for being annoyed that our tax is paying for people to buy wallpaper.

[suzexxx]

I saw a post from a girl on facebook asking whether the social could help her buy things to do up her home e.g wallpaper and paint. Alot of people commented that she could get some vouchers to use on a certain paint brand and B&Q etc.

AIBU to think this girl should save some money or attempt to get a job for extra luxeries before expecting the social to foot the bill?

I'm moving house next month and the whole house will need decorating. However i am realistic in the fact i won't be able to afford to wallpaper the whole place at once, instead doing a bit at a time as and when i can afford it. My partner earns a moderate income and i'm currently on maternity leave, so money is tighter at the moment, but would never expect someone to pay for something i could manage without like wallpaper.

I completely understand people using the social to buy essential items such as a cooker or fridge, but not non essentials.

I'm still waiting for the goat and 50inch flatscreen though You must have to wait 18 weeks before you are entitled to those too

I'm happy to pay my taxes to pay for benefits. They can spend it however the fuck they please as far as I'm concerned. It's their money.

You say when you lived in a council house the council came and painted it for you. This obviously doesn't happen now. They give vouchers for you to do it yourself. Why would you care if she spends it on paint or wallpaper?

Well said, MrsDeVere.

A few years ago, people pitied people who lived in council house.

Now they envy them.

Kinda funny really the power of spin.

What about the people who trash their council houses and spoil it for the next tennants?

I live in a private rental with horrible magnolia walls. Can I get a voucher for free paint or wallpaper as I would love to change the walls?

I got one of those handcream, detailed it elsewhere on the thread but think graffiti on walls etc.

The HA gave me £80 in B&Q vouchers to buy paint etc but tbh the walls were in such a state it needed lining paper. It's not perfect but does the job. W t me to on th rubbish in the garden either.

In the case of the previous tenant she was evicted for rent arrears, they literally changed the locks while she was out. She didn't even move out with notice, left everything behind. They emptied it, stored it, charged her for storage and I do t know where she is now.

Oh and one of her boyfriends "fixed" the electricity meter and it took the company 4 weeks to come out and change it. I got a month of free electricity

Your LL no doubt decorated it at some point, ophelia

No Ophelia, you can however ask the LL if you can paint the walls. Then again you didn't HAVE to have a private rental where the colour scheme was not to your taste. Those o us in social housing don't get the luxury of saying "I don't like the colour scheme so I don't want this place". If we are lucky the walls are in good repair but not always, read back the thread to see what people have had to sort out.

Ophelia, you didn't have to choose your private rental did you? Do read the thread please.

LittleMiss in what way is op Fascist?

Oxford the Easter egg thing is nothing. I saw an MNer (and yes i do remember who it was) say on a thread that children with poor parents shouldnt get Christmas presents because that kind of thing is a luxury.

Obvs i didnt mean its nothing per se.

say on a thread that children with poor parents shouldnt get Christmas presents because that kind of thing is a luxury

what is wrong with people jeez

[Grin] I remember that.thread too....but not who it was. I offered to send her a "thank you" note from DS until I realised that his Xmas pressie came out of maintenance .

When my old neighbour downsized to a small 2 bed cottage - 2 of her 3 kids had left home - she got a redecoration grant of £3k. This should stretch to redecorate the whole house, which had housed the same occupant for 30 years and not been redecorated at all. She was a thrifty one, and managed to get all the paint, new laminate flooring, and new carpets upstairs, AND a new kitchen for that.

I think the council did well out of their 3k, as far as landlords responsibilities go....

The custard thread was jaw-droppingly perfect as an example of benefit bashing. The outrage the OP showed at the idea of people getting custard from a food bank.

I thought that George Osborne had somehow conned taxpayers into subsiding his wallpaper sales from the title...

We moved into a H.A property a few months ago. The biggest bedroom is painted in gloss, two walls bright red, one bright blue. The brush strokes continue onto the ceiling.

The fourth wall is white and has had blue, red, green, yellow and fluorescent / glow-in-the-dark paint flicked at it. It is splattered all over the ceiling as well and in great big clumps. And the names of the vandals artists five inches wide. We need wallpaper.

There was blood, shit and the phone number of the local Tory M.P written on the walls in the second-largest bedroom.

My first council flat was done entirely in forest green and shit-brown gloss and the previous tenant was a serial killer nail enthusiast.

A couple of hundred quid is nothing.

I thought you got a pass, merit or distinction at MA level, William, not a first or whatever

Westie, yes, people were resenting poorparents from getting easter eggs for their kids from food banks, as well as well known Fortnum & Mason-level luxuries like packet custard. The OP made a big thing out of donating to food banks due to her Christian faith (whilst obviously forgetting the whole Love Thy Neighbour and Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged stuff).

The point that the OP, and others need to understand - apart from the facts that this money is not a benefit and wallpaper is not a luxury, FFS - is that the majority of benefits actually go to A) working people and B) OAPs. There is such a huge disparity between rich and poor, and such inequality in payment (for example, nearly 40 yrs after the equal pay act, and a large proportion of women still do not equal pay to their male equivalents), and such fucking privilege splurged on those who already live in privilege, that a huge amount of people who work hard need to receive benefits. Working tax credits are benefits, OP.

And the other point abut all this nasty, hateful, ignorant, scrounger bullshit, is that what people on benefits do or don't receive has zero effect on what the OP or anyone else will get, or have. If people stopped getting any benefits whatsoever, the OP would not be better off. The fact that some people get benefits whilst others get wages doesn't diminish what she and her partner achieve and have bought, etc. It just makes no sense. It's the whinging of bratty schoolkids.

Audrina, you definitely win the "shit decorative order social house" competition . That sounds horrendous.

Darkesteyes, I saw that too. Horrible, wasn't it? It's people like that that let you understand how people like Hitler came to power, because so many people are so cold, so lacking in humanity and empathy, so desperate to hate and blame, that they'd even refuse a poor child some fucking custard or a cheap toy. Sorry to invoke Godwin's Law there, but I often think that, when I read certain things

Well said Oxford.