What cheeses me off

[MARTINE]

We're in semi rural Mornington Peninsula. We had a declining Mahongany gum in the front and on the side a very big lemon scented gum. Could only get permission to trim, until a fierce storm brought half the mahogany through our bedroom. Council permission to remove. A week late a huge limb off the other took out side gate, fence, and a couple of large shrubs - I'd been gardening around it about an hour before . Council arborist was reluctant as the lemon scented was his favourite! . $5,000 later they were. both removed, but he said we had to plant 2 gums to replace, with mature height to 30 feet. That ain't happening. He told me they do aerial mapping to check whether tree canopies have been removed.

Tell us about it.
Investment property I own has a massive gum in garden planted 50 years prior. Our OC wants to remove it as dropping massive limbs into neighbor’s property. Neighbors not happy. Have spend years applying to local council. We have paid for arborist reports. Agree with us
(Council) Computer says no.
We have written to our insurer with all these denials and sent letter to council stating they will be liable as we cannot do anymore. This has also been shared with affected neighbors who have also complained to council.

 

[ayebee]

Also on Mornington peninsula.
We have a couple of black wattles nearing end of life. We also have a covenant on our title that limits trees to 8m, I assume to avoid spoiling the neighbours views. A few years back a neighbour asked if I could trim the trees and I thought this was a good idea as it would also improve the trees' health. Got a tree guy out to quote and he immediately refused to touch them fearing fines from the council, so I went to the council and they outright rejected touching them, without any consideration of their health etc.
They now look very poorly and I suspect could become dangerous soon.
I did vaguely think about creating a contest in VCAT between council tree rules and state title covenants to see which has precedence, but let it slip under the "couldn't be bothered spending the money for some pointless exercise" rule.

 

[Cossie]

The limb we wanted removed from quite a large gum, not the whole tree, dropped a dead segment that took out one of our solar panels.
Should I send the bill to those that said we couldn't remove that limb as the tree had been there much longer than we had.

 

[prozac]

Also on Mornington peninsula.
We have a couple of black wattles nearing end of life. We also have a covenant on our title that limits trees to 8m, I assume to avoid spoiling the neighbours views. A few years back a neighbour asked if I could trim the trees and I thought this was a good idea as it would also improve the trees' health. Got a tree guy out to quote and he immediately refused to touch them fearing fines from the council, so I went to the council and they outright rejected touching them, without any consideration of their health etc.
They now look very poorly and I suspect could become dangerous soon.
I did vaguely think about creating a contest in VCAT between council tree rules and state title covenants to see which has precedence, but let it slip under the "couldn't be bothered spending the money for some pointless exercise" rule.

Wattle have a limited life span. IIRC about 12-15yrs. I reckon you need to stagger plantings a couple of years apart and different varieties so you always have a nice tree when the old one gets diseased and dies.

 

[ayebee]

Wattle have a limited life span. IIRC about 12-15yrs. I reckon you need to stagger plantings a couple of years apart and different varieties so you always have a nice tree when the old one gets diseased and dies.

agree. These particular trees were self sown and present when we built in 2013, so the trees are already likely 15 years plus. I figured they will not last much longer, but I suspect I will still need arborist reports and even permit to remove them. All $$ that should not be necessary if common sense prevailed.

 

[Denali]

We're in semi rural Mornington Peninsula. We had a declining Mahongany gum in the front and on the side a very big lemon scented gum. Could only get permission to trim, until a fierce storm brought half the mahogany through our bedroom. Council permission to remove. A week late a huge limb off the other took out side gate, fence, and a couple of large shrubs - I'd been gardening around it about an hour before . Council arborist was reluctant as the lemon scented was his favourite! . $5,000 later they were. both removed, but he said we had to plant 2 gums to replace, with mature height to 30 feet. That ain't happening. He told me they do aerial mapping to check whether tree canopies have been removed.

Council states you have to plant 2 trees to replace.... they dont say the trees have to survive

We've been through similar. The tree roots was lifting up the slab/peirs on the old house and the laundry and a bathroom was no longer in line with the main house and they wouldnt let us remove it until the trunk grew big enough to be 2mtrs from the house and it cost us about $8K to remove by hand as it was so huge. My husband is banned from planting unauthorised trees. Ive planted bottle brushes ( Callistemon Slim) and a couple of citrus and olive trees in our new landscaping but max height will be kept at about 3-3.5mtrs and they wont be dropping limbs on us

 

[DejaBrew]

You can cry or you can just have a laugh…

(Particularly from 05:20 mark)

Such a brilliantly-written show

 

[RooFlyer]

These eucalyptus on my front property boundary are probably on the council side but I give them a haircut every two or three years so they let more light into my garden - I replanted it this year, so the trees got a big cut.



I could chop them down and Council wouldn’t notice or care if they did.

