Neighbour knocked on door at 6.30am for this reason

[Leilani24]

To tell me my dustbin had blown into her garden and was repeatedly smashing against her wall.

It’s awkward as even if I knew about this, I doubt I’d have knocked to retrieve my bin back and relive her in the fear I’d have woken her up...

I’m not sure if she knew her rubbish had blown all over the street

I agree, Wombat. So glad to have nice neighbours who all put bins in and out for each other, mow each other’s lawns, etc.

The parts of the UK that I'm familiar with which have the strongest gusts of wind (Scottish islands) don't have thousands of trees. They hardly have any trees at all.

Thats what I thought too. Was confused that @MafForIt thought that was comparable to a storm where millions of trees came down, and hundreds of thousands lost power as a result.

Just to put to bed the whole does Maine have worse storms than the U.K., in Maine, not only do you wake up to over a foot of snow, no electricity, downed live lines across the roads and fallen trees, you can wake up to a moose happily wandering over the top of your car (fb photo from a central Maine friend last winter)

Maine wins.

It all depends on the person and situation. My mother in law has dementia and has just moved into a home. We have just found out that she has been knocking on neighbours' doors at all hours of the night for various spurious reasons. They were all very kind and concerned about her. We had no idea.

Tried to be kind if it is an older person there may be underlying issues. We are thankful that her neighbours were so tolerant and kind.

@WickedGoodDoge Every time I see a photo of a moose I am surprised anew at how freaking massive they are.

I'd have knocked her fuck out..
What a delightful neighbour you are,,,

Every single power pole bar two got knocked down on our island the last storm. I don't see how we could be 'better prepared' for that.

We couldn't get electric crews from other states as the storm was HUGE and they were all dealing with it too.

In the end, after a week of no power and declaring a state of emergency we got crews from the other side of the country.

UK storms just don't compare.

We went out on our boat one night and the coastline as far as you could see was pitch black. It was the weirdest sight.

We had a moose and her baby swim to the island last year. They walked through our garden. The footprints were unbelievable!!! And so far apart! I still haven't seen one though.

These were enormous trees. As I said, dh will have work until April/May with clean up on our road alone.

(Sorry for the derail.) Add to that that we normally have a couple of feet of snow or ice too.

Unless she is disabled and couldn't physically deal with it herself she's a twat.

Things we've learnt from this thread

1. we should all get up at 6am. Anything later is pure laziness.
2. nobody should work night shifts as it would mean they might be up later than 6am
3. nobody should have any health condition which might mean they need to sleep more than average
4. we should all work locally and not commute too far
5. even if we work locally we should still be up by 6am so as not to be lazy
6. if there aren't any jobs in our industry locally we should have had the foresight to study something different and had different career experience so that we can work locally
7. if we didn't have the foresight to study something different we should make sure we earn enough to live near work
8. we should all make sure we have something to secure our bins to
9. if we don't have something to secure our bins to we should build a bin shed
10. we should make sure we own our own homes so we are able to build bin sheds
11. if we can't afford to own our own homes so we can build bin sheds we should get better paying jobs. But they'd better be suitably local... or something...

@Madcatter

In the end, after a week of no power and declaring a state of emergency we got crews from the other side of the country.

Yes the road round the corner from us, right by the school, had 10+ trees leaning on power lines. A crew from Indiana fixed them all on the Friday afternoon. Another crew from Florida dealt with the tree leaning on the power lines on our drive late that evening after dark. That feeling when the lights came back on was amazing.

I now have a generator! After 10 years that was storm that convinced me we really had to have one. Thank god it wasn't below freezing that week.

If it had been below freezing I don't know how many people would have died.

I cried when the power came back on. We all stank to high heaven. At least with no lights on we couldn't see what a revolting shithole the house had become.

The power crews were like celebrities. They got a big free lunch everyday. One day a couple of local lobster men donated a load of lobsters and they had a slap up lunch!

Worst case, you could take it inside the house.
No I couldn't, don't be ridiculous!
3 big wheelie bins and a food waste bin will not fit in my house!
For most storms I have been able to wedge them all in and they stay put. It's only been twice in the past 20 years that they've all gone walk about.

The night it was really windy all of the bins in our cul des sac were blowing around the road. Everyone just retrieved them when we got up in the morning. If we had got up and got them in the night the wind was so strong they would have just blown over again. Some people lost their trampoline to the wind. The neighbour should have moved it away from their wall if that bothered.

Maine sounds lovely. Unlike here where people complain about people trying to help out, and are totally too precious by half. Shift worker (mug) here- do A+E shifts, paid a pittance so can't afford to live in london even if I wanted to (North much nicer), soyamilk awful in terms of food miles, rainforest devastation, unfair trade and plant oestrogens, dairy bad but for intellectually robust ethical reasons, its 2.29 and I'm up (post shift, feeding baby, so not lazy- just spent an hour doing CPR in back of anambulance in the car park, 6.30 will not be a nice experience but my naighbours don't know that). Wish I had moose in garden and amazing dh to get up and be a hero with a chain saw at 5.30! Ffs people, all a bit grumpy and small minded this time?

Think @cherryontop was joking so calm down sanctimommies and grammar police :-D

The time is fairly irrelevant but generally I'd not knock between 8.30am - 9pm. If people knock at any other time, it should be for a good reason. A good reason is if something is in danger of causing harm (chainsaw man did the right thing) or if there is a problem which is not easily rectifiable yourself. The neighbour could have easily move the bin herself and then come back at a different time to say "hey, your bin was doing my nut in all night so I moved it. Would you mind bla bla". It was not an urgent matter.

@macatter

12. Moose are fucking huge.

Mice, mooses?

I'm another one who didn't know how freaking big moose are!

I love that this conversation evolved to discussing moose.

Close encounter with a moose

@Skowvegas I don't think that shows how big they are as most people from the UK would know how massive that truck actually is. Need to find one with a little Renault or similar.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=xct0WYyY2jk