxes too.
Then we can pay ourselves.
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