monkeycountry

@ johninbkk and teacherpaul

Changing the lock(s) TEMPORARY is not an alteration, as the MOD/poster mentioned change them back when you leave.

Just do it and inform them.

They/he/she (most likely Thai landlord) has no respect for you as a tenant.

@malt25

No I have no ambition to be a mod here. I just like to say the way it is, in my honest opinion, IMHO.

The answer from the MOD/Poster was the correct answer how to deal with this problem.

So, I know this topic will not be closed, but now will just become an off-reply topic, same as so many.

The OP's question was answered, the only way to deal with this in Thailand.

@johninbkk and malt25

You 2 guys/ladies are Thai apologists, Thais can never do any wrong, because we live here in their country as guest.

I agree we are guests and where I come from we treat guests with respect.

Legally speaking it is an alteration no matter what you intend to do later. The landlord could take a picture of the door with the new lock, and assuming changing the lock is considered a violation of the contract, throw you out on that ground. No court is going to care what you may or may not intend to do later, it only matters what has already happened.

What if I decided to remove the kitchen, and then put it back in when I move out? Same issue, just bigger, but it makes it more obvious that it is a violation of the "no alteration" clause, if such a clause exists. What happens if I leave without putting the kitchen back in?

Or what if I steal/borrow the big flat screen tv and the landlord finds out. Can I just tell him I actually intended to put it back later?

People also need/want certain genders for certain jobs in the west. However, since they are not always allowed to write that in the ad, they simply ask everyone to apply, and then throw out all the applications for the gender they do not want. Now that is indeed a much better way to waste everyones time

Or the 4th method, the MWA act is changed, so the MWA can collect the waste water fee together with the fresh water fee. This is obviously the only sensible solution.

I am guessing it will take PM Prayuth about 5 minutes to change the MWA act to include waste water.

This btw should be done countrywide, and for houses which use wells or other sources of water, a flat fee could be implemented depending on the amount of people in the household or the size of the house or similar.

Last but not least, it would of course be nice if this fee was actually used to improve waste water treatment which is really lacking all over the country.

Thailand has more and stronger sunshine hours than most other countries, yet cannot manage to implement a proper solar power strategy. No surprise there.

To those who don't want to be forced to contribute by being forced to pay for government subsidies through taxes or higher electric bills, fair enough, but then please ensure that I in turn am not forced to breathe in the polluted air from the coal/gas plants you prefer to use.

I am quite sure the models have not violated any actual laws, however the individual models cannot do much to defend themselves. Combined the car companies have much more influence, power and money than the ministry of culture. They should therefore join hands, and sue the ministry of culture as well as the culture minister for defaming the models and ruining the reputation of the motorshow.

Worst case they lose and nothing happens, but imo odds are that they win, and that means the ministry of culture would have to be alot more careful for all future events or risk getting sued again. I believe defamation is punishable by jail, something I am sure thr minister of culture would like to avoid.

I don't think the Thai culture ministry have ever been involved in even one case where they did not come out as complete idiots. Thailand as a whole would be much better off, if the culture ministry was simply closed once and for all.

I am sure the current laws regarding indecent exposure, public nudity etc. can handle pretty much any such case without any help from the culture ministry.

I do feel sorry for the people working at the culture ministry though. They all sit in an office all year doing nothing, just waiting for Songkran and the annual motorshow, so they can complain and sue someone and thereby prove to their bosses that there is still a reason to keep them around.

A friend once showed up with no bag at all. He had left Europe with just passport, credit card and phone (and the clothes he was wearing). It was funny at first, but eventually got annoying for both of us, as he (we) had to go and buy everything he needed.

In 1945 Germany surrendered to the Allied governments which were the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia. Those governments signed the surrender documents. Germany did not surrender to Greece....or to Poland, or to Italy etc. The allied governments decided and settled things legally for everyone after the war. Germany has been settling things morally ever since and will continue to do so for quite a while yet.

The allied governments convened a war reparations committee of 19 countries in 1946 which proceeded to ship out to other countries $413 billion of German industry until it was realized it was Groundhog Day of 1919 - 1939 all over again.

So then came the Marshal Plan instead for all of Europe to include Greece which Stalin tried to take control of by insurrection after the war but was stopped by Prez Truman. Maybe the United States should send a bill to Athens for the cost of Greece to it from 1942-1949.

This is an act of shameless desperation in a self-made crisis by a sad and sorry socialist government and society that had long been spending other people's money until there finally was no more of it available. Now it is desperately punching below the belt to try to get some more again. The EU needs to put Greece in its proper place....or properly out of it.

