They dug up my prize garden – because it made people sneeze (From Worcester News)

Jobs worths, overreaction, stupid, unnecessary. Are they now going to cut down all the trees in the area? Are they going to keep all the grass verges clear of grass, because grass pollen is probably the most common enemy of the heyfever sufferer? Are they going to decimate the garden displays of all the other residents - just in case? The mind boggles.

I'm a hay fever sufferer but this is just stupid. I noticed these jobsworths waited until she was out before digging up her property. I have a massive allergy of stupid people, can we trim the herd of these idiots please, sacking the prat who made the decision would do.

Another example of why the cut backs need to be continued in the public services so more people like this can be made redundant.

This is just ridiculous, how pathetic, churlish and underhand are Barnleigh Housing Association. This just continues to sum up the absurd behaviour and incompetence displayed by staff delivering public sector services. With people like this being employed in public services, cuts need to be made and fast.

What a bunch of unpleasant neighbours that lady must have that they couldn't see beyond their noses and appreciate the hard work, effort and money that had gone into creating a pretty display. I imagine that the flowers brought butterflies etc in to the area and now they have even fewer places to go about their business.

This is quite unbelievable. The manager who authorised this piece of work should lose his or her job. As for the neighbours who made the report - words fail me.

Goldenrod is an insect pollinated plant. It produces a heavy sticky pollen, not a light dusty one that floats on the breeze.
So it is very unlikely to be the cause of anyones problems.

psychoflump wrote:
I'm a hay fever sufferer but this is just stupid. I noticed these jobsworths waited until she was out before digging up her property. I have a massive allergy of stupid people, can we trim the herd of these idiots please, sacking the prat who made the decision would do.

Ha, ha. I too am allergic to stupid people! Its a sad world we live in when a dear old lady cant have flowers in her garden! bless her.

Quote from Wikipedia...
Goldenrod is often unfairly blamed for causing hay fever in humans. The pollen causing these allergy problems is mainly produced by Ragweed (Ambrosia sp.), blooming at the same time as the goldenrod, but is wind-pollinated. Goldenrod pollen is too heavy and sticky to be blown far from the flowers, and is thus mainly pollinated by insects.

It would appear that the only way the complainants could suffer from the pollen is if they pushed its flowers up their nostrils!

The victim has some very strange neighbours, and if I was her I would complain about their bizarre, and unreasonable behaviour!

The manager(s) responsible for this of this heartless, ignorant, thoughtless and unnecessary act should examine their conscience and attempt to learn something from the hurt they have caused their victim.

An unjust cowardly action, nothing short of criminal damage

Stuart Wollaston, chairman of Barnleigh Housing Association, said: “As far as the association is concerned we feel that we have taken the appropriate action.

What a clueless idiot - Pollen is carried on the wind it could be from any location within miles. I suggest the Housing association get hold of some Agent Orange from USA and blanket bomb the area next time.!

I hope the lady concerned is actively seeking advice about the possibility of seeking redress through the courts. Barnleigh Housing Association should be hung out to dry.

Absolutely disgraceful. What has happened and how it has been handled is more reminiscent of a Communist dictatorship than how a Housing Association should treat an elderly lady.

If Mr Wollaston thinks that what his organisation has done is appropriate, maybe he should be asking himself whether he is the appropriate person to be Chairman,

Others have commented that the plant in question (Goldenrod) does not produce the sort of problems afflicting the neighbours. The Housing Association only needed to do a bit of research to establish the facts. I suggest both the neighbours who complaiined and the housing association get together and buy Julia a big bouquet of flowers and replant new goldenrods as an apology.

Don't cut the grass as the pollen could be dangerous to hay fever sufferers,my daughter gets bad hay fever from grass pollen.Stuart Wollaston, chairman of Barnleigh Housing Association, said: “As far as the association is concerned we feel that we have taken the appropriate action.” RUBBISH Mr Wollaston.

Mr Wollaston and his organisation should be publicly shamed, while there should be calls for him to be sacked and offer Julia Mason a personal and sincere apology.

This is like a 17th century witchhunt, which of course had little to do with witchcraft, but was more about setting scores and vendettas in a small community. Call someone a witch and she would be dealt with. And isn't it strange that the workmen turn up to do this while she is out of the house at a hospital appointment. This has to be about more than just flowers and pollen.

I suggest an e-mail to:

administrator@barnle
igh.co.uk

This all seems a little odd.

I get the feeling that something else is going on here.

Sending contractors to destroy a garden while the owner is in hospital. Very strange.

I suffer from hay fever but would never have other peoples plants destroyed to stop me sneezing.

