Saur charges

So has anybody else received there NEW type water bill whereby if you have a Gite, mobile home or a part of your property you rent out separately you pay separate standing change for each, even though your single feed and meter is unchanged. You couldn't make this stuff up.

We don't have any collections from houses anyway! You have to put your rubbish into your car and take it to one of the bins located around the village. On the other hand for non food rubbish we have a superb decheterie open two half days and one full day which is free for non trade waste. You can get high vehicles in no problem unlike in Kent wher you can't even get a Discovery in. There you have to park it outside and drag you stuff in manually! As everybody says it's an industry. At least we don't get fly tipping here in Brittany.

We're subject to this scam too. Our previously perfectly good bin becomes redundant. We have to rent a smaller bin from the organisation that runs the system (one of the usual suspects masquerading behind the badge Communauté de Communes).

We don't produce enough rubbish to warrant paying the weight charge so they charge us an exorbitant minimum charge anyway.

Multiply the above by two since my parents half of the property has been split off from ours and we're making some shareholders very rich and benefitting the environment not one bit.

Complain to the Mairie and they just raise their eyebrows, exonerate themselves from any direct responsibility and put us onto the operation they put in place.

I think you have hit the major difference Nick. Socially, and boy is this a general comment.....the French are brought up to be very polite...as you say, kisses, handshakes...always acknowledge aquaintances etc. .....but... in work....French companies act almost as if social niceties...ie. good customer services....take too long and can be dispensed with, almost as if customers do not warrant niceties as they are not friends or aquaintances. I would love to do some research into French companies and their lack of good social manners. Well done with the dog...wish I had one!

This makes me think of the several times EDF simply cut off the electricity in our hamlet for repair works without telling us upfront. As we make a living by using the internet (as a web developer and a translator) you can understand that we were not happy when we noticed we had no internet and tried to find out why. No internet means not being able to work. We had to look for anybody in the village with internet where we could work that day... Back in Holland we would have received a letter 2 weeks before telling us they would cut the electricity on day X from Y time till Z time!

An enormous EDF cherry picker thingy arrived in our drive yesterday and started chainsawing branches off my trees. There was no "hello" or "by your leave". I sent the dog out ! That got them scuttling back into their lorry until one of them condescended to wind down a window and ask if I'd call off the dog. Hugo barks madly at visitors but what they didn't know was he'd lick them to death if he got within tongue range. Apparently they were clearing branches that could potentially touch the power lines. But just like customer services in France - a lack of common courtesy. Strange really; because socially, common courtesy (the kisses and handshakes and bonjours) is a major plus in France and I'm sure its a reason for the relatively good behaviour of French young people; in that they've been brought up like that by their parents.

As said rubbish collection. No fancy chips here. I recall that I paid 130 euros for house that was only occupied 2 weeks in a year. Fully let now and the tenant pays it direct.

we notice that we pay very high housing taxes...despite no garbage collection....we complained that we were being taxed for an uninhabitable pigeon house on our land....it looks lovely outside, but inside is manky.....has rodents living in it...we have had the water to it and electricity cut off...yet they sent around an inspector at 7.50 a.m. one morning....asking if he could check our pigeon house....I think once he saw it, he realised no one would want to spend more than 2 minutes in it...am waiting to see if we receive a reduction now.

Thanks, Terry and Tracy!

Hi Nancy, Terry beat me to it, its for garbage disposal! We have a new system this year whereby we pay a standing charge then an amount each time they empty our bin, which has a chip (puce) in it. We have a rental apartment in our house with a separate bin and apparently we will receive one bill with both bins itemised so we can pass the charge on to our tenants - so they say!

Household rubbish

David, What exactly is "Ordures Menageres"?

Be very careful. The Mairie may add Ordures Menageres too which is expensive even when there is very little occupation of a gite.

Incidentally, when did you have this? assuming you have one because we had ours and paid it in January with no mention of any extra charges.

I can not see how they can legally get away with that because there are not two meters. I assume that you have had a bill? Have you challenged this?

Don't have that problem but they changed my meter today- no doubt I'll receive a supplementay bill. Apparently they are obliged to change them every ten to fifteen years although that must be a new one two as my original home here had the same meter for thirty years!

Haven't had that one yet, but how would they know?

I sincerely hope not. This is legalised theft, yet again!