The Vanishing Abandoned Citroen

Informing the council about a nuisance never does any good. They need you to establish a “history” of the bad activity and that can take months. I called the animal people out one evening many years ago because of a dog that had been left alone in a house two doors up and would bark non-stop all night. Two people turned up and promptly said that they were not going to knock on the door as the dog was clearly dangerous and would I keep records of how often this happened so they could talk to the occupants. Gee thanks. I’m paying taxes to feed and house you guys?

Anyway, the other week I got fed up of the heap in the photographs bringing the tone of my street down and more to the point taking up a parking space, so I trotted out, took some photographs, and filed an online report with the Council. I expected to hear nothing, or possibly to be told I would be arrested for a hate crime as the owner was Diverse, or something. Indeed, the next day, a Man From The Council called me and said mine wasn’t the first complaint about the car, he had finally located the owner who lived locally and had dropped a card through his door. Abandoned cars mostly get crushed, so I get that the Council doesn’t want to be hasty, but my caller was talking about “building up a history” and when bureaucrats do that, I assume nothing will happen for at least a year.

The next evening….. it was gone. The owner must have moved it. God alone knows what value they attached to it, but clearly it as enough to make them move it before the Council crushed it.

Miracles.