What worries me is how the housing bosses fell for it.

A totally ridiculous decision. Like many others here, I'm a hayfever sufferer. I just take the appropriate medication and get on with it.

I'm way more bothered by fields of rape than I am by anyone's garden, but I doubt anyone will tell the farmers to dig up their crops.

This is a classic authoritarian, unaccountable, public sector management response. Makes you wonder how much these people get paid.

This really does beggar belief, but I'm not surprised at the actions carried out by the housing association as this is just a typical bully-boy, poorly thought out, cowardly act from the public sector. Worse of all is that they don't believe they have acted incorrectly or show any remorse.

saucerer wrote:
This really does beggar belief, but I'm not surprised at the actions carried out by the housing association as this is just a typical bully-boy, poorly thought out, cowardly act from the public sector. Worse of all is that they don't believe they have acted incorrectly or show any remorse.

@ the previous two posters, Barnleigh Housing Association is nothing to do with the public sector.

Also, she doesn't own the property so it isn't her garden.

pronstar wrote:

saucerer wrote:
This really does beggar belief, but I'm not surprised at the actions carried out by the housing association as this is just a typical bully-boy, poorly thought out, cowardly act from the public sector. Worse of all is that they don't believe they have acted incorrectly or show any remorse.

@ the previous two posters, Barnleigh Housing Association is nothing to do with the public sector.

Also, she doesn't own the property so it isn't her garden.

It might not be her garden but surely they can't just go in and work on it without the proper authorisation or contact with the tenant,what next they just walk into houses without permission because the tenant doesn't own the property.

Hay fever is for wimps!

pronstar wrote:

saucerer wrote:
This really does beggar belief, but I'm not surprised at the actions carried out by the housing association as this is just a typical bully-boy, poorly thought out, cowardly act from the public sector. Worse of all is that they don't believe they have acted incorrectly or show any remorse.

@ the previous two posters, Barnleigh Housing Association is nothing to do with the public sector.

Also, she doesn't own the property so it isn't her garden.

Housing Associations are hardly private sector either, they are akin to the public sector in their attitude and ineptitude!

"She doesn't own the property so it isn't her garden"? Excuse us while we all doth our caps to the Lord of the Manor. They no doubt accept her rent payment each month so that entitles her to enjoy the property as though she owns it. If it were a private property who would have dealt with it? The Environment Agency? Probably would have had the sense to research the plant. The Police? Maybe they could have got an ASBO put on the plants?

chapski75 wrote:

pronstar wrote:

saucerer wrote:
This really does beggar belief, but I'm not surprised at the actions carried out by the housing association as this is just a typical bully-boy, poorly thought out, cowardly act from the public sector. Worse of all is that they don't believe they have acted incorrectly or show any remorse.

@ the previous two posters, Barnleigh Housing Association is nothing to do with the public sector.

Also, she doesn't own the property so it isn't her garden.

Housing Associations are hardly private sector either, they are akin to the public sector in their attitude and ineptitude!

"She doesn't own the property so it isn't her garden"? Excuse us while we all doth our caps to the Lord of the Manor. They no doubt accept her rent payment each month so that entitles her to enjoy the property as though she owns it. If it were a private property who would have dealt with it? The Environment Agency? Probably would have had the sense to research the plant. The Police? Maybe they could have got an ASBO put on the plants?

Barnleigh are a private, not for profit housing society providing low cost housing to the elderly. There is a waiting list as long as your arm for vacancies.

When you live in this type of place, there are rules that you have to abide by and if you don't like the rules, don't live there in your nice cheap bungalow.

I'm pretty sure the grounds are all communal and there are contractors that look after them. It seems to me therefore that Ms Mason's horticultural misdemeanours have been tolerated for over 20 years, until more recently when probably a number of other tenants complained and the committee were forced to take action.

Read the story again, its taken two years for it to come to this and I know there will be reams and reams of committee minutes on the subject. This is not about 'Housing bosses', as the third rate journo likes to call them, sending workmen to dig up her garden.

I'm afraid WN have had the wool pulled over their eyes on this one.

The reality is that the behaviour of the Barnleigh Association towards Ms Mason was disgraceful, and not how you expect a moral, respectable organisation to behave.

I hope that this story can be concluded by the managers apologising to their victim for their unreasonable behaviour and we can all move on.

Lew Smoralz wrote:
The reality is that the behaviour of the Barnleigh Association towards Ms Mason was disgraceful, and not how you expect a moral, respectable organisation to behave.

I hope that this story can be concluded by the managers apologising to their victim for their unreasonable behaviour and we can all move on.

