AIBU to be annoyed by these people on my local Facebook page?

[FacebookLocals]

Euguughhhh - they drive me nuts. I know I could leave but the group is 50% useful stuff (we have an A-road on our morning commute that is frequently closed due to accidents and the page always knows first, that kind of thing) and 50% utter shite. Does anyone else have these kinds of people or do I just live in a bonkers place?!

1. One woman has set up her own cleaning company with her daughter (good for them - this is something I think is great). What irritates me is that, even though it's the two of them and no one else, they keep posting adverts that say people should use them because "unlike other cleaning companies", they pay their staff a "fair wage"... but they are their staff. I've never had a cleaner but my understanding is that you either go through an agency (where you pay a higher amount and the cleaner themselves get about minimum wage) and you get security that they'll find someone else if your usual cleaner is sick/holiday/maternity/whatever and they have solid insurance and that kind of thing, or you go direct to a self-employed person (you pay slightly less but the cleaner gets it all - after their costs) but there's less security (i.e. if they're sick then they're sick and won't be coming). This cleaner is trying to portray the best of both for herself... Just annoys me to try and claim some kind of moral highground when they don't have one.
2. The people who post completely irrelevant, chain-mail jokes - usually pretty sexist ones about women being unable to drive... They aren't relevant to the group (and they aren't funny) - if you can't control yourself, just share them on your personal Facebook page.
3. The people who see blatant vandalism or theft and go "oh, get a life" or "we were all young once", "I bet you ain't perfect". Like, you know, I'm a fully grown up adult and I've never once set an abandoned building on fire, egged anyone or left upturned trolleys all over a road. On top of that, as a grown fucking adult, I have the brain capacity to realise that setting things on fire and blocking emergency vehicles could do serious harm (even if that's not in the minds of those teens when they did it). On top of that, I know full well that when people my age (back when I was a teen) did anything like this, every decent adult would've obliterated them for being little shits... so, if teens are always going to do stupid things, when did adults stop doing their part of the routine?! Lo and behold, when the vandalising abandoned buildings turned into abandoning their business or when doing stupid thing turns into threatening them, they completely fail to recognise that they allowed that to progress by excusing the poor behaviour when it started.
4. Parents bitching about the local school's "ridiculous" behaviour policy where their child was sent to the isolation room for politely asking if they're allowed to breathe or for raising their hand to point out a stray puppy was on fire. Like, no, your kid can't behave and it's embarrassing that you can't see you're being lied to.
5. The people who refuse to answer questions that are asked. Things like one bloke asking if there are any recommendations for local garages and the first comment is "I don't have a car so I can't help, sorry"... like, why comment?! I once asked for recommendations for childcare - either a nursery or a childminder - and all but one comment was people saying to make sure the childminder has a DBS check. Like, ok, I'm not an idiot, that's not what I asked.
6. Non-stop incorrect legal advice at every turn - "you can't do that, it's a violation of GDPR", "tell them to press charges", "I'll go over there and make a citizens arrest". I just can't take any more of it!
7. People asking questions that are literally on Google - "does anyone know what time Tesco closes?" (not on Christmas or things where Google might not be accurate), "what's the phone number for the GP surgery?", "is it an inset day at the school today?" (cue 19847 different comments about the five potential schools that could be being asked about, none of which have an inset day and all of which have their calendars on their websites).

I just wonder if people were always like this and had different outlets (I don't really remember a time before Facebook) or are people getting weirder? Or is this just my local page and everyone is normal where you are?

I know it's gone midnight, this is slightly lighthearted...

We also get those who bleat on about supporting local businesses. Their 'business' is usually something that adds to landfill or the obesity crisis such as repackaging pick 'n' mix sweets into small cellophane bags or 'personalising' plastic tat, such as drink bottles .

The thing that really makes me want to vomit is posts from people stating what an AMAZING job the admin team are doing, selflessly giving up their own time, unpaid, to perform the thankless task.of approving posts.on a Facebook page. Cue a stream of responses from others agreeing about what saints they are.

