Imagine if you will… Yesterday 18 September 2008 we were driving to check the mail and do the banking at Westfield Helensvale on the Gold coast in Australia.

Incident occurred at 12.20pm

We drove down Smith St not a problem, stopped at the red light, when it was green we turned onto the side access road. Without warning this long dark haired guy from Atlus traffic control wanders across the road twirling & waving this sign whilst trying to have a drink.

Mind you as we couldn’t tell & we assumed no one else could see or tell what the sign was, which almost caused a 4 car pile up. To us it appeared the 3 drivers in front in typical Gold coast style were ignoring the controller. At this point the controller seemed to panic and started shouting abuse at anyone in ear shot.

we assumed the 3 cars in front sped off after the near accident to avoid being caught or involved. We were only able to get 2 of the 3 cars make & registrations numbers which were Hyundai PKS 67 and Daihatsu 560 GUI. This was due to the fact it appeared the cars were doing in excess of 80 kilometres an hour.

The whole potential nightmare could have been avoided by the fact of the lack of signage to which there was none warning of roadwork’s. Also a more thorough screening process of the applicants for the controller’s positions. We personally know the basics of the traffic controllers training as we have one in the family and also many Police.

The only time we saw this kind of thing happen with the Gold coast Police was in 1992 at the Southport bridge when about to go past a random breathe testing unit. The Police officer looked like he was swatting at flies. It turned out he was meaning for everyone to go into the queue to be tested. 1 guy misunderstood and he was chased a couple of metres and caught. Maybe these traffic control businesses need to get some power and lessons from the Police.

We hope that this post brings attention to the fact many businesses are causing more harm than good, in the lack of training or suitability for the jobs, such as Atlus traffic controllers.

If you have any experiences like the above we can be contacted through our email or Dan at Parkwood police station knows us.

Rent prices set to increase again what about carpet cleaning prices and the people do not like it. We think it is about time the government stepped in and controlled rents as in America getting straight to the point of the matter.

Many tenants improve the properties such as we do some examples shown in the photo below.

Here is the bottom line as per our previous post drought-and-petrol-cause-prices-increase we feel the media were wrong. We believe the economy is causing the price increases and that landlords / real estates are getting the cherry on top as a result.

If you look at our previous post you will see rents should now only be $165 a week based on the current average carpet cleaning price of $30 a room.

Some example calculations

1. The industry could set the carpet cleaning price at 1/5 of the average renters rent. Which in 1990 1/5 of $140 rent was $24 a room carpet cleaning, so in 2007 1/5 of $275 rent is going to cost you $55 a room carpet cleaning.
2. or
   The industry could set the carpet cleaning price at 8% of vehicle registration of $600 currently, to give a carpet cleaning per room price of $48.
3. or
   A couples basic benefit from centerlink in 1995 plus rent assist was $660 the rent price was $330 a fortnight. Bearing that in mind the basic benefit plus rent assist in 2007 should be $1150 a fortnight meaning 3 br house rents should be up to $575 a fortnight.
4. or
   wages were $8-9 an hour in 1990 wages are now round $15-17 an hour therefor to backup the above the carpet cleaning price should be round $45-51 a room. The rents would have a fair price of say $220-250 a week.

As you can see using just one industry example the unfairness property owners / real estate agents are causing to the rest of the population.

We know there are many more examples and industries affected by this problem who could all go on forever in the debate of who is worse off however we need to get the government off there padded wallets and doing something about it.

So all of the media is requested NOW to harass the government to sort something out about this BIG rental property vs service price and wages ISSUE and make life more fair for the good old Aussie battler…

It is highly unfair that landlords / real estates get away with renting properties out with so many problems and nothing gets done about this issue. Only the bad tenants hit the news what about exposing the real estates and landlords.

More info on the rental issues unfairness available at the links below

Drought and petrol cause prices increase including the cost of living with groceries and the like, now many services are starting to put up the price also as a direct result. Some services have not had any prices rise for quite some time. One such example is carpet cleaning.

FOR 17 years customers enjoyed low carpet cleaning prices up to $24 a room In line with ENORMOUS rentals, petrol, car rego, price increases our industry has to increase prices to survive.

In a recent conversation with an aquaintence who runs a pizza, fish and chip shop we discussed this matter of price comparissons. He found the same issue we have with his fish and chips & pizzas. Pizzas were $12 to $24 ten years back and today they remain the same.

We are wondering have you been affected as much as the carpet cleaners who are like you just trying to earn a buck to live.

2008 PRICE FORECASTED related to carpet cleaning

What is related

buyers-landlords-a-wakeup-is-needed.html

Teca Landlords tenants

Teca register