Category Archives: Paranoia

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High rent

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For almost four years we have been renting our little apartment in the middle of the city, in a very green area. The area is called ‘Ciudad Jardin‘, which means city garden.

Our problem is that there is another apartment for rent in our block. According to the website where the apartment is advertised the rent they ask is higher than ours, but we overheard a salesperson talking to potential renters, and this salesperson commented that there was space to negotiate and they could drop the rent for the apartment to 100 euro less. A bit strange to have these negotiations out loud when other renters are nearby, but we’ll just have to profit from this information.

We never had problems with our rent, but now that we know there is room to negotiate, of course we also want a lower rent! Even more so because we are exemplary renters and we made a lot of improvements to our apartment. We painted, repaired and improved. We even addressed the deterioration of the neighborhood and made the area a better place to stay.

Lets see if we can get a new lower rent, and if I can convince Ana to start the negotiations. Due to the crisis rents have dropped everywhere, except for us. We are even renting two apartments now. One for us and one nearby for Ana’s parents. There must be room for negotiation!

Revenge is sweet

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Screwdriver under the hood!I was just called by the mechanic that yesterday charged me two hours for one hour of work. As it seems he is missing some tool, and he presumes the tool is located under the hood of our car. Well, that’s a coincidence.

The mechanic even claimed that I should leave my job and go home to check the car, get to tool, and bring it by his garage. I think he must have been on some kind of mind altering chemical to make these pretty outrageous demands.

We made the deal that this afternoon I would look for his tool and afterwards we will see.

  • Phone inquiry: Free
  • Search: Half hour (15 euro)
  • Return product: Half hour, plus gas and deduction costs car
  • Rounded up: 40 euro

I’m planing to tell him to come and get his tool, or he can wait until I pass by when I’m in the neighborhood.

Result: I am to good for this world. In the end we had to be in the neighborhood, van I delivered the screwdriver to his porch. Still, I managed to secure a discount for the next job. Now I only hope he will remember about this discount, but might he forget I still have the photo proof.

Garage

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Taller Peru!Since we are living in Las Palmas we take our car on a regular basis to the same garage ‘Taller Peru’. Thanks to our old seat we provide our mechanic with a steady flow of jobs. The weird thing is that is seems like our car has a completely new problem almost every month. In recent months we experienced:

The most recent problem with the windscreen wipers was solved quickly and for the nice round amount of 80 euros. The weird thing was the invoice. We needed to pay 2 hours of work (30 euros an hour) plus some small parts like oil and rubbers. Only the car had been in the garage only a single hour! Maybe we need to find us a different garage.

Car breakdown

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Breakdown!!It always happens on the worst possible moment. One day before I needed to pick up my pregnant wife from the airport the cars cooling liquid is forcing its way out of the engine. A situation that does not make me very happy.

I just went to do some shopping and had parked in a gas station. I wanted to fill up the car with its favorite juice, but as soon as I stopped driving I noticed a big cloud of white smoke and a very peculiar smell coming from under the hood. Oh-oh!

It seems the temperature indication is also a bit defective, because it kept indicating the motor was quite cool. My plan is to first relax, have a beer and accept the situation. Tomorrow I’ll have a talk with our mechanic.

Fence

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Big fence!The bamboo solution was reasonably successful in returning peace and quit to our home, but it was not the solution we wanted.

Prior to this solution a number of things had occurred. Discussions with the homeless person, the police would not move a finger, contacting the land lord, a letter to IKEA, investigating Ingvar, you name it. Sadly nothing proved sufficient in addressing the fundamental issues we were facing.

No access!Apparently one of our actions did have an effect. And what an effect it was! This morning I was confronted with the solution to all our problems. A huge fence was blocking all access to the property. A big 2 meter high fence with impressive thick steel bars. Now nobody will be able to enter or exit the property. Apparently the ball started to roll and someone took his responsibility.

Solved again.

Bamboo

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The bamboo solution!Sometimes a solution to a problem is so obvious and so simple that it is astonishing and makes you doubt whether the solution is real or you’re having a strange dream. This solution occurred during our adventure with the house of the richest man in the world. After contacts with our landlord, the local police and even a letter to Ingvar himself, we thought of a creative solution.

It was very easy. We bought a bamboo mat and hammered it against an open wall. This was a type of wall that allowed the homeless to see into our home and allowed us to see the homeless. The bamboo mat blocked all vision that both parties had. We placed some plants against the mat so have a visually pleasing effect.

The result: One day later the homeless person was gone. His old place was cleaned up and the nuisance was ended. There was another homeless living near the pool but this one we cannot see or notice, so we don’t mind. Problem solved.

A letter to Ingvar Kamprad

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Bendigo - chiringito!The situation with our ‘neighbors‘ is still the same and has not improved. Myself and my pregnant wife are getting more and more annoyed by the situation and by the lack of action undertaken by the parties involved.

