- Joined
- Sep 7, 2014
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Experts here tell us that we can contract the virus from the air as well as from surfaces. If someone who is infected (whether or not s/he knows s/he is infected) releases particles in the air, they can "hang there" so to speak for at least three hours. So, just by breathing contaminated air, uninfected persons can become infected.
I went to five different shops yesterday looking for essentials. My poor dog had not gotten any exercise for days due to non-stop rain. So far, this has been the rainiest Spring in the last 15 years. Since we had a break from the rain yesterday, I was obligated to take him for a long walk at the park after I finished at the shops. By the time we came home, I was too exhausted to do anything more. Today, I have to go to the post office, the petrol station, the bank, and at least two more shops to look for essentials as they will be in the general area of the post office, bank, etc.
The irony of the "shelter in place" mandate aside from going out to work and/or for essentials is that I go out far more often now, and I visit many more shops now than I would normally ever do because I cannot find essentials like loo rolls, facial tissue, etc., thanks to the antisocial people who are panic buying and hoarding. Normally, I would not go out for food, etc., more than once a week at most. I usually try to buy enough food, etc., in one trip to keep us in good stead for at least two weeks, a little longer if possible. Moreover, I would not normally go to more than two markets each time I do go out to shop. Now, I am going out at least three times a week, and I am going to several shops in hopes of finding what I need.
In addition to going out more often and going to more shops, many people are putting themselves in danger just because they have to go into a shop they normally would not visit because it "might" have the essentials they need. I did this yesterday. For our friends who are not in the U.S., we have a very large chain store here called Walmart. Some of the stores are huge and sell everything from motor oil to children's toys, to clothes, to food and sundries. A few of them are smaller and are designated "Walmart Neighbourhood Market." These smaller stores sell food and sundries. Yesterday, Walmart's website said they had four cans of Lysol aerosol on hand at one of these stores about 3.5 miles from my house. I seriously doubted it, and I very, very rarely ever go to that smaller store, but I went yesterday in hope that I could find loo rolls and Lysol. I parked the motor far away from the others and walked up to the store door. I was shocked and angered that there were no sanitising wipes, and there was no one outside wiping down the trollies. Other customers were walking up behind me and seemed as shocked and angered as was I. Everyone had to grab a trolley and go in for the same reason as myself. I complained to someone at the service desk about the lack of sanitising wipes. He seemed quite sanguine about it, so once I returned home, I went on-line and filed a complaint. Today, I must try to reach Code Compliance so they can investigate. Just think how many people might have been there and have been infected, thus spreading the virus, without even knowing it. Once again, too, I could not find the items I needed. I did manage to pick up some bar soap and a carton of half 'n half, but since I was unable to find loo rolls, facial tissue, and/or Lysol, I feel I risked my health mostly for very little.
Meanwhislt, a friend told me last night of a very upsetting experience she has each day. She works downtown at one of the hospitals in the medical records department. She only just secured this job in the last two weeks. For the last FIVE years the poor woman has been working part time for minimum wage at a fabric store. She does not have a motor, so she has to rely on the extremely poor bus system here which costs her $10 per day to get to work, and although she is only 15 minutes from work via motor, the rotten bus system forces her to take three buses to get to work, and it takes two HOURS to do it. How appalling is that?! Anyway, she told me that the city has put two of the bus lines on double, i.e. instead of one bus at each stop, there are two buses, and only ten people are allowed on each bus at a time in order to comply with the social distancing mandate. However, at what is some sort of central terminal where she has to change to another bus, they have not been observing this mandate. She said 40 people have been squeezing into one bus!
I told her to report the buses, but she said she probably will not bother. She said over the last few years she has reported all manner of horrifying problems with the buses, but nothing ever changes. Apathy has set in. I plan to report it myself today. I know how she feels, though. I regularly report the same problems around here over and over again to Code Compliance and police. My local Code officer has been really good about following up. He has been the best Code officer I have had in at least a decade. Police, however, are severely understaffed, and they claim they can do nothing about some things that happen around here, e.g. harassment from neighbours. It is so discouraging. It is the reason I became a volunteer Code Ranger last Autumn.
