I feel in a weird mood...

...I don’t mean frustration ... but like what on earth is the use?

I had reported the cowboys doing next door’s driveway to neighbourhood watch and emailed what I had found. They send out email con alerts.

There was not much else I could do, because it wasn’t me that was being scammed. My neighbour had made it very clear in abusive and personally insulting words to me when I broached (politely) about the effect it was having on me, heavy drilling machinery, concrete dust on my car (he had not warned me work was being done on his property so that I had the option of removing my car to safety, my car paintwork is damaged) etc., and my neighbour made it very clear that the work and home improvements he did was nothing to do with me and he didn’t have to inform or warn me of anything.

This bad state of affairs of the work next door went on for over two weeks. Then the workmen suddenly left. I didn’t think the work was finished, but another neighbour’s son insisted they had gone forever.

Until yesterday. It was early afternoon when I realised there were three white vans outside my neighbour’s property. Different vans than before.

I found Popeye, cat, first, locked him in my bedroom. He was in the bungalow anyway.

I moved my car next, and in moving my car to safety I saw it was the same cowboy driveway workmen. They were working in the back of my neighbour’s property but spraying the concrete. I parked my car elsewhere. Then as I returned I could smell something like turps or paint thinner type smell. It was catching my chest. The big drum canisters had labels on them but I could only see”STANDARD THINNER” on some, which also had a red band of colour on the top. The others were all the same white drums with writing that was too small to read.

I didn’t have my phone on me to take photos, because I had been intent on moving my car to safety.

As I came back in I was really smelling the paint thinner type fumes. They were moving to spraying the front of the neighbour’s concrete by now. They were working very fast. My neighbour’s car was there parked at the end of the road.

I came in away from the fumes. I have asthma and it really wasn’t doing me any good. I looked online because Standard Thinners hadn’t factored in any imprinted cement driveways I had seen as a waterproof/protective type treatment. A quick google and You Tube showed the final protective treatment on cement imprinted driveways was an acrylic substance which was brushed on with a natural bristle brush. And this is not meant to be thinned in any way at all.

What the cowboy workmen were doing was not a brush treatment of acrylic substance, but a spray of something which had horrendous fumes for me. Obviously, if they were using that STANDARD THINNER on the concrete, you couldn’t possibly brush it in, it would have to be sprayed on.

I was going to go out to complain to them and to my neighbour, who I assumed was in the bungalow as his car was there, but when I opened my door I had to slam it shut quick because the fumes hit my eyes nearly blinding me, and I thought my heart was going to stop, when I inhaled it.

I didn't know what to do, so I texted a friend (I can't telephone for help because I am deaf and can't hear on the phone). She said get a photo of the canisters. I managed to get a few photos in the end from the kitchen window.

By this time the canisters had been loaded back into the vans. And the cowboy workmen had gone.

There was nothing I could do, the neighbour's car had gone by this time, so he was vanished from his property (again).

The fumes were still bad outside. The concrete they had sprayed at the end was a few feet from my door I get in and out of the bungalow. I couldn't get out, but fortunately nothing much came in the bungalow apart from through the cat flap which was in the kitchen. So I shut the inner kitchen door and I went to bed early.

This morning, I got together all the photos I had taken on my phone, went somewhere. Showed them. Explained everything I have written on Blipfoto the last few weeks on this. They phoned for me, since I cannot use a telephone with being deaf. I have asked to be kept anonymous (though what good that does sometimes, I don’t know, because people do find out.) So I have now left all this in appropriate people’s hands/bodies/authorities .

Then I went to meet friend in England to get away from here. She thought I should go into the NHS Walk in centre (we don’t have those in Wales). We went. They advised extra of both my inhalers for a few days. And to go to the Minor Injuries unit in Wales if I have any further problems.

It is a foul weather day today. Rain and wind and cold and very very grey which is what my mother said was gas oven weather...that phrase for some reason has never left me...

My blip today was gel plate prints. After inhaling those fumes yesterday, all I could think of was Angel of Death. I didn’t do that as a title for my blip because that was too alarming and might frighten. So if you are still reading this post, first of all in the extra is the pretty lace bits I used for the angel’s wings and you can see the first couple of prints in that extra. Then main blip is Dark Angels.

I need a long night's sleep and I will be back to normal...I hope...


N.B. If anyone is still reading this long post, I urge you, when you employ someone to do something which involves chemicals/liquid substances (whether for buildings/wood or inside or on the ground), then check what chemicals they are using. Are they using the chemicals/substances they said they were using on their leaflets or websites? Do they fit in with current rules and regulations? Check this. It is your health, and maybe your life, your children's lives (or even others) that is at risk.

Thank you for your comments and love.
Take care x