"In 1942, the Greek Central Bank was forced by the occupying Nazi regime to loan 476 million Reichmarks at 0% interest to Nazi Germany. In 1960, Greece accepted 115 million Marks as compensation for Nazi crimes. Nevertheless, past Greek governments have insisted that this was only a down-payment, not complete reparations. In 1990, immediately prior to German reunification, West Germany and East Germany signed the Two Plus Four Agreement with the former Allied countries of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Russia. Since that time, Germany has insisted that all matters concerning World War II, including further reparations to Greece, are closed because Germany officially surrendered to the Allies and to no other parties, including Greece. On Sunday, February 8, 2015, the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras appeared in front of the Greek parliament and officially demanded that Germany pay further reparations to Greece."

Germany paid Israel 3 billion DM reparations did Germany officially surrender to Israel?,

As had been stated, Germany has been settling things morally ever since.

From 1945 to 1990 West Germany had carried the wartime burden of Germans. The 1990 Final Settlement (aka the 2+4 Agreement) was signed by West Germany and East Germany just before unification to, in part, transfer sovereign responsibility of WW2 to the new Federal Republic of Germany.

The Final Settlement, which was signed by Greece. is regarded as the formal end of World War II and everything associated with it, hence its name. Greece suddenly disagrees and others will side with Greece, of that there is no doubt.

West Germany and the Federal Republic of Germany have paid out a lot of compensation to many countries and groups of people, to include the WW2 Allied Governments, West Germany in particular.

Check with your lawyer cause the former DDR may owe you or someone you know some rubles or DM or whatever because they paid nothing to anybody for anything.

Some Greek Jews bless 'em recently had their WW2 claims case thrown out by the European Court on Human Rights because individuals cannot sue sovereign governments (doctrine of sovereign immunity). So the Greek government would have to bring an action and everyone will have to wait and see on that.

The OP mentioned the 1942 loan may be the only legal challenge Germany might not be able to legally withstand in all of this.

Actually I'm kicking myself for getting involved in this thread because as a rule I don't go near Europe's 2000 years of horrendous absurd and extremely long list of self-made messes which are of the highest order of idiocy, slaughter, mayhem.

From the OP

"Even the Nazis felt bound by terms of that loan and paid back two installments before their occupation of Greece ended. The unpaid 476 million Reichsmark would be equivalent to at least 6 billion euros ($6.5 billion) today."

So when should Greece be expecting payment?

or is Greece the only country in this equation required to pay it's debt

Perhaps everyone should stop paying anyone anything until these matters are settled properly (which will take years). This also means no more loans for greece until then. It makes no sense continuing lending money to eachother if you are not even clear on the terms and on who owes what to whom.

I wonder why Greece waited 70 years with these claims? Or have they been officially claiming this money all this time? I also wonder if there is a statute of limitations on debt claims between countries, such as there usually is between individuals and companies?

Just wondering, how good is this for tourism? Some may flee immediately, some may stick around, but how about their stories when they go home? Would anyone make the place their destination for beach activities after being clued in as to what goes on? Lots of beaches in lots of countries thus I don't think this will be luring tourists to Thailand. But, I'll bet it's good for tourism to Viet Nam, Philippines, etc.!

I remember 2004. All the tourists came running over to Samui from Phuket with "great" stories to tell.

I also remember when Bangkok was burned down a few years ago. The next day 2 tourists were in the water at chaweng beach next to me. One mentioned that something had happened in bangkok, and then they ordered another beer :-)

And yes, the waitresses at the hotels will serve beer on the beach. They take the fresh beer to the waters edge, and bring back the one you just drank. They keep an eye out too, so you can order by waving your hand. Excellent service. Tips are appreciated!

From another thread:

"It is believed that the motives were conflict of interests about the Taxi business and speedboat problems in Bophut area."

Many speedboats are run by the jetski mafia, so as usual we are back to issues with taxis and jetskis, both of which have caused problems on Samui, Phuket and elsewhere for many years.

Actually I recall an article many years ago where a Thai newspaper had asked someone burning rubbish, and his reply was something like: If the government wants us not to burn rubbish, they will have to collect it for free (as opposed to the appx. 20 baht/month it usually costs), further he claimed the sky was big so it could take it (the smoke).

So there you have the answer, from a local rubbish burner.

The problem for Thailand it that Thais are too proud to copy what others have already found a solution to, unless of course we are talking about illegal copies of goods.

As for corruption, simply take one of the countries who rank best on the corruption index list, such as the scandinavian countries, and go and ask one or all of them how they do it. How is their press freedom and freedom of expression, which is closely linked to exposing corruption in the first place, and how does their constitution and laws deal with corruption, something they have developed over centuries. Mext, hire a few experts from those countries as advisors for the new Thai constitution and laws. And by advisors I mean take their advice seriously.

