"MC Emily" wrote in message
...
: Natalie wrote:
:
: We had a very eccentric old Polish man living round the corner to us
: who collected rubbish; stored it both inside and outside his very
: large house. This was such a problem that they made a television
: programme about him. The council cleared all the rubbish from his
: garden and as soon as they finished he started collecting again. He
: died last year...
:
: I watched every programme featuring that poor man, including the recent
one
: after his death. I felt his biggest 'problem', if you can call it that,
was
: not his garden but his mental health problems and yet no one took that
into
: account (that was certainly the impression given by the programmes
although
: it could of course have been different in reality). The council's attempt
: at getting him to clear his rubbish was as dictotorial as the Germans had
: been to him during the war. The collecting of rubbish and other things
was
: an subconscious attempt to regain control of his life and retain things
: rather than have them forcibly taken away. Rather than help this poor man
: they actually made his troubles worse. Rather than eccentric, a better
: description of this man would be mentally ill. Of course, I don't doubt
: that his habits caused problems for his neighbours and I wouldn't want to
: live near it either but it's just a shame that people didn't see the man
: amongst the rubbish.
:
: Jaqy
:
:A friend of ours worked with the son of that nice old man. He was such
a nice old man that his wife had walked out on him and his 3 children
wanted nothing to do with him. To put the record straight - he had
never even been in the armed services. Yes, it was patently clear that
he had mental health problems, but as he was a danger neither to himself
nor to anyone else, he could not be sectioned under the Mental Health
Act and would only receive treatment if he were to seek it on a
voluntary basis and that would be extremely unlikely, considering he
refused help from all and sundry and couldn't see that he had a problem.
I think the man from the environmental health services had the patience
of Job and could not be faulted on what he did.

K

In article ,
K wrote:


A friend of ours worked with the son of that nice old man. He was such
a nice old man that his wife had walked out on him and his 3 children
wanted nothing to do with him. To put the record straight - he had
never even been in the armed services. Yes, it was patently clear that
he had mental health problems, but as he was a danger neither to himself
nor to anyone else, he could not be sectioned under the Mental Health
Act and would only receive treatment if he were to seek it on a
voluntary basis and that would be extremely unlikely, considering he
refused help from all and sundry and couldn't see that he had a problem.
I think the man from the environmental health services had the patience
of Job and could not be faulted on what he did.

To continue the biblical analogue, it was extremely clear that even
Solomon would have had trouble deciding what to do! It was one of the
the clearest examples of an ethically insoluble problem that I have
ever heard of.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren,
University of Cambridge Computing Service,
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
Email:
Tel.: +44 1223 334761 Fax: +44 1223 334679

On Sat, 4 Jan 2003 19:00:34 GMT, Anne Jackson
wrote:

The message
from "bnd777" contains these words:

"Tumbleweed" wrote in message
...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2626535.stm

Anyone here? (let us know in 4 months)!

Cant say I blame the poor neighbours

I think it's utterly disgraceful, that *anyone* should seek to impose
their idea of a "perfect" garden on somebody else!

If you have the bad luck to live next door to one of these jerks you
might think otherwise.
You maybe saw the elderly Polish gent on TV who hoarded rubbish and
its probly a similar case to that.
It has to be extremly bad for a council to take action such as this.
I suspect its a particularly bad case, councils give the offender
plenty of warning before they take such action and if they dont make
some effort to clear up then it goes to court.
I have a similar neighbour from hell who i have had dealings with.
You have to accept that there are complete nutters out there who do
hoard rubbish for no good reason.

There are complete nutters out there period!!!!!
Mine hoards piles and piles of dry dead conifer cuttings


"HaaRoy" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 4 Jan 2003 19:00:34 GMT, Anne Jackson
wrote:

The message
from "bnd777" contains these words:

"Tumbleweed" wrote in
message
...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2626535.stm

Anyone here? (let us know in 4 months)!

Cant say I blame the poor neighbours

I think it's utterly disgraceful, that *anyone* should seek to impose
their idea of a "perfect" garden on somebody else!

If you have the bad luck to live next door to one of these jerks you
might think otherwise.
You maybe saw the elderly Polish gent on TV who hoarded rubbish and
its probly a similar case to that.
It has to be extremly bad for a council to take action such as this.
I suspect its a particularly bad case, councils give the offender
plenty of warning before they take such action and if they dont make
some effort to clear up then it goes to court.
I have a similar neighbour from hell who i have had dealings with.
You have to accept that there are complete nutters out there who do
hoard rubbish for no good reason.

Jon Rouse wrote:

You've done better than us then, when I finally tracked down the correct
department in the council they sent out someone from the Parks
department who looked at our brown hedge, and told me that glyphosphate
wasn't a systemic weedkiller and as the wood was green under the bark it
would all grow back

In the U.S. at least, you need to take pictures and be a pest, making sure
you got the name of the dolt who:

A: Assumed (or believed the farmer) that it was glycophosphate.
B: Thought the plant would grow back.

IIRC, glycophosphate is such a good weedkiller because it overstimulates
the plant, killing roots and all. The green wood just hadn't dried out yet
after being poisoned.


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G

Jon Rouse wrote:

You've done better than us then, when I finally tracked down the
correct department in the council they sent out someone from the Parks
department who looked at our brown hedge, and told me that
glyphosphate wasn't a systemic weedkiller and as the wood was green
under the bark it would all grow back. Of course it didn't, and as we
have no idea who farms the land (probably some overseas
multinational) we have no way of taking it further.

Yes you do! If it's a farmer who's done the spraying, s/he has to comply
with the rules and these are overseen by the HSE (Health & Safety
Executive). Contact your local department and tell them what's happened.
Take pictures and video, if possible. You can find out who owns the land
through the Land Registry but the HSE will be able to find this out through
DEFRA anyway. However, regardless of who owns the land, it's the person
doing the spraying who's liable.

Jaqy