 

[MARTINE]

WCMO - coughpy logistics with online purchases.
Those who do not make it clear (both the seller and the courier company) that items will be in two boxes. The good ones do but I have no way of working out how many boxes my delivery will be - just get the email ‘all shipped’
So I open box which says 2/2 and - as expected - only half the order.
Courier company email sends ‘all delivered’ nothing more from us.
Courier sends me a text by mobile which shows he delivered my 4 parcels (three being from other companies) so still a box short. At least the photo clearly shows only one is from the 2/2 merchant and he states only 4 parcels delivered.
Have sent am email to seller and expect items soon or refund.

 

[n7of9]

When I get to leave my desk during the workday for my allocated lunch break, and I'm happily sitting by myself in peace and quiet, I DO NOT WANT TO DO YOUR FLUGEN SURVEY!

This literally just happened:
-You look friendly!
(Me) -I sure you I'm not.
-Oh that can't be true.
-What can I do for you?
-I'm surveying blah bl...
-Thank you, no.
-ah blah blah...
-Thank you, NO.

(5 mins later)
-You look friendly...

 

[RooFlyer]

So I'm hanging onto sleep at about 4:45am in Doha, Qatar. My watch and/or phone pings loudly and watch vibrates.

Wassup? Groggily looks at watch, see a yellow triangle with a big ! in it, Arabic writing beneath it. Last time I had an alert like that, it was in Japan and the earthquake app went nuts at 6am #.

Puts glasses on, bit of a panic. Has Trump or the Iraqis started bombing?

No. Scroll down on the watch. "Public safety alert. Due to heavy fog, driving conditions may be dangerous ... exert great caution on the road"

What? You freakin wake me up and scare the sh** out of me me, for ... fog???

# I had set the search radius for earthquakes too wide - it was a lomg way away, but an uncomfortable few moments then minutes waiting for the big one to hit.

 

[mrsterryn]

WCMO
Not having wifi internet since just after midday with not given time of restoration

However interesting to see how much data I have used on my phone on the last 9 hours or so . No movies, no book downloads, however just checking a few social media sites and I have used about 700 mg which kinda stunned me lol.

 

[RooFlyer]

WCMO. I wanted a hotel for day use near CGK. Couldn’t find any suitable so I booked a room at the Swissotel PIK for the night before and counting on getting a late checkout the next day.

I put the fact that I was arriving the next morning in the Accor app booking thing which I didn’t really think anyone would take any notice of. But when I got the usual “we’re expecting you, is there anything we can do?” Email from them, I replied, that as a Plat I would be arriving about 8-9 am in the morning not the evening of the day of the booking. This was a replied to with my note re timing and my specific room request duly noted, by the ‘reservations supervisor’, copied to 4 others.

I also filled out the ‘arrival form’ they send, of course noting very clearly that I was arriving this morning not the previous evening.

So I arrive this morning at 8:30 am and check in in the executive lounge. Much confusion; phone call. Oh, I was a no-show but don’t worry they won’t be charging me extra for reinstating the booking.

Not a great first impression after an overnight flight without much sleep. A bit of back-and-forth but fortunately someone a bit more senior turned up. I showed them both the email I sent in the reply I got from the Hotel and asked why was I counted as a no-show and why would there even be any contemplation of charging me extra to check in now?

No real answer. but a suggestion that next time, I should email them them, the lounge team if I was going to arrive late. You know, because the reservation supervisor, copied to 4 others wasn’t enough.

FFS - cheesed me right off. But it did give me leverage for them to agree to a 4:30 pm check out.

 

[Flashback]

WCMO. I wanted a hotel for day use near CGK. Couldn’t find any suitable so I booked a room at the Swissotel PIK for the night before and counting on getting a late checkout the next day.

I put the fact that I was arriving the next morning in the Accor app booking thing which I didn’t really think anyone would take any notice of. But when I got the usual “we’re expecting you, is there anything we can do?” Email from them, I replied, that as a Plat I would be arriving about 8-9 am in the morning not the evening of the day of the booking. This was a replied to with my note re timing and my specific room request duly noted, by the ‘reservations supervisor’, copied to 4 others.

I also filled out the ‘arrival form’ they send, of course noting very clearly that I was arriving this morning not the previous evening.

So I arrive this morning at 8:30 am and check in in the executive lounge. Much confusion; phone call. Oh, I was a no-show but don’t worry they won’t be charging me extra for reinstating the booking.

Not a great first impression after an overnight flight without much sleep. A bit of back-and-forth but fortunately someone a bit more senior turned up. I showed them both the email I sent in the reply I got from the Hotel and asked why was I counted as a no-show and why would there even be any contemplation of charging me extra to check in now?

No real answer. but a suggestion that next time, I should email them them, the lounge team if I was going to arrive late. You know, because the reservation supervisor, copied to 4 others wasn’t enough.

FFS - cheesed me right off. But it did give me leverage for them to agree to a 4:30 pm check out.

This is where Hilton actually works quite well, you can book day rooms, rather than a normal booking.

 

[RooFlyer]

This is where Hilton actually works quite well, you can book day rooms, rather than a normal booking.

Accor has a site for their hotels that offer day bookings but it seems to be just one or two locations within a city. And there were none near the airport in this case.

Room for the day with Accor | ALL

Book your day use room with Accor

all.accor.com