As a Code Ranger, I can see a violation and have a letter sent out to the person in violation of one or more ordinances. If violators do not comply within a week, I reinspect and send the case up for a Code officer to come out and speak to them. If they do not come into compliance after a couple of visits from the Code officer, they are cited. Our Code officer came out at least three times to talk to one neighbour in a rental property who was continuously parking vehicles on the front lawn. Finally, the officer cited them. Same thing happened to two nearby neighbours (one of which was the same one parking on the lawn) with respect to trash collection. This is a residential neighbourhood, so everyone pays residential rates for trash collection and water. However, many of the people in this neighbourhood are trying to run businesses out of their residences and push off the costs of running their businesses onto the city and the rest of the taxpayers.
These two individuals are operating handyman businesses and were bringing home huge amounts of waste each day from their jobs and leaving it on the curb. I mean HUGE amounts of waste including broken appliances, building fragments, tons of trees and brush they cut down, bags and bags of all sorts of trash, etc. The dustmen have to pick up all of it, but of course, that fills up their collection lorries more quickly than it should do if they were only collecting normal residential waste, so they have to put more lorries on the route and/or make multiple trips to collect it all, and of course they respond by increasing their rates to the city which then passes on the increased costs to the rest of us.
Our Code officer had one of these people come into compliance pretty quickly, but another one just ignored the Code officer's warnings. The officer came out at least FIVE times to try to convince these people to stop putting out bulk trash from their work. He kept warning them because he felt bad that they are older folks who are still working full time. The Code officers are not happy to issue citations to anyone, but often it is the only thing that gets results. Finally, on the fifth visit, the Code officer had to tell them he would not contact them about it in future anymore, but instead, every time he saw a violation, he would cite them. At roughly $200 per citation, it adds up rather quickly, so they finally stopped. What drives me screaming doolally is that they know they full well they are violating ordinances, and they know that the officer should not have to speak to them about it more than once, but they keep trying to get away with it. These are just two examples. There are numerous other jaw dropping violations, e.g. parking their 18 wheeler, commercial vehicles in this residential neighbourhood, and storing a long line of "pole trailers" down the block, and operating motor repair shops out of their residences, etc. Re the 18 wheelers and the pole trailers, both of these things are done because they do not want to pay to park their vehicles and trailers in authorised areas. The people with the 18 wheelers, for example, pocket $200+ per month by parking in our neighbourhood. I complained about one of these men for over SIX YEARS before they finally got rid of him. Both Code and police were on the case for over six years before he finally stopped parking that massive truck on the street here, yet every once in a while, he still shows up with it and leaves it here for a few days. During the time he has done this, city workers had to come out many times to keep repairing the streets where his massive commercial truck was opening and reopening pot holes. Just think how much he cost the rest of us over six years that I was knew about it and was reporting it alone. I know he had been doing it for years longer than that. You may ask, how can someone get away with that sort of thing for six years or more? The answer is people are frightened to report these sorts of things. They are frightened for their safety and frightened for their property and with good reason. I have been reporting two neighbours who have been overcrowding two small rental properties for over three years now and storing a one ton commercial truck on our block. Police speak to them regularly, but they keep doing it, and although I never caught them in the act, they have twice thrown handfuls of nails in my drive and stolen an item from the back of my house. Police told me there is nothing to be done about it unless they are caught in the act or I capture them on film and they are identifiable on the film. Police advised me to spend a few hundred dollars on security cameras and a few hundred more for someone to install them. Most good neighbours around here just keep quiet and hope they will not be targeted. How is that for quality of life?
What I find so frustrating and infuriating is that virtually 100% of these people who I flag and have a letter sent to them know they are in violation and do not care. They receive a letter and maybe end up speaking to a Code officer, and then they might come into compliance for a short while, but then they soon relapse, e.g. there are ordinances prohibiting parking on lawns, leaving dust bins out on the street after collection, leaving dust bins in the front yard, putting bulk trash on the curb out of cycle, allowing junk to accumulate on a property, storing non-functioning motors on a property, etc. You would not believe how many reports I file a week, and I only cover a quite small swath of my entire neighbourhood. On any given day that I drive around a small area, I witness and report upwards of 33 violations. It is a never ending problem. I do this as a volunteer, but it burns my toast to realise all taxpayers have to pay tons of full time Code officers to follow up on violations all over the city. The costs are huge in terms of jobs, equipment, and loss of quality of life.
There are a lot of violations that I can do nothing about except to make phone calls to various departments. I cannot do nothing about the non-essential shops that remain open except to report them as I find them. I can do nothing about the 18 wheelers except to report them. I can do nothing about what I saw at Walmart re no sanitary wipes and no employee wiping down the trollies, etc., except report it. I can do nothing about the bus drivers who are allow forty thicko riders at one time on a bus. The list goes on and on. I keep reporting for my own sake and the sake of the people around here like my 75 year old neighbour next door who is frightened to death to report anything to Code or to police. We want our neighbourhood to be tidy, green, and healthy, but too many of the properties are rentals that the owners could not care less what their tenants are doing so long as they pay the rent. The owners do not live around here, so they do not suffer any of it, and so long as they are securing their income, that is all that matters to them. I have not seen these sorts of things in many other countries. Whilst I am sure the U.S. is not unique in these sorts for problems, I think we have a lot more of it than many other countries.
The upshot is I feel too many people are not taking this pandemic seriously, just as they do not take ordinances seriously, and I believe it will only be a matter of time until I contract this virus no matter what I try to do to avoid it. I will continue to try to avoid it of course, but I think in the end it will be futile for me and for a lot of people like me. I told my 75 year old neighbour just this week that this may be the year we both die because of this virus and because of how ineptly it is being handled by officials, and because of so many people who ignore the mandates of social distancing and sheltering in place, and because of so many non-essential businesses who insist on remaining open and essential businesses who are not sanitising their premises.
I went to five different shops yesterday looking for essentials. My poor dog had not gotten any exercise for days due to non-stop rain. So far, this has been the rainiest Spring in the last 15 years. Since we had a break from the rain yesterday, I was obligated to take him for a long walk at the park after I finished at the shops. By the time we came home, I was too exhausted to do anything more. Today, I have to go to the post office, the petrol station, the bank, and at least two more shops to look for essentials as they will be in the general area of the post office, bank, etc.
The irony of the "shelter in place" mandate aside from going out to work and/or for essentials is that I go out far more often now, and I visit many more shops now than I would normally ever do because I cannot find essentials like loo rolls, facial tissue, etc., thanks to the antisocial people who are panic buying and hoarding. Normally, I would not go out for food, etc., more than once a week at most. I usually try to buy enough food, etc., in one trip to keep us in good stead for at least two weeks, a little longer if possible. Moreover, I would not normally go to more than two markets each time I do go out to shop. Now, I am going out at least three times a week, and I am going to several shops in hopes of finding what I need.
In addition to going out more often and going to more shops, many people are putting themselves in danger just because they have to go into a shop they normally would not visit because it "might" have the essentials they need. I did this yesterday. For our friends who are not in the U.S., we have a very large chain store here called Walmart. Some of the stores are huge and sell everything from motor oil to children's toys, to clothes, to food and sundries. A few of them are smaller and are designated "Walmart Neighbourhood Market." These smaller stores sell food and sundries. Yesterday, Walmart's website said they had four cans of Lysol aerosol on hand at one of these stores about 3.5 miles from my house. I seriously doubted it, and I very, very rarely ever go to that smaller store, but I went yesterday in hope that I could find loo rolls and Lysol. I parked the motor far away from the others and walked up to the store door. I was shocked and angered that there were no sanitising wipes, and there was no one outside wiping down the trollies. Other customers were walking up behind me and seemed as shocked and angered as was I. Everyone had to grab a trolley and go in for the same reason as myself. I complained to someone at the service desk about the lack of sanitising wipes. He seemed quite sanguine about it, so once I returned home, I went on-line and filed a complaint. Today, I must try to reach Code Compliance so they can investigate. Just think how many people might have been there and have been infected, thus spreading the virus, without even knowing it. Once again, too, I could not find the items I needed. I did manage to pick up some bar soap and a carton of half 'n half, but since I was unable to find loo rolls, facial tissue, and/or Lysol, I feel I risked my health mostly for very little.
Meanwhislt, a friend told me last night of a very upsetting experience she has each day. She works downtown at one of the hospitals in the medical records department. She only just secured this job in the last two weeks. For the last FIVE years the poor woman has been working part time for minimum wage at a fabric store. She does not have a motor, so she has to rely on the extremely poor bus system here which costs her $10 per day to get to work, and although she is only 15 minutes from work via motor, the rotten bus system forces her to take three buses to get to work, and it takes two HOURS to do it. How appalling is that?! Anyway, she told me that the city has put two of the bus lines on double, i.e. instead of one bus at each stop, there are two buses, and only ten people are allowed on each bus at a time in order to comply with the social distancing mandate. However, at what is some sort of central terminal where she has to change to another bus, they have not been observing this mandate. She said 40 people have been squeezing into one bus!
I told her to report the buses, but she said she probably will not bother. She said over the last few years she has reported all manner of horrifying problems with the buses, but nothing ever changes. Apathy has set in. I plan to report it myself today. I know how she feels, though. I regularly report the same problems around here over and over again to Code Compliance and police. My local Code officer has been really good about following up. He has been the best Code officer I have had in at least a decade. Police, however, are severely understaffed, and they claim they can do nothing about some things that happen around here, e.g. harassment from neighbours. It is so discouraging. It is the reason I became a volunteer Code Ranger last Autumn.
As a Code Ranger, I can see a violation and have a letter sent out to the person in violation of one or more ordinances. If violators do not comply within a week, I reinspect and send the case up for a Code officer to come out and speak to them. If they do not come into compliance after a couple of visits from the Code officer, they are cited. Our Code officer came out at least three times to talk to one neighbour in a rental property who was continuously parking vehicles on the front lawn. Finally, the officer cited them. Same thing happened to two nearby neighbours (one of which was the same one parking on the lawn) with respect to trash collection. This is a residential neighbourhood, so everyone pays residential rates for trash collection and water. However, many of the people in this neighbourhood are trying to run businesses out of their residences and push off the costs of running their businesses onto the city and the rest of the taxpayers.
These two individuals are operating handyman businesses and were bringing home huge amounts of waste each day from their jobs and leaving it on the curb. I mean HUGE amounts of waste including broken appliances, building fragments, tons of trees and brush they cut down, bags and bags of all sorts of trash, etc. The dustmen have to pick up all of it, but of course, that fills up their collection lorries more quickly than it should do if they were only collecting normal residential waste, so they have to put more lorries on the route and/or make multiple trips to collect it all, and of course they respond by increasing their rates to the city which then passes on the increased costs to the rest of us.
