Our Ironing has been stolen - SETTLED

Every week for years I have had my ironing collected one day and delivered back the following day, all on hangers etc. All I do is leave the black sack of clothes in my porch make a phone call and the man that does the collection/deliveries knows to collect it from there.
Yesterday our neighbour wanted some extra rubbish clearing from her drive, so she left a note for the binmen to collect a '£10 tip' by ringing our door bell, which the binman duly did at around 11 am . No one else has been to our door all day, at 4pm the ironing guy rang the bell and asked where the bag was, yes you guessed it, the binman has taken our bag of clothes with him and its no probably somewhere languishing on a tip in Pitsea, Essex.
I've rang the council's rubbish collection dept who are saying 'how do you know they took it', 'can you prove it' etc etc all the same lame questions.
I've got a name a number of the person on the phone and she promises to investigate and get back to me tomorrow.

sapphire

[enaid]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

Sappy you have had some tough luck over the last few weeks, I can't believe this has happened to you now. I can't keep my face straight as I am typing this and I am so sorry. When you have written the book chuck, please let them make it into a film.

PS. I hope you get your clothes back though as well. Enaid xxx

[Paule]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

I would contact the local police and report it as a theft.
Your neighbours note only told him to collect a Tip from you, NOT the rubbish as this was left on their drive.
Tell the Police about the council bin men etc and let them investigate.
If nothing else, you will have a crime ref for your insurance claim.
It could be that it has been stolen by others, if people realise that cloths are being left for collection, it is a variation of a charity scam in which they just sell the cloths in a Vintage Shop

[WendyB]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

I can't believe some people! Perhaps the binman thought he was doing you a favour by taking what he thought was rubbish. Or like PK says, perhaps someone else has nciked it for whatever purpose.

On the other hand, I wish someone would steal my ironing lol. Mind you they'd need a blooming low loader to take it away, there's so much of it!

[Guest]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

At the risk of seeming uncaring here I'd like to point out that you left a black sack - universally recognised as a rubbish sack and indeed called a "bin liner" - on your porch when you knew a binman was going to come to the door to collect money, albeit for a neighbour.

I think you know that you have lost those clothes.

PK, as much as I admire your faith in the police, I would be astonished if they did a thing about it.

Sapphire, nobody cares but us and I am not sure what you can do about this. If you did make an insurance claim, you would have to explain how your clothes came to be outside your house, in a black sack. Some might consider that you had not properly taken care to mitigate any potential loss and any subsequent claim could amount to fraud.

Furthermore, you will also need to take into account the principle of betterment.

In the event of a claim where the thing reinstated improves your position, the principle of betterment applies. For example, following this removal and disposal of your clothes, it is not possible to replace them without buying brand new clothes. You would then be in a better financial position with brand new clothes than before, therefore betterment applies and the insurance company would very probably give you less than the value of any excess that you would have to pay.

It would cost you very little to telephone your insurance company to find out however and I think that would be a better use of your time than telephoning the police or the council - neither will care one bit and do you really want these clothes back now, considering where they have been?

[Sapphire]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

Thanks for that guys, its given me food for thought.

Our bag of ironing was placed in our porchway that is 'Enclosed' with a glass sliding door, we also have a large plant and a couple of golf umbrellas in that place and no one has taken them away as rubbish.
I chatted to our neighbour last night and this is what was on the note that she left on her binbags yesterday.
'Please take away the broken wardrobe that is situated on my drive, and call at No.16 for gift/tip'.
The binman rang our bell and by the time Les got to the door, the binman was at the back of the dustcart and the postman was also delivering our house and he said 'not me mate, he rang the bell' to which the binman turned back from the dustcart and returned to our door and Les gave him the £10 tip for taking away the next door neighbours wardrobe.
No one else called at our door all day till the ironing guy arrived around 4 ish, when we realised that the bag of clothes etc had gone missing.

Update:

Spoke to young lady last night and she said she'd have a word with the crew this morning, she called at 9ish and spoke to Les and said if it was worth £50 they would pay up. Les said that he thinks it comes to well over that, so it was arranged that I would make a list and approx cost to replace. Have done that its around £1200. Have left a message and am waiting to her to come back to me.
Won't hold me breath though.

sapphire

P.S. I am now so fed up is our luck ever going to change.

[WendyB]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

Good, at least you might get something back. My ironings not worth a light, let alone 1200 quid:roll: if I'd got any clothes worth that much I'd be frightened to wear them lol.

[Sapphire]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

You'd be surprised how it adds up, think of it 2 weeks ironing, and add it all up, t-shirt, jeans, tops, shirts, quilt cover/pillowcases etc etc especially as we always have Reebok/Cotton Traders t-shirts, Jeans are expensive, also I had a good dress from Marks and Sparks (we went out on saturday) and bedding well !!!!!!!

Update:

They have just phoned and I have to send in a claim to the council insurance lady.
Will post up letter etc as and when.

sapphire

[WendyB]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

Hope you get some money out of them, soon would be good but don't hold your breath..... at least its something, and the council haven't just fobbed you off.

In the meantime, does this mean you and Les are wandering round in just your undies or PJ's.

