The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

PasturesNew

Pyxis wrote: »

I once lived near a small Coop, and my off-road parking area was always being used by people who wanted to pop into the shop and were 'only there a minute'. :mad: Those 'minutes' were usually more like 20mins, and when you multiply it by several people a day, it amounts to apoplexy.

Defendible borders.
Gun turret.

Make sure they're at the top of the list.

People taking liberties is bl00dy annoying ... and is the basis of my discontent.

Without a defendible border, you can't change behaviours - every time it's a different person, so you can't have a word with everybody as it's often somebody entirely new ... endlessly, year after year... and you end up like me .... constantly up/down the stairs to a window to check... see what's happening ... then keeping a log ... and sitting there stressing about when it'll happen next and what it'll be this time...

You have to have the ability to erect gates/fencing ... whether you do or not is then an option ... but if you've no opportunity to do that then you're powerless... robbed of your rights.

'Non-defendible borders' nails the main issue with the place I viewed and rejected. You can park 3 cars side by side right along the front block paved area, so the building is about 7m back from the edge of the lane - but, with it being a narrow lane, it'd be very difficult to erect effective and affordable fencing. It niggles that I rejected it because of that, because it's a "what if I have a problem" issue, rather than something that is happening... it's possible that poor behaviour would never occur at that spot - but my criteria is to be able to change the landscape to deflect behaviours I dislike.

When viewing house particulars to build my shortlist, I even note: "garage/driveway, no boundary with neighbour", where you have two houses separated, with a clear/marked driveway leading to two adjacent garages, where the border is visible on the ground (2-3" of cement/earth).... that gets noted as potentially undesirable... it might make a B List at best.

e.g. like this https://i.postimg.cc/25WLzXhW/Drive-Example.jpg

LydiaJ

michaels wrote: »

Except that the space where presumably the stairs were is now all corridor so not a great gain.

That's what I thought too.

michaels wrote: »

However I do actually prefer streets where the hoses are not all identikit (except for some of those Georgian grand terraces of course) and I reckon that staircase might be ideal for a stairlift....

The houses on my street (especially the straight bit in the middle) were all built to be almost identical (variations in amount and colour of tile cladding) 50 years ago, but are now all different because almost everyone has done some kind of extension, especially into the wasted spaces between each house and its garage that were originally built as courtyards but are much more useful as extra rooms. The houses that have had their courtyards turned into rooms have all had them done slightly differently, though.

Pyxis wrote: »

It should have a sloping bit so that you can sit on a sisal mat and helter-skelter down.

PasturesNew wrote: »

It niggles that I rejected it because of that, because it's a "what if I have a problem" issue, rather than something that is happening... it's possible that poor behaviour would never occur at that spot...

I don't think you should pay any attention to that niggle. Even if poor behaviour never occurred at that spot, you would still worry all the time that it might. You want peace of mind that you're safe from that kind of thing, or at least that if ever you find you need to, you can easily make yourself safe. That's non-negotiable for you, so for you to buy a house that didn't offer you that would be about as silly as it would have been for me to have bought a house that wasn't in the catchment for the school I wanted for DS, which was my "don't even look at it unless it ticks this box" starter question.

LydiaJ

Not happy.

I renewed my mobile contract with EE recently and upgraded my phone. While I was there they persuaded me to switch my landline/broadband/TV package to them and showed me how much money I'd save, which was a lot, so I agreed. They assured me that since EE belongs to BT it would be all the same service. A day or two later I got a text from BT (my previous supplier) offering me a similar discount if I'd stay, but I was busy and hadn't had time to think about it when the EE stuff arrived and the line got switched over.

Now I find that it is not the same service. In particular, the arrangements for parental controls are different. With BT, the controls were on the router. It wouldn't let anyone in the house access the kinds of content I'd told it to block unless they knew the password, which only I did. Now I find that with EE the arrangements are that I am supposed to install software on each device to do this. That's silly. If I go installing software of that kind on DD's phone, she'll just uninstall it if she wants to. Anyway, I don't want to make her feel I'm introducing new restrictions - keeping restrictions in place that have always been there is much less likely to cause resentment in a 15 year-old.
Meanwhile, DS is about to be an adult (on Sunday) and will then be getting his own survivor's pension from LNE's pension scheme, and paying his own phone costs. Even if he is 18, I'd like him to be protected from the worst kinds of online unpleasantness while he's under my roof, but I've no right to go installing stuff on his phone.

I never should have believed them that it would "all be the same".
:mad:

michaels

LydiaJ wrote: »

Not happy.

I renewed my mobile contract with EE recently and upgraded my phone. While I was there they persuaded me to switch my landline/broadband/TV package to them and showed me how much money I'd save, which was a lot, so I agreed. They assured me that since EE belongs to BT it would be all the same service. A day or two later I got a text from BT (my previous supplier) offering me a similar discount if I'd stay, but I was busy and hadn't had time to think about it when the EE stuff arrived and the line got switched over.

Now I find that it is not the same service. In particular, the arrangements for parental controls are different. With BT, the controls were on the router. It wouldn't let anyone in the house access the kinds of content I'd told it to block unless they knew the password, which only I did. Now I find that with EE the arrangements are that I am supposed to install software on each device to do this. That's silly. If I go installing software of that kind on DD's phone, she'll just uninstall it if she wants to. Anyway, I don't want to make her feel I'm introducing new restrictions - keeping restrictions in place that have always been there is much less likely to cause resentment in a 15 year-old.
Meanwhile, DS is about to be an adult (on Sunday) and will then be getting his own survivor's pension from LNE's pension scheme, and paying his own phone costs. Even if he is 18, I'd like him to be protected from the worst kinds of online unpleasantness while he's under my roof, but I've no right to go installing stuff on his phone.

