Chair lift

[busy_lizzie]

When my OH went over to the lottie this morning, he noticed our gate had been opened and someones been onto our plot and has stolen our wooden park bench and the two plastic chairs we had on our little patio area.  The bench was quite heavy and they would have had to have lifted it over the exterior fence, which is now damaged a bit, don't know how they managed it.  They weren't evil, thankfully though as not a single veg or flower was injured. I can't tell you how relieved I was when I went over this afternoon and saw everything was  intact.  I would rather anything had been stolen than have any of my precious veggies damaged. 

I suspect it is teenagers who must have a camp near the playing fields and they wanted something to sit on while they had their Diamond White or Lambrini.  Just so relieved nothing was destroyed.  Holding my breath though as this time of year is usually the start of the vandalism on our Site, when the nearby school breaks up for the summer.   :( busy_lizzie

[busy_lizzie]

[Robert_Brenchley]

I've had the same thing, with wheelbarrows and plastic barrels being lifted over my fence. Eventually I worked out that they were getting into the neighbouring plot be crawling through a small hole in the hedge, then going through a hole in my side hedge. Barbed wire and broken glass eventually put paid to that. The crazy thing is that it was the then Association secretary and his wife.

[Mrs Ava]

Aww, sorry to hear about your bench and chairs BL.    :'( Back to that lack of respect for other peoples property again.  I despair!

[Yellow Petals]

Rosebud has made me a beautiful planter to go in the middle of my front lawn and as I live along a main(ish) road and by the estate entrance, I shall be cementing it down else it will go walkies overnight I imagine!

My dad has just dropped off two fairly large bags of sand and shingle.  By the time I get back from town they'll probably have disappeared  >:(

[Glyn]

 

The crazy thing is that it was the then Association secretary and his wife.

Have I got this right...they were stealing from you?

[Robert_Brenchley]

That's right. They'd totally dominated the site for 20 years or so, been allowed to get away with murder, and it had degenerated into a complete dictatorship with a committee made up of yes-people. They had a string of derelict plots around the site, some in other people's names, piled high with thousands of Victorian bluebricks, edging tiles, God knows what, obviously pilfered off other plots. The Council seemed too scared of them to tackle the problems, but eventually said that she was 'the biggest troublemaker they'd ever had on any allotment site in the West Midlands'. He was cleverer, maintained a facade, and was far more dangerous. There was regular interference with other people's plots; for instance I once arrived to find that an elderly neighbour had 'lost'a sheet of corrugated iron which formed a vital part of her flood defences. Since we'd just had a flood, there was a possibility it was in the stream, andit could obviously have dammed it up and caused havoc. So I got soaked wading down the stream looking for it. Eventually it turned out that she'd phoned the Council and bullied them into removing it as a 'flood hazard' as she claimed it was loose (which was nonsense)and could end up blocking the stream. Nobody had been informed of this, of course. Then there were the endless allegations, not a moment when someone wasn't being accused of thieving; anyone would do. They'd havce some totally petty quarrel with them, and the next minute they were going round accusing them of stealing. And so on.

I lost a stone sink early on; I found it while digging away working on my flood defences, and as soon as Imissed it, I broke into her plot, and there it was. So I had them spotted. Meanwhile she was always showing off about the 'Victorian rarities' they had in their gardens;plants which they claimed were completely unobtainable. I made mentalnotes, found most of them were easy to come by, and the sort of plant I like, and got many of them. I think that's what really started it.

I planted 300 double snowdrops, a common variety called 'Flore Pleno'. They soon started disappearing, and I soon worked out who it was. About the same time I had a minor disagreement with them over whether something a plotholder had done was a flood danger; they claimed it was, it clearly wasn't, and the reality was that they just didn't like him and wanted to make trouble. Eventually I got tired of my plants walking, and warned them off. Next thing was, they went to the police with a vast list of plants and stuff which they claimed I'd stolen from them; they'd obviously gone round my plot andlisted everything they fancied. The 'Flore Pleno' had been mysteriously transmogrified into a genuinely rare and quite different variety, 'Lady Elphinstone'. They were snobs and I suppose it sounded better. So I was arrested and bailed on suspicion of stealing my own property. It took a couple of months to deal with that, though I eventually discovered that they'd felt all along I was telling the truth. Those two had previously accused me of stealing from the petty cash, and the police had come round and said straight out that there was no evidence and nothing in it; that helped. Another plotholder who had genuinely lost acold frame(I bet they took it) had been convinced that a similar one I had was his, which caused a lot of confusion as he seemed a more credible witness, but in the end he wasn't believed. Meanwhile my stuff was disappearing wholesale; if they couldn't prove I'd 'stolen' it, they just broke in and took it.

So I went to the Council, and there was another great investigation, which led to the same place; they were convinced I was telling the truth, but had no actual legal proof. Meanwhile stuff was still going. It all finally stopped when he died of a heart attack, by which time I'd been thrown off the committee and out of the Association for 'bringing it into disrepute'. A year after he died, she was voted off the committee herself, she's been thrown off several plots for illegally subletting, and is now utterly discredited. So all's well that ends well, but what a saga!

[katynewbie]

Crikey Me!!!!!! There I was thinking all lottie people were lovely!!! Note to self, lock it up (when I get a shed) nail it down or cement it in!! That sounds terrible Robert...am I replying to a man with a criminal record???? No laughing matter at the time, I am sure >:(

[busy_lizzie]

Robert,  It's a disgrace you had to go through all that but I am glad it all ended well and late though it was, justice prevailed.

We have had a happy ending too.  Would you believe that one of our lottie neighbours was out walking his dog today and spied our two chairs in the undergrowth not too far from the Site.  So these have been retrieved - lovely to be able to sit down again.  Also our wooden bench has been seen somewhere though we haven't been able to get it carried back yet.  The funny thing is that when my husband was walking home from the pub tonight he spotted two very good quality plastic patio chairs in a skip, much better than the two that were taken, which he has brought home.  So we are awash with plastic patio chairs. Isn't life strange and funny sometimes?   ;D busy_lizzie       

[Robert_Brenchley]

99% of allotment people are lovely, but you're bound to get the occasional nutter, and those two were given every possible opportuntiy to indulge themselves. The site went through a seriously bad patch after the Council took over, and they exploited it to the full. Having worked in mental health for many years, it's pretty plain to see that they weren't right up top.

No criminal conviction, thank God. That would be seriously embarrassing in a job where I'd have to declare anything like that!