Aftermath

It is two days since the Notting Hill Carnival. I work in the area - well ish.. on the borders. Every year I see the aftermath of it. Walking along the road where I work to get a sandwich at lunchtime saw the pavements stained every couple of steps with puke and beer. Broken glass littered the street where people had dropped beer bottles and I picked my way along. The smell of stale piss in every shop doorway and nook and cranny made for a horrible walk.

Outside our office, there is a little brick wall enclosure, which is filled with earth and plants grow in it. Usually you get a Monday morning drunk aftermath there of empty beer cans (red stripe is popular - its cheap and strong for the homeless drunks) and occasionally you'll get a fast food package stuffed in there where a non homeless drunk has staggered home eating a kebab.

Yesterday, it was filled with broken bottles, beer cans, puke and even human poo. The stink of pee was overwhelming. Later in the day it rained a little and from our office on the top floor where the window is open to let in some air, the rising smell of stale now wet again pee, stale beer, puke and poo was too much.

Today the smell isn't quite as strong but its still there. I didn't go to Carnival, I was busy this weekend altering my spinning wheel to have a double treadle kit on it, taking mum out and about and generally reading up on points of law to see how the hell I'm going to continue to deal with the quagmire that is my upstairs neighbour.

There is much to tell, including his admittance to me that he went into my bank, obtained information about my insurance account by deception and used that information to withhold close on £600 from me.

It is increasingly looking like I am going to have to claim the money through the small claims courts. I've told his purchasers solicitor that we can't progress till this dispute is settled and that we'll be going at the pace of the courts. Lets see.. this could take a couple of years to sort out. He was not best pleased to say the least!

In addition to this, do I go back to the police with the evidence I have? Do I go and tell them what he did? I've requested CC TV footage of the guy going in and the bank member of staff has admitted she shouldn't have given the details - the bank even offered me a very small sweetner to keep my mouth shut. I told them how insulting this was, it didn't even cover my actual costs. They are looking into it *laugh*

Hmm I realise now I'm rambling a little - I need to consolidate this and put it all into a readable tome for you, my dear dear readers, to read and understand properly.

Oh and another thing for the British readers - you and everyone you know should go read The Consumer Action Group web site - did you know you can reclaim unreasonable bank charges for the last 6 years plus 8% interest? There was a recent court ruling that ruled the charges as unlawful :)

On 18th August I sent of my S.A.R (Subject action request) to my old bank - 5 years ago they charged me charges on charges on charges when I was made redundant from my job and came very close to bankrupting me. This site has all the information you need and step by step instructions, template letters and a fantastic support system of people who have been through the mill too.

I'll be linking to the CAG in future posts too - I highly recommend them. They don't just help with bank charges, there are credit card charges, consumer issues with holiday companies, shops and insurance companies and also a section for Landlords and Tenants. I love them. I found them by accident in looking for "action against xx bank" when trying to deal with the issue of my tenant extracting info from my bank by deception.

Anyway I MUST now get on and try to do some work. I've barely done any since all this kicked off. Oh I've also lost 1/2 a stone in worry alone. I've been comfort eating through all of this (I wish now I hadn't) and I STILL lost 1/2 a stone. Imagine if I could have not comfort ate - I'd probably have lost a couple of stone by now!!