What are the common themes on your areas local Facebook page?

[KeeperofthePeace]

I am actually just curious. Our local area Facebook page just seems to have certain themes and issues that rile up the locals. The views on there are certainly not shared by DH and I. Some of them are so bad it is actually encouraging us to move . The common stuff is:

-Missing cats. The local cats are forever disappearing it seems
-Found cats, trying to trace owners
-Missing wheelie bins (hopefully not connected to cats)

• Warnings about strangers or (and this really pisses me off) people who look 'foreign' and suspicious in the area
• The local bird life - there was a raging debate recently about magpies

And the stuff the local people complain about:

-Fireworks - for some reason they start in September around here and go on inexplicably all the way to New Year,
-The local councils management of grass verges and general grass area maintenance
-Virgin Media
-Dog mess - including posting videos of dog walkers failing to pick up after their dogs
-Parking. Especially pavement parking.

I am not asking for the locations, as that is pretty outing, but I am just interested in whethers others are like ours or have as many missing cats or different things that rile up the locals.

Lost cats/dogs
Found keys/bank cards/soft toys.
Moans about traffic and roadworks.

I'm on a page that's primarily for local history but on there a few themes keep coming up:

The state of the local park, the number of fast food places and pretty much anything else.

There was a big hoohah about a 3rd Turkish barbers opening up and the owners being in kahoots with the owners of the nail salon next door and how they must bee money laundering or something.

The market (that's been abandoned for ages because it wasn't used, partly due to Tesco being built and partly due to council mismanagement) is going to be knocked down and a Costa and something else will be built there.

They whinge about Tesco quite a lot too.

Some new benches were put on the wall in the middle and loads of people on there complained about how it's a waste of money and that nobody will use them and they'll be trashed in no time. 6 months later, there's someone sitting there almost every time I go past and they're all still in one piece.

There's loads of casual racism and a large majority of members of that page (and the area in general) are pro Brexit.

It's a page I love to hate tbh. I've been in a few arguments on there challenging the racism etc. I do like seeing the old photos and reading people's memories but don't believe that it was all so much better 50+ years ago.

Dog shit
Lost cats
Parking on pavements
Kids smoking weed
Whether or not ducks can be fed bread - people get more worked up about this than any other topic!

On a positive note someone on the group organised a litter pick today.

Cats mostly, along with an unfortunate person who isn't managing his antipsychotics. He's somewhere safe atm, so it'll be cats until people start asking for cheap seacoal. It smells lovely, but it doesn't half make me cough on a still morning.

Now I want to re-read Six Dinner Sid!! Loved that book as a kid.

Police helicopter is out. Why?
Police cars flying down x Street. Why?
Lurid speculation on local suicides.
Arguments about the distastefulness of discussing the suicides.
Complaining about what a shit hole the town is and how we have 'nothing' here (we have a huge retail park with cinema, shops, restaurants, bowling etc in walking distance of the town, two cities in half hour bus rides, near to the coast and countryside, good rail links but you know, its shit).
Lost and found items of all sorts including a name badge of a shop worker 'anyone know Pauline who works in Iceland? Pls let her know I've found her badge'. When suggested to hand it in to Iceland 'I didn't want to get her into trouble with her boss'. Like posting it publicly won't be noticed by the boss!

I honestly thought we were special and unique here, hahaha.

We do get people posting pictures of bad parking - always fearful my car will be shown one day, I am a bit wonky in a rush.
Also the local park photographer. Here is the local big pond with swans. Here is the local big pond with mist. Here is a heron on the local big pond....

Crinkle, no but I think everyone has a controversial roundabout!

What an interesting thread:

Our positive comments are: sunsets and sunrises, community spirit (especially finding lost things) and (yes, you guessed it) cats

Negative comments are: parking, noise, antisocial kids (usually on bikes) and (ooh) strangers.

@DisgraceToTheYChromosome what is seacoal?

@PotterHead1985 a very quick google has just told me that it's coal that washes up in places like Northumberland. Why the face?

