Latest Moan From You and Me 2025

That's just daft. We can stick "no publicity" on our mail boxes and that stops all junk mail.

There's no 1st or 2nd class here anymore but that's recent and there's just one delivery a day now, including Saturdays. What has changed is the opening ours of our local post office - half days now and not every day.

 

Yes - that's the law @KT53 . Our postie explained it to me many years ago. He was obviously a bit hacked off with it. You have to contact R. Mail itself to stop junk mail, as they're bound by law to deliver it. The signs on doors/letter boxes will only stop the companies who send folk out with their crap.

It's those bags for clothing that get me most. I contact the companies to tell them to stop putting them through my door, and they ignore it - so they get another email. I told one lot that I'd need to go out and actually buy more clothes if I wanted to fill the amount of r*ddy bags we get round here. Thankfully, they all seem to have got the message now.
Fingers crossed.

 

Those bags make good bin liners @fairygirl

 

And that's exactly what I use them for.

 

@fairygirl We have a 'no cold callers etc' sign on our front door but it doesn't seem to stop many. Not long after we put it up we had a double glazing bloke at the door. As he started yapping I pointed at the sign. His response was "If I took any notice of those I'd never get any f'ing sales" When I said he certainly wasn't getting a sale from me with that attitude he told me to f off. A real charmer.

 

Me too. And for putting things in to take to a charity shop of my choice when I do have something to throw out that's good enough that someone else might want it.

 

We don't get those bags here but do have places we can take unwanted items that can be re-used. There's a council run place in La Roche-s-Y and they have a team who repair and refurbish electrical and white goods so I took our old TV - large, flat screen - but it was refused as their repairman had left.

Chappy then went thru every item of clothing and fabric and rejected one of Possum's tops for having Cosmos pussycat hairs on it. First time they've done that. We'll have to keep him out of the spare room whose bed we use for collecting such stuff.

 

I've found the easiest way to deter "home improvement" salesmen (and I say salesmen because we've never had a lady come round) is to just tell them it's a rental/just about to move, even though we own the house. They soon walk off.

It's the charity muggers who are the problem, they don't seem to pause for breath long enough whilst going through their spiel, for you to say no thank you.

 

I usually jump in and say , I dont want you to waste your time, I'm not doing any direct debits.
I like the ones who say, its ok I'm not selling anything, it gives me the chance to say, that's good, I'm not buying anything.

I keep getting on the Phone, Hello my names Mike and I'm you energy saving expert, Bla Bla Bla.
Usually gets told Boll**x these days as I've tried being nice.

 

Strange how difficult it can be to actually donate things - it often makes you wonder how those supposedly in need really are in need.

 

It's difficult to donate clothes because of fast fashion - there's a glut of poor quality stuff that's not worth buying second hand.
The demand for second hand books, cds and dvds has also shrunk. I am gritting my teeth and putting books in the bin when I've finished with them.

 

There was something on the news last week and they were showing some of the rubbish people "donate", they use a lot of the charities as dumping grounds for stuff only any use for the tip.
If you wouldn't want it, chuck it in the bin.

 

I understand that a lot of those donations are sold in bulk for traders who then sell them in marketplaces not only in the poor countries (where it would make sense as means to buy cheap western clothing) but also in other countries not exactly very poor.

When we lived in Southern Italy I bought quite a lot of kids clothes from those stalls, used or unused, seconds etc. Most useful if you needed three kids t-shirts for an Euro.

Not sure where the profit goes, possibly some to the charity organising the collection and selling, possibly not. Anyways it's free stuff that may be resellable for a profit.

Some charity bags have very dubious ads on them with weeping Belarus orphans in dire conditions...