It has been some four months since the daughter phoned us up to say her car had been stolen from inside her remote controlled garage. Even though the car was recovered within a couple of days, the police impounded it because it had to be used as proof in a court case. The sales yard where the car was recovered from had bought the stolen vehicle from the thieves and claimed innocence. A police Court case ensued. Our daughter was told she would have to go without the car for a while. She thought though she would get the car back soon.
It is a complicated story but she finally got it back yesterday. No apology or explanation from the police. They expressed surprise the car wasn’t returned immediately! We gave her our car to use in the meantime. As time went by, we too had to get around and after driving past a car on the highway with a “For Sale’ sign, we ended up buying the car. It looked nice and had no obvious signs of being previously crashed. It was a car built by Bayerische Motoren Werke. What made us decide was that the owner told us you can drive this marvel of German Technology with all four tyres flat. Now, there is car which gives a new meaning for driving flat out.
However, now that our daughter finally got her car back, we took the train yesterday to Sydney to retrieve our car, the Peugeot (with foot-rest). However, we don’t need two cars. The BMW is smaller with endless electronic gadgetry for which one needs to take a couple of weeks to plough through the manual. A baffling mix of so many options on heating, steering, lights, the seat tilting up, down, sideways or forward. Locking of doors and bonnet alone takes a PHD to comprehend. However, as we again became embroiled in the Strata Body of our housing complex, and a heated dispute about parking problems, Helvi thought it best to keep both cars in order to give the neighbours something to worry and speculate about.
Just as things had calmed down and peace returned, the painting by the Iranian born Father and Son contractor and conflicting claims of priorities to some owners resulted in the percolating up of dormant problems. Some owners claimed their patch of front garden had been trampled on. One owner reckoned her Rosemary bush had been snipped. The colour of paint was wrong, or not enough coats of paint. Some demanded their town-house be painted first. It just kept on bubbling away. The usual fights of periodontal suffering pensioners, all keyed up and nowhere to go. So little available irony despite all the attempts for seniors to do fitness classes.
In any case. We will keep both cars for the time being. The rego is free for one car but not for both. There is a limit to our Government’s generosity towards pensioners. We would like to claim our spot of visitors parking which is next to our garage. The neighbours opposite us have three cars. One for each daughter and one for husband and wife. We get on well with them. They also are considerate enough to have lots of potted plants in front of the house which gives us a glowy feeling. Kindred souls so to speak. They were nice to the painters.
Spring is on its way. Millions of daffodils are nodding in parks and nature strips. All is well and the daughter has her car back.
Oosterman Treats Blog 
August 11, 2016 at 1:15 am |
Chuckle. You do lead an eventful life. When you want to sell the BMW, let me know …
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August 11, 2016 at 2:56 am |
It was Helvi who slowly circled around the car that the owners had put up for sale opposite where they were living on a main road. She liked its ‘shape.’ With H, how things look, is always very important. She put her hand under her chin. I knew she was in contemplation mode.
However, on the way back from Sydney, the car had moved. After some internet trawling I noticed the same car had been up for sale on a site named ‘Gumnut.’ The price since then had dropped considerably.
I sleuthed the owner’s phone number from Gumnut and it turned out to be a young couple living here in Bowral who had bought a larger BMW. She was just about to unpack with her first child. When we arrived she was putting together an Ikea baby cot sitting on the floor. Both were keen to sell the smaller car which was a 2006 model.
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August 11, 2016 at 1:19 am |
Overall, a happy ending.
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August 11, 2016 at 3:02 am |
Very Happy. We have a car and she the baby. A win win. He was doing up a house and told me had spent the previous night in Bowral Hospital as the wife thought she might be giving birth. False alarm, as it was still a few weeks to go. A nice couple. Full of enthusiasm and looking forward to starting a family.
That’s how it is you know. Enthusiasm is so contagious.
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August 11, 2016 at 1:21 am |
So — did they catch the thieves? I certainly hope so. Theft of any sort is an irritation. This theft moves far beyond that, to inconvenience and aggravation.
It sounds like some of your neighbors considered the painting project an inconvenience and aggravation, too. I think Helvi’s idea of keeping both cars as a way of redirecting attention is good. On the other hand, it may simply stir the pot. But of course, that could provide some amusement, which always is good.
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August 11, 2016 at 3:14 am |
Yes, Linda. They caught the thieves. My daughter’s garage door was inspected for finger prints and so was her car which after she regained it from the police yard was still covered in that finger print powder. DNA samples were also taken as the thieves had forged the transfer papers in order to sell it to the car yard. Break and enter, theft and fraud!
My daughter for the first couple of weeks walked everywhere or took Uber transport to her work. After one month or so we let her have our car and we walked for a while. The grandsons needs for getting around was just too difficult to do by walking or expensive for Uber.
As for our Strata-body foibles. You are on the money there, Linda. It will be hard work for some of the co-owners to work out about the cars, and what might have transpired. The endless speculation will be so wild, and no doubt so riveting, it will give them another lease on life.
Again, a win win for everybody.
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August 11, 2016 at 5:13 am |
Your body corporate will keep your life interesting ! No need for overseas travel here !
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August 11, 2016 at 5:48 am |
Interesting, but at times frustrating. Fortunately, we have some nice neighbours. The troublesome owners are bitter and divorced, whose husbands are either dead or are still running over a hill somewhere. Even the dead ones might just lie low somewhere in order to avoid being dragged in for payments of old gas/ electricity bills.
Who knows?
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August 11, 2016 at 5:49 am
Good luck !
