Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Who Could Do That?

Today is a rant. I haven't really let loose with one in a little while. I have put up a couple of posts on my other site Becs Beauty Buzz about the flooding that has been happening in and around my hometown of Brisbane and the aftermath of it all. I mentioned how proud I was to be an Australian when I see everyone pulling together to support each other, even though we are all complete strangers.

This is just the opposite. Today I want to talk about the people who are using the flood for their own profit. It started with smaller shops charging extortionate prices for everyday items to people who had no alternate but to buy them as they had been cut off from other options by the flooding. There have been reports of some stores charging up to $10 for a single loaf of bread, and by that point it wasn't even fresh!

Then there were whispers of "volunteers" showing up to help clean out the damaged property and mud from the houses that went under who were taking out unaffected items like flat screen TVs and the like and walking out with them pretending that they were damaged and they were hauling rubbish away when in reality they were taking one of the few things that people had left.

There were stories of people who were taking boats off the river which had come loose from where they had been anchored due to the force of the river and loading them up on trailers and claiming them as their own under maritime law.

Most recently, there were reports of "tradies" coming along and taking a deposit for repair work on flood damaged houses "so that the owner could beat the rush" and then never returning. I highly doubt most of these people were tradies to start with to tell you the truth.

This kind of thing makes me so incredibly mad. This has really detracted from all the genuinely good work that people have done in providing shelter, food, water and help in general. All it takes is one idiot like those jerks who are stealing items by saying they are damaged to make the already fragile people who have lost almost everything distrustful, and I can totally understand that.

That's today's rant. Come back tomorrow for another, much angrier one about how the insurance companies are now not paying up. My blood is boiling just thinking about it all.

Be awesome to each other.