Only one black bag for 2 weeks ironing? If I sorted out my conservatory (or should I say ironing dumping ground) I'd have a whole new room, and about 20 black bags lol. And as for the dirty washing...well lets just not go down that avenue

[Sapphire]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

Here's the letter that I have just sent off in the post:

I have spoken to Karen Bomford at Street Care who has advised me to contact yourself regarding the following matter. We have our ironing sent out fortnightly, and have always left it securely in our enclosed porch without any problems at all. On Sunday our neighbour at no.14 asked us to pass a gratuity to the refuse collection operatives for collecting her rubbish that was placed on her driveway. She left a note on her rubbish for the operative to knock and collect the gratuity from our home.

Yesterday 26th November 2007 we placed our fortnightly collection of ironing in our fully enclosed porch-way, and telephoned the ironing service to ask them to collect.
At around 11 am our doorbell rang and I proceeded to answer the door (around 30 seconds passed), then I opened the door our postman was there who said ’it wasn’t me, it was him’ and directed my gaze to your operative (a young man). The operative was standing at the back of the dustcart and turned and walked back to my door and I handed him the gratuity from my neighbour.
We had no other callers all day until -
At 4 pm approx. our door bell rang and it was our ironing service man who asked where the ironing was, my partner xxxxxxxxx then called to me and asked if I had moved the bag of ironing to which I replied no I had not. We then had to send the ironing service away without anything to collect. It dawned on us that the refuse operative had taken the bag from the porch and had indeed thrown it into the dustcart.
My partner xxxxxxxx then called Street Care and spoke to a Karen Bomford on 01268 xxxxxxx and explained what had happened. Ms Bomford was very sympathetic and promised to investigate and return to us this morning.
At 9 am Ms Bomford telephoned and said that she hadn’t been able to speak to the ’crew’ involved but if we were to accept £50 for the ironing the matter would be cleared up. I replied that we had spent a lot more than that on our items and that was not acceptable, and I would speak to my partner xxxxxx when she returned home and she would calculate what was missing and also a value.
xxxxxxx has spoken to Ms Bomford and told her that our ironing was indeed worth a lot more than the £50 offered and she was told that she would take further advice and call her back.
Ms Bomford returned the call and gave her your details and has directed that we write to you outlining the situation and listing the missing ironing and its worth. Ms Bomford also stated that she had yet to speak to the driver, but said that he was working with Agency cover yesterday.
Whilst in the porch way the bag would have been obscured from general view by passers by, due to one of our cars being parked in front of the porch.
We have taken advice and have been informed that this could be considered as theft from our property, obviously we would expect to be compensated for the replacement costs of the missing items, and list these as follows:

8 Mens Reebok Polo Shirts @ £25.00 each £ 200.00
6 Mens Reebok T Shirts @ £ 35.00 each £ 210.00
1 White Shirt £ 25.00
1 White Dress Shirt £ 45.00
1 Pair Mens Jeans £ 45.00
1 West Ham 1958 No. 6 shirt
(a 60th b’day present) £ 50.00

14 Assorted Ladies Reebok T shirts
@ £ 25.00 each £ 350.00
4 Ladies tops from Dorothy Perkins
@ £ 30.00 each £ 110.00
1 Pair Ladies Jeans £ 45.00
1 Dress from Marks & Spencer £ 80.00

1 Continental Quilt Cover and 2 Pillowcase covers
From Debenhams £ 99.00


TOTAL £1259.00

This list is as full and comprehensive as can possibly be remembered, we are sure that there are other items but cannot think of them at this precise time.

I would appreciate you addressing this as a matter of urgency. If you fail to respond to this letter in the next 7 days I shall be forced to report this matter to the police.


Yours faithfully

[Sapphire]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

Well the letter has been received and the lady herself has called me 3 yes THREE times today

1st call - To acknowledge receipt of our letter and to say that they will be setting up and claim etc and hopefully will come back with some form of an offer within a few days.

2nd call - To ask how old the stuff was, so I replied that most of our T-shirts are recycled March/April time, ie new for the summer. West Ham shirt was a 60th birthday pressie on 7 Sept 2007, the2 shirts were brand new and have to chase round finding a replacement for the dress shirt on Sat as we have a masonic bash in the evening, and the dress was relatively new. Oh the bedding I said was around a year/18 months old.

3rd Call - To ask how much the neighbour left as a gratuity for the dustman for taking her wardrobe away.

sapphire

[Paule]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

3rd Call - To ask how much the neighbour left as a gratuity for the dustman for taking her wardrobe away.

That will be the binman getting a warning for taking backhanders... msl:

[enaid]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

I didn't think they could do that TBH

[Paradox]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

They're not allowed to accept tips as a general rule.

They're also not supposed to collect from anywhere but the kerb side due to health and safety regulations (at least thats the rule in Harwich, Essex). I'd check this with the council.

They have admitted taking the ironing, if they are prepared to make an offer, which is a start.

[Sapphire]

Re: Our Ironing has been stolen

Got this letter Saturday:

I acknowledge receipt of your letter of 27 Nov.
This matter is being investigated and further correspondence will be sent as soon as possible.

sapphire