It was my idea to send a letter to the owner of the property where the homeless were staying but it proved difficult to find the address of the world richest person, Ingvar. I did found out he had a foundation called INGKA that is under his supervision and that controls all administrative affairs of IKEA. A foundation that is actually located in the Netherlands. To this foundation I sent the following letter.

Dear Ingvar Kamprad or representative,

Although you will surely not know me, I would like to introduce myself shortly and address an issue that effects us both. My name is Adrie Berg, and I live in Las Palmas. Although I never had the pleasure of meeting you, we are in fact neighbors. I live next door to your property in the ‘Lope de Vega’ street. We have in fact been neighbors for the last 3 years that I live in Las Palmas even though no-one lived on your property during that time.

The view of my window is over your backyard and the small path you take to enter the backyard. The access to your garden is blocked by a big iron garden door. Sadly, the last few month my home is troubled by some homeless people that have taken refuge in your backyard. These homeless are demanding that we are quiet from around 7 o’clock at night because they leave the house around 6:30 in the morning. As a result my wife is uncomfortable in using the balcony of our own home.

We have talked to the police, but they will not act until the homeless person inflicts physical harm. We have also contacted the agency whose phone number appears on the building, but they don’t really seem to care about the situation.

My wife is pregnant and this raises concern and we would like to address this situation. My suggestion is that you either fix and sell the property which is in a beautiful area, or assign someone to take care of the property. If you want I can take care of this task, but you will need to provide me with some way to enforce my power over the property to remove the homeless, and make the property livable.

Please inform me that you will take appropriate steps the resolve this situation and feel free to contact me with any doubts or questions you might have.

Kind regards,
Adrie Berg

The question is whether this letter will ever be seen by the right person. I have my doubts and suspect it will end up unread in the trash but it doesn’t hurt to try.

Our neighbor, the richest man in the world

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Ikeahouse - From the street!
The building next to us is inhabited by two homeless persons. We usually have no problems, but recently this changed. The homeless felt that some of our friends were bothering them by smoking/talking on the balcony. The homeless told our friends to be quiet (“Shut up!”), so he could go to sleep at 6 o’clock at night in the garden of our neighbors. Unfortunately he met the wrong person, a friend with a very strong character and she started a discussion with the homeless.

Ikeahouse - The bedroom!
‘We live here and we pay rent. You don’t live where you are staying now’, was the core of her argument. The homeless quickly replied that Las Palmas was a small city and that he would me meeting us in the street.

The shouting escalated and the police was called. But they didn’t do anything. First someone had to be injured. Then our friend called the broker that was trying to sell the house (unsuccessfully because the house has been for sale at least the four years that we live next door). The broker told us the price was 1.400.000 euros. 1 million for the property, and 400.000 to make the property habitable. ‘Well, that’s just fine. We would love to have a look’, was her reply. What followed were the details. The house has a special status (Werelderfgoedlijst) and should remain mostly unchanged and the house owner is … Ingvar Kamprad!
Dagobert Duck! or Ingvar Kamprad?!
You are probably wondering who is Ingvar Kamprad, well, this is the person who in 2004 was the richest man in the world, and in 2007 one of the 5 richest persons! He has an estimated wealth between 33 and 51 billion dollars. Not bad at all.

Ikea!Our neighbor Ingvar is amongst other things the owner of the IKEA. Coincidentally our house is filled with his products. Tuesday we’ve got an appointment to visit the house. Although we are very curious to see how this works out, we await the result. Probably the homeless will (at least temporarily) be asked to look for another place to stay.

It is strange that for almost 3 years we have been living next door to the richest man in the world, without ever meeting him. It’s even stranger that the house of the richest man in the world is inhabited by people who have nothing.

Update: the story continues.

The blue bird, solved

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Volendam modified!The blue bird travel agency corrected their mistake quickly. They were using a picture from my website and had hot linked it directly from their website. This meant that for every person viewing their site my website had to send the picture over. This resulted in a lot of traffic where in this month the same picture was send over more then 3000 times.

The solution was easy. First copy the image and then put it on your own website. This way it does not bother me and in 99.9% of the cases I would have never found out. The only risk with using someone else his picture is running into a number of laws. In this case I don’t mind they use my picture. After sending them an email they quickly came up with the solution and that’s the end of it.

The blue bird

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The blue bird!Finally my 5 minutes of fame have arrived… or have they? A Belgium travel agency is offering a new vacation plan. From Belgium to Holland and the return trip on a boat a nice cruise ship.

For sure it will be a nice trip, but what did I notice, for this trip the travel agency has been searching for images online, and one of the images they found is with me! In Volendam! In a typical old Volendam costume! With Cheese, Tulips and an accordion! With some Czech people! This way a typical Dutch trip gets a nice international ring to it.

De Blauwe vogel - The best of Holland!On the left you see an image (click for the big version) if the website of the Belgium travel agency. Of course there is also an online version. My picture (original: Cheese, Tulips and an accordion) is located at the bottom of the page.