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Post by sandrainsydney on Jul 25, 2017 2:56:36 GMT
40,000 evacuated ... Australian firefighters head to the northern hemisphere in the Northern fire season, Northern American firefighters & water dumping helicopters head south in our fire season. meanwhile life goes on with concerns about your hubby's health & son's family in between homes. Good points are the excellent Canadian health system & availability of suitable housing. Here on the yellow brick road in Oz we also have a good health system (despite it's delays & overcrowding) but lousy housing - prices are sky high & developers keep building luxury apartments & nuffin' for poorer folks. Some slimy developers have been either buying up boarding houses (lowest level of secure housing where the poorest get a bedroom, & share bathrooms & kitchens) & rebuilding them, or building new "boarding houses" & renting out these rooms as furnished studios (bedsitters) asndra
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ragdall
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Post by ragdall on Jul 29, 2017 7:23:25 GMT
Sandra, the developers sound like very nasty people. Are there no regulations to prevent them from driving the poor out into the streets?
I think I've heard of cities requiring developers to either include a certain percentage of affordable housing for low income people in each development or to provide money to build low cost housing in a different area of the city.
Our health system has delays & overcrowding too. We in the north also deal with a shortage of doctors willing to work here and the need to travel to larger cities in the south to access specialized equipment.
The wildfires are still burning, but at the moment none is a threat to a populated area. The main highway is finally open again. They are allowing most of the 11,000 evacuated from William's Lake to return home, with the understanding that they must be prepared to leave again on 30 minutes notice if conditions change. There is still lots of smoke in the fire areas. People who have medical conditions are being urged to stay in evacuations centres for the time being.
My daughter-in-law's offer on a house was accepted on Monday night. The family left Tuesday afternoon to camp in the mountains east of here, then continue into Alberta to spend a few days visiting another son and his family. I expect them back here tomorrow. Hopefully they were able to make arrangements online for the house buying process to continue.
My husband has been doing much better. Still coughing sometimes and tired, but he's up and doing most of his usual activities. He was tired of being cooped up and asked me to take him for a drive by the house so he could see (the outside of) it too.
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Post by sandrainsydney on Jul 29, 2017 9:06:08 GMT
Sandra, the developers sound like very nasty people. Are there no regulations to prevent them from driving the poor out into the streets?Not really, our right wing state government's motto is Open for Business (with their main motto written in invisible ink beside it "Greed it Good") Sometimes developers are forced to include "affordable" apartments in developments but as the base price of a rental property is very high (we have the highest rents in Australia) 20% less for these "affordable" apartments is still out of the range of people on lower incomes. And "everyone" wants to live in small shoddy high rise apartments - NOT! But they are the only thing being built in many suburbs. Today I was in southern suburbia, looking at the 4-6 storey apartment blocks lining the rail lines, & the development sites (big posters outside the 4 empty, vandalised ordinary suburban houses showing pics of what was being built) between 2 large, medium rise developments. In some inner city suburbs former obsolete manufacturing sites become acres of apartments. Five-storey tower springs up next to adjoining semi in Lewisham It looks like a home owner’s worst nightmare. A five-storey apartment block has erupted on a small street in Sydney’s inner west, so close to the neighbouring property that the two buildings are actually touching. What’s worse is the home next door is a semi. In a city squeezed for space it’s one of the more apparent examples of what happens when one neighbour goes it alone and sells to a developer. (read on & check out the pic) What you need to know about living in an apartmentThis Chart Shows Just How Ridiculous Sydney House Prices AreSome of these modern apartment blocks might be fire risks as they are often shoddily built & as our developer friendly govt "cut red tape" builders can asses & approve their own buildings, rather than get outside approval so building defects are everywhere & the new owners are usually unable to get the builder to fix them due yo cutting of more "red tape." Apartment building defects Thinking of purchasing an apartment or unit? Make sure you know what you're buying intoI'd better get off my soap box as I have lots of other stuff to do.
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ragdall
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Post by ragdall on Aug 2, 2017 8:36:22 GMT
Goodness! The rise in prices in Sydney is so much greater than anywhere else. It must be a very desirable place to live? It's unbelievable that a house could be bisected and built up against like that. Strange that it was permitted.
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Post by sandrainsydney on Aug 2, 2017 9:23:28 GMT
a semi is a type of terrace house, instead of having neighbours on each side, it only shares 1 wall.
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maeve
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Post by maeve on Aug 5, 2017 13:58:45 GMT
Back to fires... My sister's home is in the fire evacuation-warning zone in Washington state.
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Post by sandrainsydney on Aug 6, 2017 4:17:14 GMT
We've had no reports on Northern American wildfires on my 2 favourite news sites since Australian fire fighters went to Canada last month, but we do have a lot of USA political info ...
Searches on canadian wildfires august 2017 & usa wildfires august 2017 gives about a million sites per search
sending best wishes to your sister & her neighbours
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maeve
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Post by maeve on Aug 7, 2017 9:40:47 GMT
Thank you.
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ragdall
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Post by ragdall on Aug 13, 2017 17:50:15 GMT
Maeve, I hope that your sister's home is safe. Was she able to avoid being evacuated? Is her area still in danger?
We have extreme smoke here although there are no fires of note near enough to be a threat. Last night black ash was falling like snow, then it rained. Everything is covered in wet soot this morning. I was hoping the rain would "wash" the smoke particles from the air so we could breath clean air again, but it didn't.
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maeve
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Post by maeve on Aug 13, 2017 18:37:27 GMT
Hard to know how close the fire came- my sister is here, while the fire is across the country. Since she hasn't headed home, one hopes all is well there.
I found it takes a long time for soot to clear from the land and air, rags. May yours go soon.
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Post by sandrainsydney on Aug 14, 2017 0:08:59 GMT
still nothing in the Australian media, 2.4million items on google, including this one The only North American news we seem to get is about Trump This week fire authorities started burning off as a preparation for our upcoming fire season. We've had a very dry winter & I could smell the smoke when I woke at 6am, it's 10am now & I can't smell smoke, but smoke is around the metrop area with more hazard reduction expected in the next few days.
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maeve
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Post by maeve on Aug 14, 2017 10:48:12 GMT
Hi, Sandra,
I wouldn't expect you to have anything heard about this fire. It's a small island, of little interest to anyone except the inhabitants.
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Post by sandrainsydney on Aug 14, 2017 14:39:54 GMT
"just" a small part of a large problem.
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maeve
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Post by maeve on Aug 14, 2017 22:01:29 GMT
Yes, exactly so!
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ragdall
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Post by ragdall on Aug 24, 2017 4:08:31 GMT
BC has set a record for "the largest wildfire ever recorded in B.C.". www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/largest-wildfire-1.4257021The big fires are still far away from us. We alternate between days/ part days of intense smoke and days of clear blue skies and clean air. It's pouring rain here tonight but also much thunder and lightning. I'm hoping that it's also raining where the fires are and that the rain will help with the firefighting and the lightning won't start new fires.
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