Ours is quite boring-except the time a poor unsuspecting newcomer asked opinions about secondary schools. Wow, what a shitstorm! One woman, whose kid was excluded on multiple occasions was just posting vitriol that School A (where I worked at until recently)was shite, she’d reported it to Ofsted, the police(?) and the local paper. (Her son was a violent, arrogant twat that made everyone’s lives hell)Que others (all with challenging kids) saying, yeah it’s crap, my Daisy was always getting picked on,( Daisy called my colleague a fat cunt so she had her removed)my Jeffrey failed his GCSEs because they can’t teach.(Jeffrey never once handed in any homework and never worked in class(no send before anyone starts)Then it started getting personal, and a parent was slagging off the Send team, was really awful, because the whole school knew how hard they had worked with their child and the parent had been so grateful and lovely in person. Then ex students started in, yeah X school never did me any good (it was ten years ago!) Finally a bloke whose kid had had a managed move due to his stalking and coercive behaviour of his gf as well as violent behaviour launched an attack, naming teachers, accusing them of harassing his nasty little scrote of a son. There were threats. Finally, despite lots of reporting to admin, who was secretly loving it, he pulled the thread as it was getting libellous.
But apart from that, it’s all chippy recommendations and carpet cleaning businesses(why do they do that weird pattern thing?)

There's two men that dominate our village facebook group, and the admins lap it up.
Their posts are mostly irrelevant to the village information, and it's just them having "banter" and memes like "I told him I liked it rough so he brought me to <name of local town>".

There are occasional begging posts that make me think WTH. " Is anyone gifting a fridge freezer ? It needs to be american style , under 2 years old, good condition, in silver , and able to deliver to me this weekend ". CF's.

I stopped being part of our estates whatsapp group because it was mainly nonsense. Lots of neurotic women panicking because a man walked past type of thing plus endless photos of cats who apparently looked lost.

Do very little Social media besides spaces like this and email.

It seems to me that spaces like Facebook, van be good for local info and can be goid fun. Once you have joined one though, you have given up tour right to privacy

And you can be target for gossip, manipulation and exploitation.

Some people also now use places like Facebook for all their social interactions and have given up on face to ace contact

I would dump this toxuc Facebook group. Just say you don't have time anymore and find a few local.websites and groups run by helpful decent people

Yep. I only look at ours to see info on road closures etc as the traffic into town can be hideous and there seem to be road works popping up every week.
The majority of posters seem to be illiterate. They don’t like it if anyone posts pictures of their feral offspring behaving like s, yet they see no problem in posting footage of other people without their consent.
It’s full of (usually men) posting idiotic replies to genuine questions, then trying to back peddle by saying ‘it was only a joke.’
It’s full of people slating everything anyone does to try and improve things. Example: several businesses decorate for Pride. Posters comment saying how great it looks and how they had a great time. Cue some dickhead responding: why can’t we have a straight month?

We have our monthly "Does anyone know who owns this cat? I think it's a stray as its skin and bones! I tried to catch it but it's too quick. It's skulking around though"

No Beryl. It's my cat. As you know because I told you the last time you posted, and the time before, and the time before that.

She is not remotely skin and bones, she's a normal healthy weight for a cat. You just can't see it because your cats are obese. Shes not skulking around, she just passes your house on her wander between our house and our old house in the next street.

There will then be "She should have a collar" in response when someone points out that it's my cat. Someone else will post a link about collars being dangerous. Someone else will tell her to stop trying to feed all the cats. Beryl will post "just trying to help, won't bother in future" and that'll be the end of it for another few weeks until it's repeated.

They do that weird pattern thing because some "influencers" did it once, years ago, and somehow some people thought it look professional. On the other hand. it is how a carpet naturally looks when the cleaning nozzle is taken across it, so the cleaning operative is really just enhancing the effect. But of course, there is so little to photograph with any originality that they are limited in what they can show...I don't know how anyone who has a dirty carpet could not imagine what it would look like clean, therefore I'm not sure what a "before & after" photo really achieves. And anyway, it's not to say my carpets are going to look that good when cleaned, it really all depends on the carpet in question.

As for all you said about the school, it does seem that when some people post on local groups they have no awareness that there will be plenty of people reading who know about the other side of a situation, as I mentioned earlier when one of my neighbours ranted about the bin men...there was an influx of "you alright hun?" type comments, until one of my other neighbours stepped in to tell everyone how the woman had caused the problem she was having.