If that is the reality, give us some facts to support your claim.

Ms Mason is lucky to live there and she knows it. There are plenty of elderly people who would really benefit from being in her position.

To call her a victim is nonsense, and what do you mean by 'managers apologise...and we can all move on'? All sounds a little dramatic.

pronstar wrote:

saucerer wrote:
This really does beggar belief, but I'm not surprised at the actions carried out by the housing association as this is just a typical bully-boy, poorly thought out, cowardly act from the public sector. Worse of all is that they don't believe they have acted incorrectly or show any remorse.

@ the previous two posters, Barnleigh Housing Association is nothing to do with the public sector.

Also, she doesn't own the property so it isn't her garden.

Housing Associations come under the remit of the Housing and Communities' Agency (until the next quango is sorted), a non-departmental public body.

So yes, for all practical intents and purposes, they seem to be public sector.

pronstar wrote:

chapski75 wrote:

pronstar wrote:

saucerer wrote:
This really does beggar belief, but I'm not surprised at the actions carried out by the housing association as this is just a typical bully-boy, poorly thought out, cowardly act from the public sector. Worse of all is that they don't believe they have acted incorrectly or show any remorse.

@ the previous two posters, Barnleigh Housing Association is nothing to do with the public sector.

Also, she doesn't own the property so it isn't her garden.

Housing Associations are hardly private sector either, they are akin to the public sector in their attitude and ineptitude!

"She doesn't own the property so it isn't her garden"? Excuse us while we all doth our caps to the Lord of the Manor. They no doubt accept her rent payment each month so that entitles her to enjoy the property as though she owns it. If it were a private property who would have dealt with it? The Environment Agency? Probably would have had the sense to research the plant. The Police? Maybe they could have got an ASBO put on the plants?

Barnleigh are a private, not for profit housing society providing low cost housing to the elderly. There is a waiting list as long as your arm for vacancies.

When you live in this type of place, there are rules that you have to abide by and if you don't like the rules, don't live there in your nice cheap bungalow.

I'm pretty sure the grounds are all communal and there are contractors that look after them. It seems to me therefore that Ms Mason's horticultural misdemeanours have been tolerated for over 20 years, until more recently when probably a number of other tenants complained and the committee were forced to take action.

Read the story again, its taken two years for it to come to this and I know there will be reams and reams of committee minutes on the subject. This is not about 'Housing bosses', as the third rate journo likes to call them, sending workmen to dig up her garden.

I'm afraid WN have had the wool pulled over their eyes on this one.

How ridiculous does your reasoning sound - reread it!

pronstar wrote:

Lew Smoralz wrote:
The reality is that the behaviour of the Barnleigh Association towards Ms Mason was disgraceful, and not how you expect a moral, respectable organisation to behave.

I hope that this story can be concluded by the managers apologising to their victim for their unreasonable behaviour and we can all move on.

If that is the reality, give us some facts to support your claim.

Ms Mason is lucky to live there and she knows it. There are plenty of elderly people who would really benefit from being in her position.

To call her a victim is nonsense, and what do you mean by 'managers apologise...and we can all move on'? All sounds a little dramatic.

You state that " Ms Mason is lucky to live there and she knows it." Does this mean that she is expected to kowtow for the privilege? Your arrogant attitude certainly implies that!

Housing Associations don't work that way, most are charities, trusts, co-operatives and a few are companies. Although independent they are regulated by the state and commonly receive public funding. In 2004 the British government accepted an EU ruling that considered housing associations as public bodies for the purposes of procurement.

The Barnleigh Housing Association is no exception, and it also boasts that it leaves the tenants in control of internal decorations and the care of small areas of garden. The grounds, including grass and hedges, are cared for by their contractors.

So, having set the context, let us move on to the WN article. Some jack-in-office decided that Ms. Mason was growing plants that caused floating pollen. Ms. mason is an experienced gardener and if she had been approached about the issue she would undoubtedly have been able to explain that is not the case. Instead an underhand approach was used and while the victim was attending hospital her bed of flowers was dug up and turfed over. The excuse was versed that the plants had been causing pollen distress to her neighbours.

As the only way anyone could be affected by pollen from Goldenrod is if they stuffed the flowers up their noses, the jobsworth responsible has made the Barnleigh Housing Association a laughing stock, and obviously hurt badly the lady in question, who is a keen gardener and will have felt like a parent loosing a child.

That is why anyone with a shred of decency would apologise to Ms. Mason and ensure that she has some sort of recompense for this high-handed and disgraceful deed, such as re-instating the vandalised flower bed.

The whole episode has brought no credit on the Barnleigh Housing Association.