19:44 - 28.08.05
The neighbour chronicles
It's been an eventful weekend and it isn't even over yet. When I arrived home Friday night there was a voicemail from the gas company. They wanted a return call immediately with access to my home so they could change out the meters. Now first of all the company is in the business of delivery of the product - it doesn't own the carrier. It is also one of several companies that have been provided with business licences to deliver gas from the carriers to the homes. They are also under investigation for number of illegal practices in several states and other parts of Canada. Uh huh. So am I supposed to roll over and sit around all weekend waiting on their staff to maybe show up when I don't know if they are even entitled to change out the carrier's meters. If they change out the meters does that mean that I have to change the meter again should I decide that I want to sign up with another service provider who offers a better contract? Given that our Premier has benn musing about reregulating this industry - given that prices have skyrocketed since it's been privatized - won't that just mean that the carrier will go back to the task of delivery just as they did before deregulation? My sistr's sister in law called as I was pondering the options available to me and said that some company had changed out the meter in her Mom's home. I don't know if it was from the same provider or utility ompany but she said the workmen tore up her Mother's backyard and damaged the area in the basement where they replaced the meter then left leaving a big mess as well as the property damage behiind. Several of her Mother's neighbours had the same experience. Great just what I need - more problems with home repairs. Especially ones not under my control. I found my last utility bill so I could send off an email asking for both proof of the right to do the change, the reasons and authorizations for it and indemnification in writing before and if I decide to let them in. With my luck my home would be the one to blow up from improper installation. I know think positively. Right now the answer is positively not.
Next up four emails in my inbox addressed to my email account but with some other person's name in the address line. Order confirmations from online shopping sprees and what looked like a mass mailing list set to go with my email address listed as the point of response for replies or orders. Emailed the online retailers and told them that they did not receive any communication or orders from me. Freeze all transactions. I happen to have "shopper loyalty (points)" cards with two of them, so I also checked my personal profile and accounts to be certain that no change had been made at that level. Emailed the person in question after finding one email with a slight variation on my email address hoping to nip the problem in the bud. First response from her was an insistence that the email addreess (mine) that she was giving out was hers and she wasn't going to stop her activities. Great. I emailed back letting her know how long I had had the account and pointing out that approximations of information on the internet aren't acceptable. She has to enter her email address EXACTLY the way the service provider has it entered on their system. Newbie was my guess, with respect to her skill level and experience on internet etiquette. However, since I can't afford to have that kind of confusion on an account I use for business as well as personal work I emailed the service provider we share to ask them to contact her to explain things a little more carefully. Later she emailed back to verify that those transactions were hers and that she had erred in her data entry. Since we (sort of) share the same last name she asked me if there could be family ties, even though we live in two different provinces at two different ends of the north/south axis. We traded a few more emails and I sent her some of the geneology links I've used plus a very brief history of the family migration story, so she can try to match it up from her end. Interesting synchronicity, since I had just started entering my own information on line a couple of months ago.
After dinner I was in my bedroom trying to prepare some things for work tomorrow. All of a sudden there was a terrible sound of one animal being attacked by another. Sounded like a big dog and a small cat. Our cats aren't ever willingly let outside - although as you know there are two who have managed to give us the slip a couple of times - because of such issues. It is also a protection so that they don't pick up diseases that might come from more liberated felines. Worms and ticks, for example. Anyway I ran to the ensuite window wondering if there was a way to intervene in the attack quickly and safely. It was the neighbour's on the west side's dog and the new neighbours on the east side's cat and the dog was in the new neighbour's yard. Now the westside neighbours have a fully fenced and gated yard. The dog can only get out if someone lets it out. The fence on the other side has had some of the boards removed since the day that our lawnmower and my son's bike was stolen. We tried putting them back a couple of times but they were always removed by the next day. Another compelling reason why I wasnt a new fence up ssooner than later. The new neighbours came running out on their balcony about the time I reached my window. The man was yelling at the top of his lungs swearing at the dog, trying to get it to leave their cat alone. The male on the west side of us came out of his home and asked with a bit of a sneer in his voice what was happening. The new neighbour turned his anger on the taunter and he backed down right away. "I'm sorry, we had no idea the dog had gotten out" Right. They had been outside not 15 minutes before cursing and fighting among themselves. My guess is that the west side neighbour thought the cat roaming free was ours and deliberately let his dog loose for that purpose. The yelling between the two of them lasted off and on for about half an hour and then I think the one neighbour went to speak directly to the other. When the west side neighbour was re-entering his house his parting shot was "Yeah and your house stinks too". I don't think this is the end of the problems yet. At a guess, if there are repercussions from this incident I would expect the west side neighbour to try and divert the blame anywhere else he can. Being in between the two doesn't make for a good position at all. Wish I could find good homes for our cats before anything else happens and even more, I wish I could find a way to move from here on my own terms. Maybe I can still win a lottery although hopefully not like these people.
�
�
