Minor Strangeness (IHTM)

[Eyespy]

Re People living in travel lodges and hotels, There are people who live on Cruise ships. There is a least one permenant resident on the Cunard Queen Victoria.

bit nicer than a Travel lodge.

 

[kesavaross]

I'd be quite happy living in a good hotel. No housework, cooking etc. Even the bed would get made. Sounds ideal.

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

Glad to see others share my appreciation for Skeleton Keys - these two are my key rings:

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

I'd be quite happy living in a good hotel. No housework, cooking etc. Even the bed would get made. Sounds ideal.

Room Service! Picking up the phone to order whatever you'd like!

 

[catseye]

At one time people without their own property to live in would retire to hotels, or boarding houses if they were poorer or needed more support because of old age or disability.
No doubt most were respectable, but there were scandals over mistreatment or theft, and some proprietors even murdered guests.

After blowing his fortune on high living, Aleister Crowle spent his last years in what he probably hoped was genteel poverty in a Hastings boarding house called Netherwood.

I'd've visited him.

Like the Major and the two old ladies in Fawlty Towers. Their pension would pay for them to live in low-cost hotels. No council tax, no electricity bill and all meals included. Plus company and somewhere to sit of an evening.

 

[MorningAngel]

This happened a few years ago but I’ve been thinking about it lately. Here is a picture of some house I pass regularly and for at least a decade when this happened. I pass them night and day on my way to work. As you can see one bit of the foliage is missing in front of the second house from the left. The other bit that looks like it’s missing is there but pretty dead looking.

One morning I was walking to work (it was dark) and I swear there was a hole further up and it wasn’t just the deadish bit. It freaked me out a bit. Ok I could have been mistaken but like I said I have passed this thousands of times at all hours of the day.

 

[BlackPeter]

Re Keys: I think many organisations use keys that will fit any lock they own certainly because of my former job I know that both the Forestry Comission (now Forestry England) and the Woodland Trust use a standard padlock that one key will fit

 

[IbisNibs]

To add to the problem, she is a heavy drinker, she tosses empty Vodka bottles into the recycling almost every day.

This is a big clue to the problem. That's one way to numb out. Too bad whatever is going on that she has to numb out.
And then you get kept awake because her feet and heart and whole body are numb.

 

[PeteS]

This is a big clue to the problem. That's one way to numb out. Too bad whatever is going on that she has to numb out.
And then you get kept awake because her feet and heart and whole body are numb.

The perils of booze ( says I smugly and none drinkingly). Seriously though it still amazes me how many very elderly women in the checkout at the local Tesco Express have a basket full of wines and spirits and then ask for fags, but no food. I've known middle age women who start drinking as soon as they wake up and by 9am are barely able to stand. One in our group of friends would pass out at the dinner table on a regular basis as well. It's a hidden problem whereas with blokes they get dismissed as "just a p**s head".

 

[Floyd1]

I went to school with a girl called "Woggle", not sure why.

Because if you hadn't done, the authorities would have been knocking on your parent's door.....

 

[Floyd1]

This happened a few years ago but I’ve been thinking about it lately. Here is a picture of some house I pass regularly and for at least a decade when this happened. I pass them night and day on my way to work. As you can see one bit of the foliage is missing in front of the second house from the left. The other bit that looks like it’s missing is there but pretty dead looking.

One morning I was walking to work (it was dark) and I swear there was a hole further up and it wasn’t just the deadish bit. It freaked me out a bit. Ok I could have been mistaken but like I said I have passed this thousands of times at all hours of the day. View attachment 64217View attachment 64218

If I may be permitted to digress briefly; can I ask what the house on the left is roofed with?

 

[Coal]

The perils of booze ( says I smugly and none drinkingly). Seriously though it still amazes me how many very elderly women in the checkout at the local Tesco Express have a basket full of wines and spirits and then ask for fags, but no food. I've known middle age women who start drinking as soon as they wake up and by 9am are barely able to stand. One in our group of friends would pass out at the dinner table on a regular basis as well. It's a hidden problem whereas with blokes they get dismissed as "just a p**s head".

We've got a local lane issue with 'empties'. Currently someone is, on a daily basis, lobbing a white wine bottle out of their window on a 400 yard stretch of a local lane. We've had this down our lane in the past and more than once - typically it's the same type/brand of booze and a pile accumulates until some (Mrs. Coal, among others, does this) collects it for recycling. It kind of suggests that there are a significant number of people drinking on their way home and hiding it from another party.

 

[Mythopoeika]

This happened a few years ago but I’ve been thinking about it lately. Here is a picture of some house I pass regularly and for at least a decade when this happened. I pass them night and day on my way to work. As you can see one bit of the foliage is missing in front of the second house from the left. The other bit that looks like it’s missing is there but pretty dead looking.

One morning I was walking to work (it was dark) and I swear there was a hole further up and it wasn’t just the deadish bit. It freaked me out a bit. Ok I could have been mistaken but like I said I have passed this thousands of times at all hours of the day. View attachment 64217View attachment 64218

Where is the gate or driveway to that place? How does the postman leave any post?
I suspect that the dead foliage is where there was once a gate for the driveway or footpath.

 

[Floyd1]

Where is the gate or driveway to that place? How does the postman leave any post?

To the right where the palm tree is?

 

[Mythopoeika]

To the right where the palm tree is?

I guess it must just be a huge house, then.

 

[Floyd1]

I guess it must just be a huge house, then.

I think one of three. You can just see the genal/ginnel (whatever it's called down your way) separating the second and third house, to give access to the back for the second property.

 

[escargot]

Re Keys: I think many organisations use keys that will fit any lock they own certainly because of my former job I know that both the Forestry Comission (now Forestry England) and the Woodland Trust use a standard padlock that one key will fit

There's a railway padlock key that I have to deal with sometimes, possible No.16, @Carse will know.
Everyone has one except the person who needs it, and if you do get to sign one out, things go wrong and the irate official key-holder chases you down the track.

 

[Floyd1]

@Mythopoeika
I could/should have just said 'passageway'.
Genal (soft G) where I grew up, Gunnel (hard G) here and I think Ginnel in Yorkshire.

 

[Min Bannister]

Where is the gate or driveway to that place? How does the postman leave any post?
I suspect that the dead foliage is where there was once a gate for the driveway or footpath.

Maybe that's the back?

 

[Trevp666]

one bit of the foliage is missing in front of the second house from the left. The other bit that looks like it’s missing is there but pretty dead looking.

Simplest explanation is that there used to be a tree with heavy foliage, just inside the fence which prevented the hedge from growing.
Then they removed the tree and the remaining bits of hedge are struggling to recover and fill the gap.
Go and have a look and see if there is an old stump there that hasn't been removed.
It's not the site of an entrance cos otherwise the low wall would have a break in it.

 

[Floyd1]

The path will probably go in by the palm tree (purple line) and that's how you get to all three houses. There could be a gate into it behind the green wheelie bin but it doesn't look like it. The passageway (red) is for the owners of the second property to get to the back of their house. It's a standard three house set-up that you often see.

 

[Trevp666]

Yeah I expect just the one pathway entrance for all the properties there. But there appears to be 4, not 3, houses - the passageway with the arch is for both the middle 2 houses to get to their gardens. I would expect the ones far-left and far-right have separate access down the side of the house each.
If we knew where it is we could look at the variously available overhead views and work it out.
If we could be bothered.

 

[Carse]

There's a railway padlock key that I have to deal with sometimes, possible No.16, @Carse will know.
Everyone has one except the person who needs it, and if you do get to sign one out, things go wrong and the irate official key-holder chases you down the track.

The railway uses a huge variety of different keys for different applications and in different areas. Standard padlocks are used on access gates in a particular geographic area - I believe the No16 is common in the Midlands, while down south the key of choice is the ‘Abloy’. Round my bit we use the RKB534 and they’re quite easy to obtain (I have a whole drawer full of spares, probably at least 50 though I haven’t counted).

For higher security stuff that you don’t want people messing about with they have different levels of keying, for example a ‘221’ key will open both ‘221‘ and ‘222’ locks but a ‘222‘ key only opens a ‘222‘ lock. Similarly there is a hierarchy of Sub-Master, Master and Grand Master locks and keys in ascending order of security, which are used for signalling locations. To get hold of most of these types of keys you are supposed to have a letter of authority signed in triplicate by God himself but usually people who retire will gift their less common keys to whoever is lucky enough to be about at the time.

A lot of railway staff end up collecting keys from here there and everywhere and a big bunch of jealousy guarded “jailer’s keys” is a sure of sign long service. I have 26 different keys on my ring but I’m still missing some of the more interesting ones!

 

[Trevp666]

When the school I worked at started getting all the doors and windows replaced they (of course) had to bring all the locks up to the present day. Which was great because, as time wore on, and more and more doors got changed, my bunch of keys got smaller and smaller, and I basically ended up with just 2 master keys for all of the main external doors, instead of a key for each.
What was even better was that each door could be issued with a key that only opened that door, while my 'master' did them all.
They were a Mul-T-lock or 'Eurocylinder' key system.
Like these.

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

This is a big clue to the problem. That's one way to numb out. Too bad whatever is going on that she has to numb out.
And then you get kept awake because her feet and heart and whole body are numb.

The perils of booze ( says I smugly and none drinkingly). Seriously though it still amazes me how many very elderly women in the checkout at the local Tesco Express have a basket full of wines and spirits and then ask for fags, but no food. I've known middle age women who start drinking as soon as they wake up and by 9am are barely able to stand. One in our group of friends would pass out at the dinner table on a regular basis as well. It's a hidden problem whereas with blokes they get dismissed as "just a p**s head".

Well this woman downstairs is in her 60s, as I said, and we have watched drunks stagger out her back door, barely able to walk, so they usually stagger back in, leaving us feeling very unsafe.
She is not American, doesn't speak a word of English, and could care less about our laws.
I have gone right up to her when we've seen her outside, right in front of the landlord, demanding that she stop her all-night stomping, and she simply turns her back and refuses to say anything. The landlord speaks her language, he won't do anything.
So now being that we are up early every morning anyway, we have the stereo on and keep it on.
It's quite common for families to 'dump' their unwanted problem people in some neighborhood. Next door there is an elderly man living alone, he is unable to speak or communicate very well, and is left to walk everywhere by his family.
I've tried to introduce the two of them to each other, but no luck -

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

I notice there are many 'connected' houses' in England - are the apartments upstairs and downstairs for each apartment?

 

[MorningAngel]

If I may be permitted to digress briefly; can I ask what the house on the left is roofed with?
View attachment 64227

Just normal tiles, possibly slate.

I’ll tell you something about these houses. Two were knocked down only a couple of years after they were build because they decided to put a large road through where they were.

 

[MorningAngel]

Where is the gate or driveway to that place? How does the postman leave any post?
I suspect that the dead foliage is where there was once a gate for the driveway or footpath.

There’s a path possibly once a gate next to the actual gap and one up the other end by the brick wall.

No the dead foliage has the same crossed fence the rest live on and the low wall with no breaks (like where the two paths are)

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

Just normal tiles, possibly slate.

I’ll tell you something about these hpuse. Two were knocked down only a couple of years after they were build because they decided to put a large road through where they were.

I worked for a roofing company, and that roof looks to be in shabby condition?

 

[MorningAngel]

I think one of three. You can just see the genal/ginnel (whatever it's called down your way) separating the second and third house, to give access to the back for the second property.

These houses were built early 1920s ours was mid to late 20s. Our houses have an alley that leads around the back apart from the end like us where you could get around the back via the side. I think the idea was that people in their dirty work wear would come in the back of the house. That’s probably the same with these.

Trying to figure out the original set up to our house I’ve been researching 1920s housing. I got a book with a great set of architectural plans.