Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Two steps forward one step back.

After about 6 months of peace we find ourselves once again targeted by criminals...At least they are keeping to the outer perimeter...lets hope it stays that way.

Early yesterday morning I was woken with a phone call from my sister Zoe who had the guards outside her front door where she stays at TLC. They were reporting the fact that the electricity tranformer that stands next to the road on the outside of our property had just been stolen. So yesterday we had no power to the volunteer cottages, the offices and the pre-school, however, the electricity company did replace the transformer late last night so we are back online today!

Here's our new one...
The old one was about 50 years old and was due for an upgrade anyway

On my way in later that morning I noticed that the gates for our rubbish area had also been pinched (for the second time!) despite my best efforts to avoid it happening again...I had bent the bolts down and wired old bits off wood to each of the gates to deter thieves... but they actuially managed to bend the loops on the other side of the bolt that hold each gate on to the pole.
This rubbish place is on the outside of our property. Workers throw the rubbish through a hole in the wall which is secured by large wooden shutter type doors.The rubbish goe into the walled in and covered area next to the road. Now the problem we're left with is that all the stray animals and people wondering by who decide to get stuck into the rubbish bags tend to leave an unsightly mess. The added problem besied the mess is that the rather infrequent private rubbish service that we have won't take any broken bags...and having regular gates here isn't working... What to do.... 
Our sad looking, gateless rubbish place.

One solution I've been considering is cancelling the rather poor service and taking the rubbish away myself. It does mean extra work regularly but being open is the main problem...maybe a gate made of old rags or tarps...or sacks...hessien...stretched from one side and hooked to the other, but even a nice peice of hessien will be snatched...maybe I can riddle it with something like bamboo...old animal food sacks stitched together maybe?? Any ideas?

So frustrated.

2 comments:

  1. It is bad enough that you have all thos work to do on a regular basis, but that you also have to slave under the tyrrany of others who can't understand what is yours and theirs is just sucha setback. I is unbeareable to work under those conditions. I really feel for your frustration and the added stress where you are trying to do as much for as less as possible and still have these uncanny situations to deal with.
    Salute to the elecric company for swift assistance in replacing the "missing" generator, even though you don't tell ud the story of how you got them to come so fast. It can't have been easy. Enjoy today celebrating your moms birthday.

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  2. Thanks! The electricty company knows us quite well from all the cable theft we experience. I've managed to secure the problem area. It's quite extreme. I'll post some pics sometime. if you get a chance, go to the comments on the post at the bottom of the blog. There is the story of me catching out one of the guards that was stealing from us. It is frustrating but once we have saved the world maybe this wont be a problem anymore but I'm afraid I doubt I would still be alive by that time. We are moving forward though. Got to keep our focus on that.

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