Lost shoes
Traveller encampments
Lost and found keys/ purses/ phones/ cats/dogs etc
Rants about bad parking and driving
Potholes
Good and bad reviews of local restaurants and businesses
Kids on bikes rampaging around the streets
CCTV footage of crimes
Warnings about scammers in the local area

Village events

Reminders to stop feeding other people's horses in the fields.

Missing/found dogs/cats

There used to be village business advertising, but that got banned, because o people trying to advertise MLM

Companionship requests. Kind of like "any dog walkers want to meet at 10 by the ear memorial in Saturday? Planning to walk through woods and across to next village" or "cycling to town in Sunday morning for coffee, anyone want to join?"

Oh and the obligatory

"Did everyone lose power last night?"

And

"Why is the police helicopter overhead?"

@NerrSnerr finger slip. Bad hands today. Posted before I copped.

We don’t have a roundabout, we have a bridge. Status of the bridge, traffic on the bridge, speed limit on the bridge.

The shit council (it is)
The shit local services (they are)
Vandalism, thefts and dodgy driving/parking
Errant cats, dogs and farm animals.
Crap roads (they are) but also “why is that road closed AGAIN?” (Council doing yet another patch up job)
Trains/buses are off
“Gizajob” there’s Sod all around here
Recommendations (always the same few for each category)
“DO NOT use x company/tradesperson/venue they ripped me off/were useless/overcharged” Again tends to be the same ones repeatedly so HOW they’re still in business I don’t know (regardless of whether the allegations are true the reputational harm you’d think would have an effect!)
Fly tipping
Fb “tat” sales especially now with people trying to make money for Christmas
How the place is going to the dogs
Why are police/ambulances in x street “anyone know?”

But also;

Free cycle type posts and second hand sales, people are quite generous around here.

The community coming together to help people starting out after leaving home or having left an abusive relationship or having become disabled and needing modifications to their home or disability equipment.

Collections of food, clothes, sanpro, toiletries and other essentials for food bank and by the people we have locally who do a lot for the homeless here.

Lost bank cards/bus passes/staff ID’s, even whole purses/wallets, phones and tablets! by the people that have found them. Generally do get returned to owner which is pretty good.

Clean up crews organised to deal with the fly tipping and cleaning up the beaches, woods and other natural areas.

We have a sort of “pay it forward” page where services are bartered/exchanged “I’ll paint your room if you’ll fix my bike” type thing which is lovely.

Every single post since it first came into being is about how we need to object to planning permission

I'm still on the Facebook page of a village I lived in about 7 years ago. All the complaints are the same, lost cats, found cats, dog poo, teenagers in the park. Strange people, not local people.
This village doesn't have a roundabout or a bridge but it's on a very busy A road between 2 large cities. There is a 30 mph limit and it's regularly exceeded.
There are usually quite a few posts addressed to the drivers that are speeding through the village, complete with description/colour of the car. The driver is told that they drive too fast, scared the dog/child/pedestrian.
These are pointless posts, the drivers probably don't even know the name of the village, much less read its Facebook page.

Parking, dog poo, tipping on the moor, rogue sheep (get control of your SHEEP, BRIAN).

Oh and also they are all convinced they are living in some kind of hellhole crime land despite no crime ever actually occurring apart from obviously tipping on t'moor.

Bad parking
Cats
Lots of complaints about parking/transport and yoofs.
Complaints about the hippy community that has shacked up on a local bend
Brexit posts.

Wonky parking
Lost cats
Lots of really nasty abusive criticism of our local (Labour, anti-brexit and really quite good) local MP
Ignorant comments about beggars/poor/homeless in our city centre.

Nanny positions (people looking for nannies and nannies looking for positions).

Mobiles getting snatched.

Cats lost and found (the same cat keeps being mentioned - he isn’t lost, just a yowling nuisance who keeps trying to get into everyone’s houses).

Stuff for sale (usually at too high a price).

Brexit.

People who looking for cleaners, handymen, Decorators, electricians, plumbers. One poor soul posted repeatedly that he needed someone in to clean his flat / house TODAY as he had people coming over and he was Not Well. It was Christmas Eve so I shouldn’t think he had any takers.

Cleaners looking for work.

Moaning about the change to the road layout.

People looking for tutors. Tutors looking for work.