A woman and her grown son are charged after a neighbourhood spat over snow-shovelling snowballed into a physical fight, police say.

The ever-stressful task of shovelling snow was treacherous this week after heavy snowfall here and across the region. That set the stage Thursday for a confrontation between neighbours clearing their laneways, according to witnesses and police.

“It is odd for an argument over placement of snow to escalate to this height,” St. Thomas police Const. Tanya Calvert said Friday, adding: “There was a lot of antagonism.”

Larry Payne, 68, said he was shovelling snow at his southeast St. Thomas home on Airey Avenue on Thursday when his next-door neighbours, a woman and her grown son, were shovelling snow, putting some of it on his driveway.

He said he asked them to stop.

Police say a man started filming with a cellphone camera. Payne says an argument started and a neighbour, who did not want to be identified, intervened.

The neighbour says he was body-checked during a confrontation before a weapon was shown.

“Somebody yelled, ‘She’s got a (baseball) bat,’” he recalled.

A 51-year-old woman was arrested and charged with one count of assault with a weapon. A 26-year-old man is facing one count of assault.

Both were held in police custody overnight pending a court appearance Friday.