Hi Pot, have you met Kettle?

Indeed 😏… I’m really pleased you posted this OP because I was starting to get quite annoyed and down about how people behave on my local groups and I now see there are many others out there who feel the same as me. Perhaps the world isn’t full of racists, gossips, know it alls, idiots etc after all

Ours has endless posts for the two women in the village who run aesthetic clinics from their gardens……

No! Nowhere near! 😂 I’m right down south, so strange. Makes it even more likely it’s AI, perhaps? I’ll go and have a look and see if I can find one - it was easy enough the other day - and will post to see if they look similar.

Ok, so there was one literally only a couple of posts from the top when I logged in so clicked on his name and just screenshot his first two posts. See each one has a ton of “paintings” to look through. Are yours written just like that, with similar photos? Think I’ve gotten rid of anything identifying.

I havent RTFT but i used to live in Berwick upon Tweed and their favourite topic was "ive got u on cctv but wont release the footage however at midnight somebodys dog pissed up a car wheel" swiftly followed by some guy complaining about church bell practice at 3 on a thursday (or something like that) ruining his trip to the shops cos it was noisy.

Schrodingers local FB groups, both useful and mindnumbingly stupid at the same time.

"To the woman who...." those posts are the ones that annoy me, instead of talking to people in person they feel need to have it out on Facebook where the person in question is unlikely to see it 😂

Ours is the same.

As for is this new, or was there an outlet prior to Facebook…..I don’t know, and I wonder this as well.

I think it must be new.

Before WhatsApp, Facebook etc there’s no way people were lifting their landline phones to spout this shit at each other all day every day.

I think it must be dopamine addiction and I think it’s new.

these people get a hit of dopamine from posting, and they just can’t help themselves.

Oh yes, always accompanied by some crap reason they didn't do anything at the time. I really dislike people using public platforms for personal rants.

The unerring ability of some posters to spot foreign people, and then their need to post about it always amazes me. So many posts along the lines of ‘saw three Albanian men in Tesco car park, hanging around acting suspiciously’.

I once replied to a post like this asking if the poster spoke Albanian and so could confidently identify the language being spoken. And got a non-reply saying something like ‘no, but you can never be too careful - better safe than sorry’.

lol @FacebookLocals I love ours for the sheer nonsense that goes on!

I was chatting about it to a service-user I was working with (as he was from same area) and he told me his DD (early 20s) posted for a laugh one night: “I’ve just heard a strange noise. Anyone know what it might be?”. She got over 60 responses in about 10 minutes from people outraged that she hadn’t given enough info. Hilarious.

Hahahaha, I'm using that next timeinstead of saying "ooh, hypocrite warning". 😅🤣

What irritates me the most on ours, is the latest occurrence of businesses from elsewhere in the country, posting on allllll the local groups they can find throughout the UK! “Covering all of Derbyshire” This is North Yorkshire love!

I get a bit suspicious with jobs being advertised. You just know they're going to be dodgy.

Oh and 17 years olds, or their parents, asking if there's any jobs about. I can imagine some pervert or dodgy employers rubbing their hands with glee upon reading that post

The begging posts on ours are phrased in such a way that it sounds like the poster is doing the giver a favour.

"Any of you lovely people want rid of a gas BBQ? My little chicks are desperate to have one so you'll make them sooo happy. We're looking at <insert long description> and must be at most a year old and come with a gas safety certificate from a recent check. I know the tip won't take them*, so there must be someone who would love me to take it off their hands rather than it just sitting there.
Ps can you deliver as I'm a single mum, who's just had an operation so can't drive, to five children, two with SEN, and new-born twins..."

• *Not true. And even if the tip wouldn't take it, if you left it outside one of the scrap metal people would have it within 24 hours.

Come to think of it, it isn't too different from the begging threads on here.

There's someone on ours who posts about her homeschooled 12 year old who will do cleaning, babysitting, dog walking etc... I always tempted to comment "isn't that just child slavery?!" but I don't. Threads are always filled with supportive comments from the mum's friends.

Say you will take them on when you see their DBS and insurance. I bet you will get silence.
At 12, give your own kid pocket money. Chores around the house etc.