I’ve got a question…if you see a theft in progress should you get involved or ignore it?
To summarise, I live in an apartment and noticed a courier had left a parcel outside the gate of a house over the road from my apartment building. A few hours later I saw a man try to steal the parcel, and called to him from my balcony saying ‘that’s not your parcel’. He argued it was his parcel, and I said ‘you don’t live there, that’s not your parcel’. Again he said it was his parcel, and claimed that because it was outside the gate it is hard rubbish, therefore he belongs to him. This went back and forth, and some tradies walked down the road and I thought they would support me but instead said ‘call the police, Karen’. At this point I realised that I must’ve looked like Mrs Mangel standing on my balcony spying on everyone in the street!
I’d be curious how others would’ve handled this situation. Get involved, and look like a nosey busybody, or ignore it and someone ends up losing their parcel because the courier left it when they probably shouldn’t have.
Could the courier not leave the parcel inside the gate in the first place?
It’s the gate on the pathway to their front door and it is above head height.
Yeah, we’ve had a few issues with parcels being stolen from the foyer in my apartment building, even with a secure entry… seems like it’s other residents doing the stealing unfortunately.
I got a Parcel Collect delivery ID set up at my local Post Office, so if anything that won’t fit in my letterbox needs to be delivered, I use this as my delivery address instead… It works well.
eg - so my delivery address is now something like this.
Radiohead
Parcel Collect 1027XXXXXX
CHARLESTOWN POST SHOP
CHARLESTOWN NSW 2290
They send me a text message to let me know when my parcel is ready to be picked up.
Most of the time I get parcels delivered to a parcel locker because I don’t trust some of my neighbours ,they might steal it,if a parcel is left outside my front door .or if I’m not home and I haven’t nominated delivery to a parcel locker I’ll get a card or notification to pick up my parcel at Morningside Post Office.l do most shopping online so I’m always having parcels delivered 
I still prefer to shop in store locally, to support local people and businesses and for after sales support eg if the product is faulty.
The only online shopping i do is if it’s something i can’t buy in store locally.
Bit disappointed here that nobody else got involved. To be honest, not sure how I’d handle it but I’ve had two fight or flight times where I’ve surprised myself by choosing fight which I’ll tell in a sec, but if you had the discussion with the person you could have also said that “no worries if it’s your parcel, you won’t mind me taking a photo of you with it to show the actual resident here that you collected it for them” and then get the photo. That way when you do see the actual resident they can see who it was. Avoids the confrontation of them taking it (ie they will probably still take it) but you have evidence of it all for the owner and the police if they want to take it further.
As for the fight or flight thing, both instances actually occurred at my parents house. One night we were housesitting and I heard a noise outside and had a look out the window and saw someone with a torch. It was on the side of the house where nobody ever goes so it was odd. I went down the hallway and saw another torch around the house and it was so bright it looked like it was in the house. My heart rate shot up so quickly. I told my wife there was someone in the house and she didn’t really wake up properly and I somehow chose fight and went to confront the intruders. Which surprised me. I got down to the room where it looked like the people were in and found it was someone outside with the torch peering in then I noticed it was a Police uniform which explains why the torch was so bright. Turns out they had been given that address for a concern for welfare. I talked to them but far out my heart rate was through the roof and they took some convincing that they had the wrong address.
Anyway, the second one happened last week. My parents were away and they got a notification the alarm at home had gone off and they asked me to go check it out, thinking it was probably a dodgy sensor I went round and then found a couple of lights were on, which was odd. Then I found a door unlocked which shouldn’t have been. Then the fight or flight came into play again and I went into the house with my parents on the phone. Thankfully nobody was in there but they had only just left, the alarm scared them off and they didn’t take anything but I then had to get the Police around again and do the reports and spend my night sitting in the house freaking out with appalling weather outside and broken doors and windows waiting for my parents to make it back home - with them doing a trip across Tasmania as quickly as possible in the middle of the night.
Too many break ins and scary things going on these days. After that incident I got new cameras on the weekend and they’ve been brilliant, have set them up around the place and can see some of the night life around the place. Turns out we have a pet cat (the camera records it as a pet) and a rat in the garden, hopefully the two meet up soon.
I’m taking a short break for another week but I’m still going to be volunteering at the RSPCA Brisbane. I still can’t believe it’s almost a year since I unofficially retired. I don’t consider going to the RSPCA work as I enjoy going there and volunteering for them,they are a great organisation and do great work and need their volunteers.
If I can find something cheaper online I’ll buy it. Can’t remember when I last bought something retail from an Australian store .
1 year ago exactly I left my last job of 29 years.If I was still working for that company this year I would have reached the milestone of 30 years.Didn’t get there though, mentally I was in a bad place this time last year and I still don’t regret the decision I made to leave.
I think I stayed there that long because I was scared to make that decision to leave and not knowing what to do in the future,but my severe mental health issues ,arthritis in both knees and lower back eventually forced me into temporary retirement .I’ve tried a few activities since then,nothing was working out for me until I started volunteering for the RSPCA,2 months now and I’m still there. I’ve been working about 3-4 shifts a week,4 hours at a time,I can handle that okay so far.
Everyone there is friendly, and has been nice to me,whether they’re other volunteers or staff members , that’s helped me a lot and I have more confidence in myself.
Now I have RSPCA uniform shirts to wear , and a name badge , and I feel like I belong there and I’m doing something useful whether I’m working in the laundry room or in the cat sections,cleaning out their cages,changing litter trays,checking they have food and water,etc.
I’m not too stressed yet that I don’t have paid work,if I could get paid employment at the RSPCA that would be great, I think I’d be happy working with animals.
I’d like to be employed there as an animal attendant one day, my employment consultant might chat to someone there one day to see what they can do for me,maybe offer me part time paid employment with them in the future.
These days if I have to fill out a form that asks for my employment status, I prefer to say I’m retired rather than unemployed. I’m only temporarily retired,if a suitable part time job offer is available to me of course I’m accept it.There’s just so much I’m not suitable for though, like as a customer service or admin role or in hospitality. I don’t have a bright and bubbly personality that most roles like this require 
I’m happy to continue my volunteer work for the RSPCA for now
Maybe a job for our resident ratings journalists? 
So Tiffany Gomas has been named as the woman in the AA rant video, in all seriousness I actually do believe her, you can visibly see she’s emotionally upset.
Video (for those who haven’t seen it):
What does she mean they aren’t real?
The ghosts. At the back of the plane.
Maybe spotted this bloke in the cockpit?
