The bins, the bins! Letters in the bin! No bins! etc

I'll assume everyone living on Crossfields got the letter about bin cleaning from Lewisham Homes on Wednesday, or was it only a few of us – like the letter about clearing balconies that only went to parts of Holden and Frankham...

Or the letter from Thames Water/Thames Tunnel about the bore holes that were driven into Farrer House lawn today that no one got (the bloke on site said Lewisham Homes were tasked with sending out the letter)...

Or the letter from Morrison's/Southern Gas telling us in advance about the road closure that also went to no one so that no one knew about the three week no-go zone....

Or the letters that no one got about the scaffolding that was going up outside their windows and staying there for a couple of months for apparently no reason...

According to Mike Smith, Lewisham Homes Caretaking Manager, who attended the TRA meeting Thursday evening, this is a job for the caretakers. "It's part of their job description," he said, beaming. Delivering letters. Sounds like a job for a distribution company to me.

So are the caretakers sitting on over a thousand odd undelivered letters, or are the originals hiding on someone's desk uncopied? Did the utility companies in question never give them the letters to copy and distribute? Was it just that no one thought to tell us? We'll never know.

Rather than waste all that paper delivering (or not) letters to individual households, a simple solution would be to re-instate the NOTICEBOARDS at the foot of each stairwell and put the information there for all to see.

Anyway, to the big news that we actually received:

"As part of our continuing drive to improve the standard of cleanliness on your estate, we have appointed a contractor to clean the Rubbish Chute, Bins and Bin Chamber to your block.

The cleaning will be carried out on 1st August – 5th August between 9am and 4pm. 

Please do not use the chutes while cleaning is in progress."

Wow, that's great, we've only been waiting five (+?) years...

But oh, right, it takes a week to clean my bin? Hottest week of the year coming up, loads of rubbish piling up? Good timing! Excuse me, but can your contractors SYSTEM HYGIENIC not provide you with a schedule of cleaning? Have they not done this sort of thing before and not know how long it takes?  How about a day each? How's about you do my block on Monday and you schedule the other blocks accordingly, then I can use the chute on Tuesday to Friday? What is wrong with you people that you can't arrange a piss up in a brewery?

See 1st July post about caretaking and bins...The actual problem has been reported for years and was last mentioned at the estate walkabout on 6th June 2011. Congratulations, Lewisham Homes, for finally understanding one of the problems about cleanliness and Decent Homes. Way to go! Or rather, quite a way to go yet, but B+ for progress...Or perhaps you just realised there's a saving to be made on the cost of Raid fly spray and rat poison.

Meanwhile, there are still no bins in the Nature Park – a suggestion for the Residents Led Initiative from a Crossfields tenant that turned into a nightmare of paperwork for the tenant and involved at least five council officers. Originally estimated at around £250 the costs became ten times as much when Glendales got involved, resulting in no bins. See "Don't Get Involved"....