In thinking that a couple living in a one bed flat with 2 kids should not have decided to get 2 dogs ?

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Am watching tower block of commons and really don't see the logic in this.

Both dogs are peeing everywhere, those children have no beds and there little playspace is saturated in dog urine.

Children deserve a bed at least and cleanish floors to play on, makes me feel

Seems selfish, they have little money and feeding two dogs of that size is not cheap.

Feel really sorry for the poor girl in temporary accomodation tho.

DoingTheBestICan, nobody has said there is anything wrong with claiming benefits stop being manipulative.

And yes, I should be chancellor at the very least, although I do aim for a mumsnetters world leadership.

DoingTheBest - yes, a lot of people on benefits don't take the piss & many people do have shitty luck.

However, an awful lot of people on benefits don't appear to even be aware (much less care) that there may be a better choice to make.

For me, it's about responsibility.

And so I think it would be no bad thing to have a level of work for benefits.

Furthermore, far more should be done for the working poor - I hate seeing people who have gotten into rent arrears because they've sincerely tried to get off benefits. (No, EPP & 3 weeks 4 days of work and a rapid reclaim doesn't count. You're just working the system.)

I also think that couples on benefits should get more for staying together, as at present there's financial incentive to split (whether for real or pretend).

Plenty of people have very real physical and mental problems or issues, but do their best to take responsibility, as opposed to expecting the state to carry them.

Food stamps? Cards for food? Ain't gonna happen - "human rights" will kick in (yeah, cos wearing your pyjamas to go shoping wasn't a dead give away as to your socio-economic status).

It wouldn't matter anyway. If you're set on buying stuff for yourself or dogs instead of your children, then that's what's going to happen.

TiggyR well said

JuJusdad Well said yerself, Sir.

Well, so much for the guy downstairs.

He was stabbed to death last night, possibly in Glasgow, where he was last seen alive, although apparently that is not where his body was found.

If the council moves another waster in there, well, we'll get to live with their anti-social shite behaviour again.

Wasters and useless feckers are the reason so many decent people (who are unlucky enough to be poor no how hard they try in life) end up being stereotyped, and they end up having to live with the shite that the rest of us just read about in the papers. And that is just plain wrong. We need a zero tolerance policy to eradicate the dependency and entitlement culture we've allowed to flourish, and hopefully that (in a generation or two) will result in fewer damaged and vulnerable people ending up in the same depressing cycle. We need to give the working classes back the pride they used to have. Sadly we are still enabling some ill-equipped, ill-prepared people to acquire children with the same haphazard lack of forethought that they acquire dogs.....

Too true TiggyR

ooh i was going to don my judgey pants and jump straight in to the fray, but these people have to be somewhat lacking in the IQ department. The council are failing the family if they are living the way the OP describes (refuse to watch program - hate those sort of, oooh look how shit that family is, makes me feel so much better about myself car crash tv).

Firstly, they shouldnt be allowed the dogs, its not fair to anyone - or the dogs

secondly, they should be adequately housed.

Some people just can't help being uneducated and sadly this often leads to rubbish parenting, however this is by no means exclusive

Well, this guy was genuinely feckless and a waster, God rest his soul.

A person whose only work was selling drugs to whomever including teenagers, who never saw his own two young daughters, who threw all his rubbish out in the communal area rather than pay for a rubbish bin, who partied nearly every single night, effectively ruining our lives, who fought nonstop (he was on heroin and speed, by his own admission, so slept little), had parties iwth people fightning in the corridors and out in the yards, etc.

He was maybe late 20s.

Gangs started chasing him (they obviously caught up with him) for God knows what, and you know, we didn't give a flying fuck why he behaved as he did.

He was an adult who had plenty of support to get clean.

He chose not to.

We lived the next month being awoken by gangs trying to break into this flat, including Eastern Europeans who knocked on our door checking to see if there were anyone else in the building, worried his flat would be petrol bombed and we'd be killed, etc.

Now I can only imagine whom they'll move in there next, it's used by the council as a flat for the homeless and it's only one-bedroom.

Well said JuJusDad and TiggyR.I think we can certainly find a place in the Mumsnet Political Party Cabinet for you both........I guess we need a token bloke and JuJusDad does make a lot of sense!