Instead Thailand decides to invent a new constitution and new laws from scratch, or even worse, build it on previous Thai constitutions or laws, which clearly failed to do the job.

The same goes for almost every other major problem? What do we do with flood problems? Well, don't think too much, simply hire a dutch engineer for a few years, and do whatever he says. Thailand is at least 50 years behind the most developed countries in the world, why not take advantage of that?

In most of Europe Africans are called refugees. They even insist on being refugees, so don't blame the white man.

It is not just Phuket. Samui and other tourist areas have the same problem.

However, considering the Thai mentality of shooting the messenger in order to hide the problem, I think people should be a little careful when calling the immigration boss in order to inform on his staff. Odds are all that will happen is more trouble with your visa. Keep in mind, the immigration boss may not get paid directly, but he most likely gets a substantial cut from whatever his staff gets paid by visa applicants.

I think it is slightly unfair to criticise the OP for not 'being aware of the traffic around him'. In fact it's a slightly smug remark.

Not having encountered the lights on beach road, I am unable to say whether there is, or is not, an amber warning light. Even if there is, it still poses the same dilemma for the OP and others. Does he ignore amber, which in the UK is 'prepare to stop', or does he ignore that, on the basis the vehicles behind him will not do the same.?

You have the same issue on the main lights on Suk/Nua and other places. When you see the flashing arrow what goes through most westerners mind?. To me it means caution - prepare to stop. To Thai's it means speed up and get across as quick as possible.

I realise that there has to be a certain amount of adaptation whilst driving here, but I still believe we shouldn't completely compromise our standards to the extent of jumping a pedestrian red light, especially when there are people preparing to cross.

I think the OP made a slip by saying 'he was minding his own business', thus implying he was unaware of the situation around him. I'm certainly not going to be the judge of that remark.

I would have stopped.

"prepare to stop" is code for brake, also in the UK. The amber lights, which can be seen from a distance, gives you, and those behind you, ample time to brake before the lights turn red.

Of course, if you see the amber light as an indication that now you have to speed up to get across before it turns red, then you risk it turning red before you make it across, which potentially forces you to abruptly brake or kill some chinese tourists.

You misunderstand my point monkeycountry. The unions in New York are just the mafia's tool through which they exercise control there. Whether there are unions in Samui is irrelevant.

I am sure you are right. In any case posters above with the right connections and inside information have already established that the Japanese Yakuza, Chinese triads (recently eliminated at Fishermans Village), russian mafia, Bandidos and the military from the radar station share control of Samui. Rumor has it that they all have a secret meeting once a month at the radar station where they split the earnings and continue to plot how to take over the bungee jump and dinkyrock

Another mobster beats the dust.

Most foreign businessmen on Samui were prisoners in/of their home country.

I met big old drugsdealers, major scammers and other "businessmen" when I visited Samui. Beautiful island but completely rotten by it's businessmen and local maffia. (Like Pattaya and Phuket)

Sorry, but I have an academic degree and have been CEO of major companies since 1994.

It is amazing how the local businesmen all seem to wear sleeveless singha shirts and spend all day chatting with tourists (with an academic degree) at the local bar

Well, living and working (yes, legally) in Thailand brings me to several places. Once, one of my former business partners was co-owner / investor of a high class resort on Samui. with several million Euro. He asked me to check it out, you probably know why...... Was in 2005. Believe me, he got screwed !!!

Any chance your business partner was Mr. Boris from dinkyrock? (see post 95)

Another mobster beats the dust.

Most foreign businessmen on Samui were prisoners in/of their home country.

I met big old drugsdealers, major scammers and other "businessmen" when I visited Samui. Beautiful island but completely rotten by it's businessmen and local maffia. (Like Pattaya and Phuket)

Sorry, but I have an academic degree and have been CEO of major companies since 1994.

It is amazing how the foreign businessmen all seem to wear sleeveless singha shirts and spend all day chatting with tourists (with an academic degree) at the local bar

..................................... the worst thing they will do to you is close your illegal business if you do not pay.

So if the worst they will do is close your illegal business,

I wonder why I read in the headline:

Koh Samui ‘influential person’ gunned down

Now go and eat an other banana

I see you conveniently left out an essential part of my quote, referring to the police :-)

Anyway, rumor has it it was the army guys from the radar station who shot him, under direct orders from the Japanese Yakuza, as the influential guy and his bodyguards were really Chinese triad members trying to take control of the local bungee jump :-)