I never should have believed them that it would "all be the same".
:mad:

Opendns, slightly harder to configure than BT which I also found very good when we have it.

LydiaJ

michaels wrote: »

Opendns, slightly harder to configure than BT which I also found very good when we have it.

Thank you. I will look into that tomorrow.

CKhalvashi

LydiaJ wrote: »

Not happy.

I renewed my mobile contract with EE recently and upgraded my phone. While I was there they persuaded me to switch my landline/broadband/TV package to them and showed me how much money I'd save, which was a lot, so I agreed. They assured me that since EE belongs to BT it would be all the same service. A day or two later I got a text from BT (my previous supplier) offering me a similar discount if I'd stay, but I was busy and hadn't had time to think about it when the EE stuff arrived and the line got switched over.

Now I find that it is not the same service. In particular, the arrangements for parental controls are different. With BT, the controls were on the router. It wouldn't let anyone in the house access the kinds of content I'd told it to block unless they knew the password, which only I did. Now I find that with EE the arrangements are that I am supposed to install software on each device to do this. That's silly. If I go installing software of that kind on DD's phone, she'll just uninstall it if she wants to. Anyway, I don't want to make her feel I'm introducing new restrictions - keeping restrictions in place that have always been there is much less likely to cause resentment in a 15 year-old.
Meanwhile, DS is about to be an adult (on Sunday) and will then be getting his own survivor's pension from LNE's pension scheme, and paying his own phone costs. Even if he is 18, I'd like him to be protected from the worst kinds of online unpleasantness while he's under my roof, but I've no right to go installing stuff on his phone.

I never should have believed them that it would "all be the same".
:mad:

I completely get your frustration.

I’ve only stayed with EE as long as I have for the 5gb data boost on mobile, meaning my phone is cheaper (and negotiated every year anyway),

I threatened to leave a few months ago over an ‘incident’ that caused a reasonable amount of embarrassment and was looked after by a guy at a Customer Service, and after a few admin issues which he resolved straight away, everything has been fine.

I have never attempted to set up the data controls on the home hub unit, however do feel it’s a bit pointless having software to be downloaded which can be easily uninstalled by the user. Whoever came up with that shouldn’t be in a job IMO.

GDB2222

Does EE restrict you to using the supplied router?

PasturesNew

They can get all the p0rn they like at a mate's house... I'm sure they all know where they can get unlimited access to h0rny birds on t'Internet.... you can't protect them all the time.

Even if you took their phones off them - they'd know somebody who would show them their screen while on their daily jaunts to school, or with friends at weekends.

It's like smoking .... you might remove all the ashtrays from the house and hide your cigs on the top shelf of your wardrobe.... but the minute they're on the school bus they're trading a cig for a packet of crisps....

"I'm going round XXX's house on the way home, to revise/study" really means "His mum's out and we can do all that stuff on the Internet at his house"

Pyxis

LydiaJ wrote: »

Not happy.

I renewed my mobile contract with EE recently and upgraded my phone. While I was there they persuaded me to switch my landline/broadband/TV package to them and showed me how much money I'd save, which was a lot, so I agreed. They assured me that since EE belongs to BT it would be all the same service. A day or two later I got a text from BT (my previous supplier) offering me a similar discount if I'd stay, but I was busy and hadn't had time to think about it when the EE stuff arrived and the line got switched over.

Now I find that it is not the same service. In particular, the arrangements for parental controls are different. With BT, the controls were on the router. It wouldn't let anyone in the house access the kinds of content I'd told it to block unless they knew the password, which only I did. Now I find that with EE the arrangements are that I am supposed to install software on each device to do this. That's silly. If I go installing software of that kind on DD's phone, she'll just uninstall it if she wants to. Anyway, I don't want to make her feel I'm introducing new restrictions - keeping restrictions in place that have always been there is much less likely to cause resentment in a 15 year-old.
Meanwhile, DS is about to be an adult (on Sunday) and will then be getting his own survivor's pension from LNE's pension scheme, and paying his own phone costs. Even if he is 18, I'd like him to be protected from the worst kinds of online unpleasantness while he's under my roof, but I've no right to go installing stuff on his phone.

I never should have believed them that it would "all be the same".
:mad:

Is there a cooling-off period, so that you can duck out?

PasturesNew wrote: »

They can get all the p0rn they like at a mate's house... I'm sure they all know where they can get unlimited access to h0rny birds on t'Internet.... you can't protect them all the time.

Even if you took their phones off them - they'd know somebody who would show them their screen while on their daily jaunts to school, or with friends at weekends.

It's like smoking .... you might remove all the ashtrays from the house and hide your cigs on the top shelf of your wardrobe.... but the minute they're on the school bus they're trading a cig for a packet of crisps....

"I'm going round XXX's house on the way home, to revise/study" really means "His mum's out and we can do all that stuff on the Internet at his house"

That's all true, but you have to set your boundaries.
Yes, they may go 'off the rails' a bit, when they can, but if boundaries have been set at home, they will eventually see the sense in those boundaries.

Otherwise you might just as well let them do whatever they want, and you've seen the result of that sort of parenting! :A

Pyxis

Pastures, I saw this on the funny/peculiar thread and thought you might appreciate it.....