Don't you wonder why, when so many people share these opinions (re the feckless and long term bone idle etc)that not even the right wing papers seem to say a much along these lines?

I am an unashamed Daily Mail reader (probably on a par with the Devil!) and only a rare few of their journalists brave an article on these matters.

To quote TiggyR:

"It's what has allowed people like Amber to think we are all entitled to get ourselves into any old pickle we like and the government should pay, whilst others struggle valiantly with real problems."

Amber, never said or suggested any such thing sweetheart.

What I was getting at, was that two adults and two kids in a one bedroom flat is over crowded. That was my only and original point.

Kindly refrain from either using my name in vain or putting words into my mouth, thank you.

If jobs are being given out can I be security for PM or chancellor. I'm 5"10 you know

But excusing it because they can't help it just allows to hideous cycle to self-perpetuate! We need to be brave enough to shout 'Stop!' Of course it's tough on some people in the short term but it's the only way to improve things in the long term.

Who is excusing it?

Sorry, crossed posts - lat comment was to Lemprefersdogstocats

Amber, your only point seemed to be that the taxpayer was somehow letting these people down by not giving them bigger accomodation. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps they let the taxpayer down by not planning their family a bit better and waiting to move up to a two bed flat before having a second child? Or do they exist in some kind of parallel universe where free contraception, free family planning advice and free abortion has not yet been invented? The reason some of us manage to make a relative success of our lives is not because of silver spoons or superior intellects, it's just about plain old common sense and self-respect.

Bloody hell Expat - I was so pleased when you got your flat (after all those damn battles) but it seems to have been a nightmare what with those neighbours.

What a bloody situation to deal with - you must have been worried sick.

Food stamps - no I do not agree with that. I was actually thinking about it on the way home. I really do not think that is the answer. It is not the right course to make people feel more marginalsed and untermensch that they already feel.

God knows what the right answer is, but that isn't it, I feel.

In our local flats dogs aren't actually allowed ...... Housing association tho not council. I thought this was the same everywhere, or would that be too sensible??

Thats very easy for us to say Tiggy - i essentially agree with you, but at what cost do we say STOP?

I hate all this judging of benefit claimants - it is often lack of intellect that means that they can't plan out their lives to do the whole: University, good job, career break, baby, back to work lifestyle. I am also a bit uncomfortable with you alluding to free abortion - not something someone should be forced into just because they didn't plan their family according to our standards. What do you suggest then Tiggy - a program of sterilisation??

LOL expat for some reason I picture you living in a cottage in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, surrounded by heath etc (or whatever it is you get in Scotland).

No idea why or how I have formed this mental picture.

tiggyr all very well talking about foodstamps etc but then some weeks i cut back on shopping to buy clothes or some weeks i do mange to save a bit , not for fags,booze nights out for me , is for a day out for dc ice creams etc when at park

So how would that benefit me

but i do agreed no reason for dogshit and piss on the carpet

LEMprefersdogstocats TiggyR also mentioned free family planning advice and contraception but you only picked up on the abortion!

I have been pregnant twice (when I wanted to very quickly) and have used contraception effectively for the rest of the 29 years I've been sexually active. I only had the children I could afford to have, didn't have any with my second husband because we needed my earnings as well as his.

For me the Mirena is a brilliant invention! It's not rocket science - go to doctor, have one fitted, no babies! Simple!

Ok maybe part food stamps - part cash? At the moment there's nothing to stop someone feckless spending the majority on booze, fags, the bookies and feeding the kids crisps! The case in the programme spent £42 out of £150 on fags alone!

What is the answer?

MorrisZap That docu stuck in my head too. It was on years and years ago wasnt it?

The young woman was seemingly totally unable to make the connection between NOT buying two packets of fags and buying some bedding for her kids.

She wasnt a lary great moaner. It was almost surreal. I am pretty sure I was on benefits at the time. It was before the battle of the supermarkets so you couldnt buy duvets for £3.50 but you could go to a charity shop and buy blankets for a quid.

trouble is someone would soon sell their vouchers for cash so they could still but their booze and fags and thos ethat put themselves first will always find a way

i knew people that would sell milk tokens so could get ten fags