Petty Vents

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Oh, my, Mad Cook. DH would be livid. He would still be out there screaming at everyone!! That's terrible. I hope you aren't inconvenienced too long.
The plot thickens. What I didn't say was that the gas has been off all day. Before I went out at 3pm I was given a number to ring when I got home and "they" would come and turn the gas back on no matter what time it was even (and I quote) "in the middle of the night". I got a lift home and as we turned into the road at 9pm the the gasmen I'd spoken to earier were standing chatting by their van. We stopped and I got out of my friend's car and said "Hello, I'm here now. Are you coming to do my purge and relight?" And the reply? "No, We finished at 8pm. Ring the office".

When I got in I rang the number I'd been given. "Oh yes, madam, the duty engineer will be round within a couple of hours". 3/4 of an hour later I was rung up by the engineer to say he was too busy and wouldn't be coming. Several phone calls later I was getting crosser and crosser. I decided it was time to play my trump cards - "I am an old age pensioner and I haven't had a hot drink or a meal all day" and "I used to work for the Gas emergency services and I know the score. And I also know your boss". Engineer was ringing my doorbell within the hour. I don't know which worked but one of them did.

I'm not a great shouter. I usually find that firm insisting does it but needs must and there was a fair bit of shouting going on tonight.

Still got the hole at the bottom of the drive and it'll still be there next week. But we'll worry about that then.
 
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Good for you, MC! Sometimes you have to pull out every card you can to get results. I sure hope it's all done soon and you can return back to your normal routine.
 
Yes, good for you, MC! I hear you about shouting, the one time I had to resort to it was when Yosemite Sam was supposed to install our DirecTV system but didn't feel like it and was perfectly content just to leave the equipment for us to install it ourselves, as he'd forgotten his ladder. We found him a ladder. Much merriment ensued (not). I should have reported him.
 
Mad Cook, I feel your pain. I hate this incompetence. But in all honesty I think England been hit by the same bug that bit America in the last 20 years or so. It is not about private or state company. It is complete careless attitude. Nobody caress, nobody pays attention. The customer service runs from service when they see customer.:mad:
I think a lot of it comes down to the person answering the phone not being allowed to own his or her own calls anymore. When I first worked at British Gas a customer would ring up with a problem and I had to sort it out. If I didn't know the answer I had to promise to find out and ring her back. Which I did. But latterly the "customer service agents" dealt with an enquiry by filling in a form and putting it in a tray on the desk where it was collected by a floor walker who handed it on to someone else and eventually it got to the person who could give the information. This could result in the customer finally getting a result a week after the initial contact whereas if the agent had been allowed to follow it up herself it would have been dealt with in 10 minutes.

This is all supposed to be more efficient.
 
It's been about a month since my neighbour sprayed her anti-critter, garlic concoction in my yard and on Shreddy's grave. It worked. No more signs of skunk digging.

Well, today, it had stopped working. I guess all that rain we had washed it away. I found a biggish hole at the edge of the patio stone that covers Shreddy's grave. There were bits of Shreddy fur. I'm not a happy camper.
 
It's been about a month since my neighbour sprayed her anti-critter, garlic concoction in my yard and on Shreddy's grave. It worked. No more signs of skunk digging.

Well, today, it had stopped working. I guess all that rain we had washed it away. I found a biggish hole at the edge of the patio stone that covers Shreddy's grave. There were bits of Shreddy fur. I'm not a happy camper.

Darn critters :mad: I'm sorry, taxy.
 
It's been about a month since my neighbour sprayed her anti-critter, garlic concoction in my yard and on Shreddy's grave. It worked. No more signs of skunk digging.

Well, today, it had stopped working. I guess all that rain we had washed it away. I found a biggish hole at the edge of the patio stone that covers Shreddy's grave. There were bits of Shreddy fur. I'm not a happy camper.


Oh no, that's not good. Poor Shreddy.
 
It's been about a month since my neighbour sprayed her anti-critter, garlic concoction in my yard and on Shreddy's grave. It worked. No more signs of skunk digging.

Well, today, it had stopped working. I guess all that rain we had washed it away. I found a biggish hole at the edge of the patio stone that covers Shreddy's grave. There were bits of Shreddy fur. I'm not a happy camper.

Oh TL, I am so sorry. Will your neighbor give you the recipe so you can keep the grave sprayed? :angel:
 
Thanks ladies. Addie, yes, I'm sure she will. She already told me, but I don't remember the details. She seems to be out of town at the moment. She's probably visiting her daughter in Ottawa.

We put some big, heavy pieces of patio stone on the edges of the main patio stone. This is temporary. I just couldn't psyche myself up to shovel the dirt back into the hole today.
 