Our Code officer had one of these people come into compliance pretty quickly, but another one just ignored the Code officer's warnings. The officer came out at least FIVE times to try to convince these people to stop putting out bulk trash from their work. He kept warning them because he felt bad that they are older folks who are still working full time. The Code officers are not happy to issue citations to anyone, but often it is the only thing that gets results. Finally, on the fifth visit, the Code officer had to tell them he would not contact them about it in future anymore, but instead, every time he saw a violation, he would cite them. At roughly $200 per citation, it adds up rather quickly, so they finally stopped. What drives me screaming doolally is that they know they full well they are violating ordinances, and they know that the officer should not have to speak to them about it more than once, but they keep trying to get away with it. These are just two examples. There are numerous other jaw dropping violations, e.g. parking their 18 wheeler, commercial vehicles in this residential neighbourhood, and storing a long line of "pole trailers" down the block, and operating motor repair shops out of their residences, etc. Re the 18 wheelers and the pole trailers, both of these things are done because they do not want to pay to park their vehicles and trailers in authorised areas. The people with the 18 wheelers, for example, pocket $200+ per month by parking in our neighbourhood. I complained about one of these men for over SIX YEARS before they finally got rid of him. Both Code and police were on the case for over six years before he finally stopped parking that massive truck on the street here, yet every once in a while, he still shows up with it and leaves it here for a few days. During the time he has done this, city workers had to come out many times to keep repairing the streets where his massive commercial truck was opening and reopening pot holes. Just think how much he cost the rest of us over six years that I was knew about it and was reporting it alone. I know he had been doing it for years longer than that. You may ask, how can someone get away with that sort of thing for six years or more? The answer is people are frightened to report these sorts of things. They are frightened for their safety and frightened for their property and with good reason. I have been reporting two neighbours who have been overcrowding two small rental properties for over three years now and storing a one ton commercial truck on our block. Police speak to them regularly, but they keep doing it, and although I never caught them in the act, they have twice thrown handfuls of nails in my drive and stolen an item from the back of my house. Police told me there is nothing to be done about it unless they are caught in the act or I capture them on film and they are identifiable on the film. Police advised me to spend a few hundred dollars on security cameras and a few hundred more for someone to install them. Most good neighbours around here just keep quiet and hope they will not be targeted. How is that for quality of life?
What I find so frustrating and infuriating is that virtually 100% of these people who I flag and have a letter sent to them know they are in violation and do not care. They receive a letter and maybe end up speaking to a Code officer, and then they might come into compliance for a short while, but then they soon relapse, e.g. there are ordinances prohibiting parking on lawns, leaving dust bins out on the street after collection, leaving dust bins in the front yard, putting bulk trash on the curb out of cycle, allowing junk to accumulate on a property, storing non-functioning motors on a property, etc. You would not believe how many reports I file a week, and I only cover a quite small swath of my entire neighbourhood. On any given day that I drive around a small area, I witness and report upwards of 33 violations. It is a never ending problem. I do this as a volunteer, but it burns my toast to realise all taxpayers have to pay tons of full time Code officers to follow up on violations all over the city. The costs are huge in terms of jobs, equipment, and loss of quality of life.
There are a lot of violations that I can do nothing about except to make phone calls to various departments. I cannot do nothing about the non-essential shops that remain open except to report them as I find them. I can do nothing about the 18 wheelers except to report them. I can do nothing about what I saw at Walmart re no sanitary wipes and no employee wiping down the trollies, etc., except report it. I can do nothing about the bus drivers who are allow forty thicko riders at one time on a bus. The list goes on and on. I keep reporting for my own sake and the sake of the people around here like my 75 year old neighbour next door who is frightened to death to report anything to Code or to police. We want our neighbourhood to be tidy, green, and healthy, but too many of the properties are rentals that the owners could not care less what their tenants are doing so long as they pay the rent. The owners do not live around here, so they do not suffer any of it, and so long as they are securing their income, that is all that matters to them. I have not seen these sorts of things in many other countries. Whilst I am sure the U.S. is not unique in these sorts for problems, I think we have a lot more of it than many other countries.
The upshot is I feel too many people are not taking this pandemic seriously, just as they do not take ordinances seriously, and I believe it will only be a matter of time until I contract this virus no matter what I try to do to avoid it. I will continue to try to avoid it of course, but I think in the end it will be futile for me and for a lot of people like me. I told my 75 year old neighbour just this week that this may be the year we both die because of this virus and because of how ineptly it is being handled by officials, and because of so many people who ignore the mandates of social distancing and sheltering in place, and because of so many non-essential businesses who insist on remaining open and essential businesses who are not sanitising their premises.