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August 11, 2016 at 5:20 am |
Peter has a driver’s license, yet I handed mine in some time ago. Still I own a car and Peter owns our second car. We both get free registration!
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August 11, 2016 at 5:52 am |
Yes, I think free registration is available for both, provided the cars are in separate names. Our two cars are in my name only. Helvi gave up her license some years back. I suppose I could transfer one car in her name. But can you get a free registration on a car of a private non-licensed owner?
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August 11, 2016 at 6:54 am
Yes, you can. Helvi is entitled to own a car, even if she cannot drive it herself.
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August 11, 2016 at 7:07 am
That is good news, Uta. I’ll have to transfer ownership of one of the cars to Helvi. It might mean transfer duty, of course we have to consider if we really want to run two cars.
It seems a bit extravagant.
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August 11, 2016 at 6:53 am |
Is it a NSW thing, this free Registration for a pensioner? They sure didn’t offer me a freebie in Qld or Victoria.
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August 11, 2016 at 7:09 am |
I think Qld gives concessions to pensioners for all sorts of goodies including registration. I think Victoria might NOT be as generous, Yvonne. I think it is about $50.-concession. How odd that Australia has different rules in different states. We also have water rates and council rates concessions.
Of course, in the Senior Citizens Association venues you can get a Sao and Cup-0-Tea for free. The volunteer ladies are always refreshing the plastic flowers by giving them a good rinse. (once a year.)
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August 11, 2016 at 9:08 pm |
We have somehow ended up with four cars. I have a mini, which I share with my daughter. My husband has three cars – one nornal one and two classic. At least he doesn’t have motorbikes anymore …
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August 11, 2016 at 11:48 pm |
The love of classic cars is very popular. I read that classic cars are first on the list of thieves. Apparently they take big money. I had a car stolen back in 1960 or so.
I was so surprised it had gone when I went to the front of our house. I could not believe it and had Helvi double checking it.
It was a Ford Falcon. Very old and deeply rusted. I filled up the rust holes with a mixture of stale bread mixed with milk and then hand painted over it.
The things one does when young and enthusiastic. (foolish)
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August 23, 2016 at 3:40 pm
😀 I wonder how long your unique ‘filler’ lasted? As classic cars, my husband has a 29 yr old Porsche 944 and a 1969 Daimler. It’s a good job I’m cheap to keep …
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August 12, 2016 at 6:15 am |
Glad to hear that your daughter’s stolen car incident is at an end. I’ve had some forced time off, after an altercation with a chainsaw. Don’t worry, all extremities intact, but had a finger wound that needed to be irrigated, inspected and sutured under anaesthetic.
I’ve been looking at scooters/motorbikes to ride to work when our walking access is eventually cut off. I’m attracted to the BMWs but there is a huge range of complexity, with the old ‘boxer’ engines still being simple enough for a back yard mechanic, whilst their more complex engines require a degree just to find the engine.
PS ordered your books from Amazon so that they will invite me to do a review!!
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August 12, 2016 at 11:30 am |
Geez, Big M. Just what Helvi is so afraid of. I used the chain saw today in an effort to cut down large branches of a tree next to our place. She stopped me doing any more. It came to a bruising argument. She reckons I should get the maintenance gardener to do it now, and reckons my chain- saw swinging days are over.
We hope your finger will be alright. I suppose it would have been your left hand seeing you might have been holding the chainsaw in your right.
As for the BMW. This BMW has an engine but I could not find the dip-stick. I went through the manual. It doesn’t have one! I have to go through an electric program switching and pushing buttons all in synchrony and in ‘a certain order’ to get an oil level ‘read-out’. That is a complaint I have about this car. It is too much German wizardry.
One almost expects an order to come through the radio. “Forsicht aber bleibt ruhig.
I just want it to have wheels that go around and gets me from A-to B.
Thank a mucho for ordering the books. I wait with great anxiety and expectations for your review. 😉
I am so grateful for other co-bloggers to have bought my books as well.
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August 13, 2016 at 3:46 am
Thanks Gez, I was lucky enough to run into nurses who I knew, so felt that I was treated like a prince. The anaesthetist was someone I know and respect, more important than the surgeon! A few cm the other way, or a sligtly sharper chain could have taken my hand off.
Yes, modern cars and modern engines, so bloody complex! I was at the motorcycle shop, just browsing, when a bloke and his dog rode in on a pre-war BMW and sidecar. No complexity there, just had to remember to put the dog’s googles on.
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August 12, 2016 at 6:10 pm |
How the heck did they get into the garage in the first place? It seems as if the bad guys can figure out mega ways to invade our privacy. Glad she got the car back anyway. Yes, it’s a good thing to keep two cars in case one conks out. We gave one away to our handyman when his truck was stolen, but all he has done is throw a cover on it and let it rest in his yard. We should have kept it.
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August 12, 2016 at 10:37 pm |
They forced the door and somehow started the car. The car was a late model Mazda. Not easy to steal. Expert thieves always find their way around security and difficulties. The thief was known to the police. The block of home-units were my daughter lives has since put in place a number of security cameras.
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August 13, 2016 at 5:51 am |
Good thinking H elvi, it will mak a ch ange from all the other trivia they seem to enjoy.
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August 14, 2016 at 10:20 pm |
Yes, Dorothy.
A keen watch is kept at all times.
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August 14, 2016 at 9:15 pm |
I envy you having spring on the way… but not the rest!
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August 14, 2016 at 10:22 pm |
The spring is very early this year. I do hope they have the timing of the tulips’ flowering right. The Bowral’s festival’s tulip opening is a date that can’t be changed.
http://www.southern-highlands.com.au/tulip-time
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