It's been about a month since my neighbour sprayed her anti-critter, garlic concoction in my yard and on Shreddy's grave. It worked. No more signs of skunk digging.

Well, today, it had stopped working. I guess all that rain we had washed it away. I found a biggish hole at the edge of the patio stone that covers Shreddy's grave. There were bits of Shreddy fur. I'm not a happy camper.
That skunk is a real stinker taxy. ;) I googled a garlic skunk repellent and a couple of links looked like possibilities. Do either of these look familiar?

Do It Yourself Skunk Repellent | eHow

‘Natural’ Ways To Rid Your Property of ‘Problem’ Wildlife « Windstar Wildlife Institute

Good luck. Hope you have success before your neighbor gets back home for your and Shreddy's sake.
 
Why do people drive large vehicles with trailers so darned fast?

On our way back from the mountains a truck passed us (big dual tire tandem axle) hauling a trailer with a huge a/c unit, the type you would see on the side of an office building. I was going 75, he had to be going over 80. Not long after he passed us, we hear a loud BANG, see lots of black smoke and he starts swirving all over the road, steel belted rubber coming down like rain. How he managed not to hit the person in the other lane is beyond me, that SUV did some pretty fancy maneuvering as did the rest of us.

Either he was driving faster than those tires were rated or they were in poor condition. Either way he came really close to hurting a lot of people or even killing someone. That is a huge load to be driving that fast.
 
That skunk is a real stinker taxy. ;) I googled a garlic skunk repellent and a couple of links looked like possibilities. Do either of these look familiar?

Do It Yourself Skunk Repellent | eHow

‘Natural’ Ways To Rid Your Property of ‘Problem’ Wildlife « Windstar Wildlife Institute

Good luck. Hope you have success before your neighbor gets back home for your and Shreddy's sake.
Nope, I think it's just garlic whizzed in a Magic Bullet with water and then strained before putting in a spray bottle. I know she sometimes adds cayenne.

I think the heavy patio stone pieces will work for now.
 
taxy, the best way to make those heavy stones "work" would be to suspend them over Shreddy's grave with a pulley system and let it lose when the skunk comes by. :ohmy: Be sure to be wearing clothespins on your noses. ;)



Why do people drive large vehicles with trailers so darned fast?...
Because they're stupid? You can't fix stupid.

Glad you and all the other drivers made it through that adventure safely.
 
Nope, I think it's just garlic whizzed in a Magic Bullet with water and then strained before putting in a spray bottle. I know she sometimes adds cayenne.

I think the heavy patio stone pieces will work for now.

I wonder if you could keep the skunks away by planting garlic in that corner of the garden. This is about the time of year for fall planting, 6-8 weeks prior to a frost. Just break up a bulb or two into individual cloves, cover them in a couple of inches of soil and a light mulch of leaves or straw.
 
Probably not a petty vent...this is affecting my bottom line. My email address has been the same for eons. A friend owns the domain. She cancelled my email addys on the 18th because my voice mail didn't pick up. I called her yesterday and asked her to re-activate the addys. Hasn't happened. I am so ticked. I sent her a cheque to cover the cost of hosting the site because she has MS and lives off of her disability cheque. She accepted the cheque, but didn't renew the domain because she had to have some repairs done to her house. I offered to buy the domain...she wants to keep it. Irony is that she has been off line for about 8 months because her computer died and she can't afford to replace it. Meanwhile, I've lost all my email addys and can't remember my gmail password. Trying to reset that, but my clients don't have my gmail addy and I don't know if I can remember their addys. GRRRRRRRR....
 
I wonder if you could keep the skunks away by planting garlic in that corner of the garden. This is about the time of year for fall planting, 6-8 weeks prior to a frost. Just break up a bulb or two into individual cloves, cover them in a couple of inches of soil and a light mulch of leaves or straw.
Rags soaked with household ammonia work to keep skunks (and other animals) away.
 
Oh dear CWS! Do you have any other backup email? You could get a Yahoo email addy, so you have something. Have you used the password recovery options?
 
Problem is--it is my business account. I can get in it using her password...just haven't figured out how to reset the password back to mine for my accounts. Good thing is that my "pile" of mail on the server hasn't been deleted. Grrrr....still grring...grrrrrrrr.
 
Problem is--it is my business account. I can get in it using her password...just haven't figured out how to reset the password back to mine for my accounts. Good thing is that my "pile" of mail on the server hasn't been deleted. Grrrr....still grring...grrrrrrrr.
I realize it's your biz account and that your clients don't have that email addy. But, you should still have backup email, and preferably, more than one.
 
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