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.

We live in a tiny rural village and have 2 opposing village Facebook groups.

The nice one is full of requests to borrow phone chargers, or pick up milk if you are passing the shop, or suggesting a craft night or rounders game.

The other one is run by an angry man who posts several times a week to complain about other people not liking him. He has previously written poetry about how misunderstood he is. He also rants about not wanting Muslims or refugees in the area.

And let me guess, no Muslim or refugee has been within 50 miles.

mostly the same as everywhere with missing cats/moans about bins/petty crime.
The thing that really sets us apart is the contentious question of ‘can you recommend someone to do sewing alterations?’

There are 2 local sewing ladies & each one seems to have their own group off fan girls who will defend their chosen sewing lady to the death! There have been many, many heated arguments about which sewing lady is the most reliable, prompt & trustworthy. It is hysterical

Flamingo got it in one! Couple of weeks ago he threatened to give his house to a refugee family as a punishment for people in the village not being nice enough to him.

Dog shit in the park
Missing cats
Dogs on the loose
Kids with catapults and you get told to MYOB and let "kids be kids"by their shitty parents
Loads of local business adverts. The area is oversaturated with window cleaners and gardeners
Potholes
Complaints about getting a doctors appointment

Cats/dogs lost or found.
Slagging off or wholeheartedly backing our local MP for not supporting the Brexit deal.
Parking and fines for overstaying in the two hour car park.
Boy racers gathering in the supermarket car parks.
The police helicopter.
Men in white vans pretending to sell fish while trying to steal your dog.
Lots of people using the word 'hun'

Cats
Lost bank cards
How awful teenagers are
Fireworks
We also have a tricky roundabout

At the beginning of the year we had a terrible incident when someone died. Some Family found out about it on the FB group. Since then the admins delete anything even vaguely controversial.

Knife crime

Missing cats

Drama club

Hairdresser who won’t honour a voucher, although the customer never actually spoke to management so all very upsetting.

Missing/found pets
Emergency eyelash extensions/hair dressers
Emergency cake makers
Dodgy looking men
Cctv/photos of dodgy men minding their own business
Dog shit
Road works
Lack of shops/things to do
Pointless questions like what are the opening hours for the local shop.
Sales of various crap.
Pretty much what ever one else is like.
I do love the arguments on them though

Omg the fireworks posts are ridiculous on ours tonight. The latest is someone saying you shouldn't get pets if you buy a house in an area where people are likely to set off fireworks. Wtf?
There's also a thread started by someone who says her three dogs are fine with fireworks. Cue 50 other people posting pictures of their dogs sleeping through the fireworks tonight. Yes the other dogs are making it up for attention

I am beginning to think there are two types of people. One type who post on these pages and believe the the FB community spirit. The other type are (probably Mumsnetters going by this thread) just bemused observers of these pagers.

*pages dammit

The thing is, these pages can be hilarious or (genuinely) depressing, depending on your state of mind.

If I'm feeling happy-go-lucky, I can find it all quite funny, and play 'scum-bingo' with my friends. (The record number of the use of that particular word was thirty-two in one thread about travellers on the local rec).

If I'm feeling a bit fragile, it just makes me despair. So many stupid, stupid people, convinced that their way of thinking is the only right one, and everyone else is wrong. It's certainly popped my remoany, lefty-liberal bubble, but it doesn't seem to work the other way round.

I'm actually a bit jealous of the life-is-black-and-white, I know right from wrong crew. Their certainty is sometimes breath-taking.

We had a great page, really helpful and friendly until an elderly lady joined. To start with everyone turned a blind eye to her constant arguing, criticism and the fact she overshared . Anyone who dared to disagree with her comments was accused of bullying her. She even private messaged people and told them off for not agreeing or because they made a spelling mistake. The once active page is now barely used which is a shame but her attacks got really personal and I quite understand why most people no longer post.

-Traffic
-Parking
-Who can repair smashed iPad screens
-Moaning about getting a GP appointment
-Aren't young people wonderful/awful
-Brexit....is Brilliant/is Bollocks (so much of this someone set up a separate page to shout at each other)
-Any decent coffee shops in town (it's a small town, we have about 100)
-tools stolen from vans
-can the person with a dog barking in ××××××× let the poor fucker in its keeping my kids awake

Missing dogs
Missing people
A lot of crime - I was wondering the other day if it's actually got worse or if we just know more about it because of social media.
Adverts for local businesses
Reports of car accidents and traffic problems
British Legion advertising for Remembrance Sunday events coming up
Local fireworks display adverts.

At the beginning of the year we had a terrible incident when someone died. Some Family found out about it on the FB group. Since then the admins delete anything even vaguely controversial

I saw the facebook post where Alesha MacPhail’s mum found out she was dead.

Fucking horrific.

TwattingDog

Local running club (hashing) leave markers on their running route using a small handful of flour in various shapes to direct runners.

We had a long running post about this on our lical board with the majority of people thinking that the local youth had moved on from weed to Class A drugs and were (for some god forsaken reason) leaving them in piles around the local forest ....it was very funny

On the village page it's always someone who looks "Eastern European" driving a van slowly looking at houses. First to complain if you don't get your amazon parcels though eh!

On the town page it's usually "Our counsel (sic) is crap, so many empty shops and we NEED a Primark" or the guy who posts regularly very much tongue in cheek about plans for a mosque ( this is possibly the least diverse town in the UK) and gets them all frothing, they fall for it every time, carpet shop closing down ..yeah heard it's going to be a mosque, "OMG, thats discussin blah blah blah" I do like to see local events, or flood warnings the frothing is alternately amusing and depressing though.

On mine it's "Does anyone know why there's a helicopter circling over (insert area)?" Queue loads of pointless speculation and obviously nobody in the general public knows because funnily enough we aren't consulted before it takes off!

We get the helicopter obsession too!
Roadworks is another biggie. There was outrage yesterday when four way traffic lights appeared outside Lidl and people had to wait five minutes on a Sunday afternoon. It had all gone by this morning so good on them for finishing it before the working week, I think.
And there’s a pub being converted into a Wetherspoons. Cue lots of photos of tower blocks and jokes about how the toilets will be on the top floor.

Lost phones and bank cards, loads of them.
Lots of people seem to find a phone/cardkeys then demand proof so the owner can go and collect it, just take it to the police station!
The correct way to go round a roundabout, some people think they should ignore the markings and blindly follow the highway code, which also states to follow the markings if different, plenty of near misses.
Restoring people's faith in humanity if someone else has done a good deed, calm down they were only being nice 😄

@bluebluezoo I didn't know that happened. That horrendous.

Lost and found cats and dogs, dog and cat shit, potholes, take away recommendations, cc tv footage of various antisocial behaviour, naming and shaming of crappy parking,

Missing cats
Dogs running about without owner
Dogs scared of fireworks
Dogs muck in bags being left in trees/gardens
Can anyone recommend a seamstress?
Regular barneys between the 2 seamstresses recommended
Complaints about mopeds racing around at night
Someone’s horse doesn’t look cared for and has a muzzle
Horse owner explaining why the horse wears a muzzle and that it’s very well cared for
Can anyone recommend a beautician?
The bin day changing - this resulted in weeks of posts about what was quite clearly explained in a leaflet posted through everyone’s door