Thursday, December 8, 2016

A Very Smelly Week

Phew! And Gack! 

That's what I can say about this week as my folks are home a day early for doctor's appointments and to clean up after the power company - in their infinite wisdom - disconnected the electricity to rework the wires on the street for the new building across the road. Then, the day they were working on it, they didn't reconnect their power... well, we didn't get the letter until yesterday; and so missed out on being told completely.

Due to the heat wave and the storms - which kept me at my place - I didn't get to their place until yesterday afternoon... and it was then I noticed an overpowering stench. I thought it was a dead possum... or some poor dead rodent... which had become stuck under the house. I never thought the power hadn't been reconnected; let alone disconnected!

So, I madly made phone calls to my folks, they raced up the coast, while they organised for the power to be restored to their now-smelly house. And today? Well, my Mum and Dad were still working on getting rid of the rancid food from all three fridges and the chest freezer. And seeing they were up until 2am last night, they're just running on adrenaline.

However, Energex won't own up to their problems in how this has affected them. This would affect anyone - and it does! My Dad thinks it's not right to expect people to just be around for the electricity company to drop by and disconnect the power, then come back for them to reconnect it. It's not something people do, and it's not something we would expect of others.
But Energex expected us to do this; and it's unfair to expect us to be home all the time just because this was going on. I mean, if my folks had been on a 4 month overseas holiday and I didn't live close to them, what would have gone on then? In 4 months they would have come home to a house infested with ants, cockroaches and spiders and would have had to replace all their appliances because they wouldn't work.

This is a problem which isn't going to go away. We, the public must do something about it. We have to make sure the electricity industry work for us because they provide electricity to us - and we pay a lot of money for it; and yet still get told how it's going to work from them. Instead of them working to our timetables and working us - the people who keep them in a job - the big companies are treating the public as though we don't have a say.

My folks had food in that large freezer that they were going to use for Christmas Day. Now, they have no food at all! Their insurance company won't help them, and now Energex won't help them - nor will Origin. This is beyond a joke. We must do something to make these industries look at what they are doing. Instead of expecting us to be around when they are doing work, they have to figure out if somebody is home, ask if they're going to be there, make phone calls, email people (this is the age of the internet, after all!) and get on the side of the public who they're going inconvenience. 

Because if they don't, what else are we going to allow them to get away with?  

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