Ave heathens.

For those that have been asking where I went for two years, here's the abridged story. For newer members who don't know or care why people have asked, the following will be meaningless to you.

TL;DR version -> I took a short break from online forums, and now I'm back.

In November 2015 I posted about moving house, and about running into issues with the landlord of the previous place. He'd always been easy to deal with and I considered us to be friends - but then the inevitable happened when I let him know we'd be leaving. The lease had expired and we were on a month-by-month basis, and still gave him two month's notice.

Soon after giving notice, he arrived out of the blue one day and demanded money, claiming the rent was in arrears. I responded strongly that it wasn't, and he tried to claim our rent was paid in arrears, not in advance, unlike all other Cambodian leases. He said ours was different, so I showed him the notarised lease which actually did have the sangkat seal on it, and he went quiet. But then claimed I'd missed a month's rent. I suggested we take it down to the sangkat and start getting legal about it, he declined. It became obvious that he would come and demand money, I'd back him off, and he'd go home to his wife who would ramp him up again to come and demand more money.

He made a truly offensive offer on the brand new 1.5hp inverter air conditioners I'd installed, I declined and said I'd be taking them with me. He tried to tell me it was illegal for me to remove them as they were now part of the building, and legally his. I said that if he paid me a reasonable price for the air conditioners, I would make a gift of all of the improvements and upgrades I'd made to his property, including the copper and electrical work for the a/c's, the CAT5 networking, the cable TV cabling, the HWS units, etc. He stuck to his guns, so I stripped the house back to the original condition. Doesn't sound a lot, but all the cabling was properly done to Australian standards - I'm a network engineer among other things.

A number of posters warned us about him following us to the new house to mark the place, and I honestly didn't think he was the sort.

As we were moving into the new house, we noticed a young man watching from the other side of the road, and paying far too much attention to where everything was put. We left the a/c's and their plants in the carport area, locked up for the night, and went to bed.

The following morning I was up early and disturbed thieves who had already stolen the head units of the a/c's and were apparently still after the plants - the front gates were wide open. It turns out if you don't put the padlock on the gate rings but only on the bolt latch, the little bastards can use multigrips to turn the floor spikes and then just pop the gates. I'll post photos of this, and how to avoid it, in a separate post.

I contacted the new landlord, who was around in a shot and admitted it was partially his fault as the gates were incorrectly fitted. Never any offer to help with replacement costs, though.

Later the next day I was back at the old house, finishing up with moving out, and I noticed the old landlord's nephew moving in two a/c plants - that happened to be the exact 1.5hp models that matched our missing head units. The nephew lived two doors down in the same compound. It would be wrong of me to say that the old landlord is a thieving mongrel bastard, because I couldn't prove that at law without a warrant to check the serials on his a/c head units.

Moving on.

The following night in the new house, and as we prepared for bed we felt the earth moving, but not in a jiggy happy way. The floor was literally vibrating, and our stuff was moving around with the vibration. Our new neighbour was running some heavy (enough) machinery in two levels of his place (we're in a 4-storey pteah l'veang) to make everything reverberate.

Although it was late, I got on the phone to the new landlord and told him we wouldn't be staying, as there was no way we could sleep. He asked to come over, and arrived with a small entourage. It turns out he's a fairly senior okhna, and was at a government meeting which was cunningly disguised as a drinking session. And he was three sheets to the wind.

After coming up to the worst-vibrating floor, comprehension dawned on him, and he asked me to sit quietly while he called the neighbour. The neighbour started the conversation by shouting (time of night, I imagine) and then got more aggressive from there. The landlord quietly asked if the neighbour knew his (the landlord's) name, which he did, and suggested that he get off the phone, find out a little more about the landlord, and then call back.

The landlord, his minder and I sat quietly enjoying a few beers for 15 minutes, until the neighbour called back, this time very quietly and respectfully. Crow was eaten, and the neighbour was told to stop running his machines 24/7. It turns out he has a full garment factory on the go in his house, which was operating day and night. An industrial dryer and an overlocker were causing the vibrations. Call ended.

Five minutes later the neighbour, now riled back up a little but being very careful this time, called back to ask when he was supposed to do business, and was told to operate during daylight, like all other Cambodians.

Next morning I was standing out the front of the property and yeay from next door came out to spit on my foot. That's pretty universal, I didn't need my assistant to interpret that one.

I've since had various good and bad encounters with the neighbour, including me calling him out to "boxing you now" (thanks Jamie) for repeatedly spraying me with water and giggling effeminently while I was using a welder. He declined, and seemed a bit sheepish when his wife came to ask him what the crazy barang wanted now.

Otherwise, we've been building the social enterprise, most posters in PP now know the Bumblebee tuk-tuk around town, many may not know that Bumblebee Cambodia Soap is now being sold in 12 or so stores in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap and internationally. We're focused on working with young adults with hard backgrounds, giving them the opportunity to finish school and go to university while working at the enterprise part time.

We've emptied our own money bucket funding the startup of the social enterprise, so I've gone back to teaching half-days five days a week at a private school to pay our own bills - every cent of profit from the enterprise goes to job creation.

Not a lot else to share, other than it's touching that you heathens have cared enough to ask over the two years I was offline - sincerely - and that I can't seem to find these hundreds of nationals I'm supposed to have bribed, err, converted into my alleged cult. I want to ask the Buddhists on the team if they've seen them, but I don't think my language is good enough for that yet.

So, why am I back now? Let's see...

a) Jamie was about to overtake me as most prolific poster
b) Gonk kept whining about missing me
c) CEO lost some of it's idiot trolls that made CEO a hard place to hang out in the early days
d) Simply, I missed you guys
e) For religious reasons

You choose which two of the above are correct.

Good to see you back Stroppy. Sounds like you e had an eventful couple of years.

P.S I choose options a and c

d

You and I need to get together again and share a few stories. I have a feeling I'll put you to shame, but all in good fun.

I was wondering what happened and was worried at the time I'll admit. Good to hear the story from the Tuk Tuk driver's mouth.

AE86 wrote: ↑Tue May 23, 2017 5:27 pm You and I need to get together again and share a few stories. I have a feeling I'll put you to shame, but all in good fun.

I was wondering what happened and was worried at the time I'll admit. Good to hear the story from the Tuk Tuk driver's mouth.

Happy to.

Heh heh heh! A naughty mod turned this into a poll! I feel so ... unsure of what I feel.

StroppyChops wrote: ↑Tue May 23, 2017 5:33 pm I feel so ... unsure of what I feel.

Are you sure?

Anyway, I'll be finished moving into our new home in a couple weeks, I'll message you then.

AE86 wrote: ↑Tue May 23, 2017 5:36 pmAnyway, I'll be finished moving into our new home in a couple weeks, I'll message you then.

So it wasn't because I didn't delete a post that was clearly baiting you. [I thought it might have been, so I went ahead and deleted it a couple of weeks later. ]

Welcome back!

Username Taken wrote: ↑Tue May 23, 2017 6:42 pm So it wasn't because I didn't delete a post that was clearly baiting you. [I thought it might have been, so I went ahead and deleted it a couple of weeks later. ]

Welcome back!

Someone was baiting me? I missed it.