Just Some More Stories For You

I have had just about enough of it. I am sick and tired of it.  I want to see it improved already. Why is it taking so long! 

Let me be direct, dear reader.  How many times do I have to go to Devonshire Mall and continue seeing it in the horrible state of disrepair that it seems to be in now. I have to admit that I cannot remember when the work being undertaken in the Mall started. I know that it was in such bad condition before Christmas but I can't remember how long before that took place.

The other question that I have is when will this work be completed. Seriously, what has kept it in such a condition for so long? I did see something on one of the posts that I saw at the Mall the other day when I was there stating that something should happen in the "Summer." Unfortunately, it did not say in which part of summer the work would be finished. I have to admit that my guess is that nothing will be finished until just before Fall comes into play.

Really, the Mall was in such bad shape during the Christmas holiday time that I was surprised. Instead of having something really attractive that would generate a lot of business from the customers who came there during the holiday timeframe, it was so messy in appearance over so much of it.  It really started bugging me.

I hate to be rather cynical about it. However, I just don't see the Mall company doing very much to get the work done much more quickly. One of the reasons is that it is the only major shopping mall in the entire area. Oh sure, there is another mall in the district, but it is not doing all that well either with a number of closed stores and a relatively small number of stores in comparison. In other words, the Devonshire Mall really doesn't have any competition forcing it to act more quickly.  (Unless one thinks that many local people head over to the US shopping malls to do their purchasing anyway.)

Oh well, all I can do is complain. I doubt that what I have written on here will have very much impact on the Mall people. Instead, let me write a few more stories about events that have interested me

PREVENTING FLOODING

For so many years, living in the homes of my parents and then the residences belonging to my wife and me, no matter what the weather conditions were like, I do not remember ever having any flooding in any of these units for about 70 years of my life!

However, after moving to Tecumseh, I have gone through flooding issues for the last 2 years of the 3 years that I am living here. In one of those years, I had severe damage in my basement. Luckily, I had insurance that provided the thousands of dollars necessary to fix the damage and to replace the parts that were destroyed by the flooding. In the other year, I had a bit of flooding but fortunately not enough to cause any significant damage.  Who knows what this year will bring us even after some modification to my condo unit that hopefully will prevent flooding damage.

Unfortunately, who knows how bad the weather conditions will be this year or some other year that may cause more damage in this area. I am sure that you understand, dear reader, how expensive that damage may be. Some of the condos in this area had beautiful basements that their owners had fixed up many years ago, costing tens of thousands of dollars, that were utterly and completely destroyed by all of the water that flooded their basements.  I must give them credit for even considering redoing them and refurnishing them. As I am sure I have told you before, our basement was not fully updated and fortunately, the amount of damage was not outrageous and came within our insurance terms.

What is going to happen now? That does concern me because we have had flooding damage in the past and I am not sure what steps were taken to try to prevent that from happening again. Clearly, not enough to prevent the horrific damage that was caused after the storms in the past several years. One does have to understand what will definitely be done by local governments, and perhaps also the Provincial and Federal Governments, to prevent this happening again. Moreover, one has to be sure that this work will be done as soon as possible and not "postponed" to a later date.

One of the ways of putting things off is to have "studies" undertaken by various people, whether it is the staff of a City or town or some outside consultants hired by them. The easy way to have it delayed is to have the study taking a very long period of time from start to finish. Naturally, if there is no damage done while these studies are being undertaken, then the desire to have lots of money spent to fix up the problems will not be all that supportable anymore. After all, will we want to see taxes increased to pay for those costs when the recent flooding only is supposed to happen every hundred years or so!

Forget all of that nonsense. I do not want more flooding in my basement. Let us insist that action be taken immediately to minimize what might happen here until the "studies" are completed. We must take action now to minimize any more disasters happening. We can always learn what final actions must be taken once the "studies" are provided to us.

Let me tell you how this can be done right away. Remind the politicians that there is an election coming up shortly and if they want to remain in office, they better do what we are telling them to do. Now!

BOASTING

Wow, are Windsorites ever boastful! Being last is absolutely fantastic in this City:

"Windsor boasts lowest apartment rental rates in Canada, report says

For those in need of an apartment to rent in Windsor, the cost for one-bedroom or two-bedroom units remains the lowest in Canada, according to one study

The cost to rent an apartment in Windsor is the lowest in Canada — a couple hundred dollars per month cheaper than London and less than half of what similar units would cost in Toronto." (Dave Battagello, WindsorStar, March 15, 2018) 

Gee, do you think this happens because we are so economically brilliant in this area or could it be perhaps because this area is not doing well financially?  

I must admit that one would think initially that Windsor is in pretty bad shape economically. It just would seem that the last thing that we should be doing is boasting about our low rents. That suggests that this area is in a deep financial problem. Seriously, take the city that you are living in. Isn't the lowest rental rate in your hometown in one of the worst areas in your city? If that is so, then Windsor must not be doing well financially because people cannot afford to spend much money to buy a place here because we don't make much money here.

To be honest, I think it might be difficult to convince someone to come here because of the low rents. Except, this is exactly something that I saw when I first moved to Windsor so many years ago.

The price of buying a house here that was so much bigger than my place in Toronto was a shock. My new Windsor home was much bigger in square footage than my home in Toronto and the land that I had for it was about twice the size. Yet, the price here to buy my new home was substantially lower than the price to buy my house in Toronto. It was much less than half the price! Moreover, everything just seemed so wonderful in this area because, at the time, industry was doing well here and our unemployment rate was relatively low. In other words, Windsor was still low on the economic ladder, but doing quite well for people living here.

To be blunt about it, I would think that this is the true economic position which we need to tell people who probably want to move out of Toronto and other "rich" areas and find somewhere else to live. It is never going to be expensive in our area. That's what makes it such a terrific place to live!