Steiner

I am an American living in Thailand....my neighbor is an Englishman.

When I bought the property next to him ... I went by to introduce myself and say "Hi"........his FIRST words to me were "I hear your a man not to be Trusted"

So you see, rudeness spans the world ....and ignorance is not limited to Thai's

PS ...I haven't spoken to the ignorant rude Englishman since then (3 years)

It is called 'wit' a form of humour often lost in Americans.

My bill this month (for a 55sqm 1 bed condo) is 1,590.

Usually, it is about 1,280.

If you are having increasing bills I would look to the aircon first.

My last house, 3 bed, bills were coming in at 3,300 which I think is way too much. Had the oldest aircon changed and the bill dropped to an average of 1,800.

even having them (properly) cleaned can reduce a bill...

New house, doors and windows all seal, brand new air con units throughout and use air at night only, the bills are averaging 1,400 per month.

There actually is no protection for renters here and everything is in the contract.

Why do you think Thai's go through every word of them before signing?

Our Thai owners were never happy with having 'no illegal activities are to be conducted on or from the premises.' They insisted on a long list of illegal activities, What is that about? Either it is illegal or not.

Those few words in our English language contract take up half a page in the Thai contract as we list gambling, prostitution, robbery and on and on and on.

Thai's know that unless it is there is black and white it is open to interpretation.

Your best protection is to use a reputable company, they will try to avoid the dubious landlords, we have a blacklist and any landlord who tries to be unfair to a tenant is told that they will be on it and forwarded to all agents in our database. However that very rarely happens and is a very last resort, most situations can be worked out with a little diplomacy.

I advise every tenant on move in "If you have any money issues contact me immediately." Haven't had a landlord ask for the 300 baht per day late payment penalty yet if we spoke to them in advance of the payment date.

As a footnote; farang vs Thai renting condos, our customer base is 92% Thai but last 2 years farang have taken up 86% of our after sales headaches.

Late payment of rent, disappearing, trashing rooms, not paying bills, going to another country for 2 weeks and leaving the air con on then not accepting responsibility, the list is endless.

One idiot broke his contract because he broke a tooth and had to go home to mummy to have it repaired (seriously!) like there are no dentists in Bangkok!

as he was losing his deposit the little boy in him then did a moonlight flit before the date he was meant to leave, trashed the room and left all the aircons on with the windows open running up a ridiculous bill before we realised that he had left.

Now he is registered with police and if he ever tries to enter Thailand will be arrested at the airport, smart move...

He went back to the states and unlucky for him the owner (who is a very good landlord by the way) had lived there for a time and was aware of the checks that are done on tenants there, he ensured his name was mud there also.

I have a stamp; 'for the sole purpose of..................................' and fill it in.

Standard practice here, I take a lot of Thai ID copies in work every day and 99% of them come crossed and annotated for that transaction only.

When in Rome...

If coming from BKK, ekamai (eastern bus terminal) buses leave every 20-30 min, used to be around 250 baht,

rgds songhklasid.

Just take BTS to Victory monument and take a van(there are 2 van companies down the stairs ) that will take you to your hotel directly all for 100 bahts

Have you seen the fatal accident numbers for the minivans of death for the last few years?

Why would anyone put their life in the hands of one of those morons???

About 124 baht in a coach from Ekamai, if you think your life is worth 24 baht go for the van then...

lMAO Sansiri, they built the brand new (see half finished) Best condo complete with polystyrene walls and peppered in cement, plaster, paint (windows) and silicone.

They had to pay a penalty of 20,000 baht to each condo owner because it was so late.

Don't see that ever being properly finished.

Pales into insignificance to the now 3 yr late Belle condo at Rama 9.

Euthanasia, problem solved!

The numbers of soi dogs in this country are ridiculous.

There are three large packs close to where I live in Bangkok, people come and feed them every day, they are dangerous, they have bitten people, bark often and attack anyone who tries to walk a dog that is properly cared for.

The do-gooders arrive every night, THREE separate lots of them on scooters about an hour apart, I asked them to simply take the dogs home and keep them there for feeding as they were attacking people (they don't bite the hand that feeds them obviously) that went down well, reactions ranged from me being invisible to screaming.

Two of my Thai staff have been bitten within the last year by other packs of soi dogs, one 4 times on one leg in one attack and the bites were not nips, proper locked in bites, she will carry scars for life.

Was anything done? Nope, police don't care, Thai's don't care, do-gooders carry on feeding them.

I know in the UK dog attacks make the papers and the dogs are promptly euthanaised, pet or not, as it should be.

I would like to know the figures for dog attacks and deaths here in Thailand, must be incredible.

This is definitely one of the most confusing posts I have read and the advice of some to teach English may be wide of the mark (I never believed that monkey typewriter thing)

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I ran the post through the enigma machine and this is what came out the business end...

I think my story is pretty standard, I had kids and had to put my life on hold.

ah those pesky landlords...first house, 2-3 trees in the garden died of roth .... gave them normal water everyday, but you know how it is with plants and trees in this country

she charged us 6000 baht per dead tree... blaming us.... she would not return security deposit otherwise

6000 baht for a tree... can u imagine

This is why it makes sense to get a good real estate agent with a contract in English and some weight as a registered company that will make the owner see sense if they do try any nonsense. NOT a freelancer or god forbid walking into a condo building and asking for a condo.

Never understand peoples aversion to using a company, commission is paid by the owners and not the renter so the cost is the same but the protection is there.

OK I can now give the 'definitive' answer (sort of)

100% the way to do this is to bring the dogs as excess baggage on your flight, that will cost (as of June 2013 $50 USD per kilo on Thai Airways) that way costs this end are minimal and you can literally collect them from the carousel and walk out.

Unfortunately I couldn't do that because of airlines in the UK refusing to move them as excess baggage from Ireland to mainland UK so they were sent as cargo.

I thought it then made sense to let them go all the way as cargo DOH!

So Thai customs will charge you 30% of the CIF costs, that basically means the largest figure they can find in your paperwork.

I had already contacted the shipper in the UK and asked them to attach only the lowest possible cost of the trip to Thailand and not include IATA boxes etc.

They will also give your dogs a value of $250 each even if you have documentation to show that they are domestic pets with a minimal value of less than £50. That will be ignored and the cost added to the scam.

So flights for flights that cost £998 + their valuation of $250 USD per dog they somehow arrived at a figure after a plethora of taxes and costs at 28,000 Baht.

Some negotiation and a few baht under the table reduced that to 22,000 Baht, total price to get the dogs in hand with the vet fees and to get them to work on the weekend and an agent (2000 Baht but essential) was about 28,000 Baht.

So lesson learnt, BRING YOUR DOGS, NO MATTER HOW BIG, AS EXCESS BAGGAGE AND NOT CARGO!

Looked for this and can't find a definitive answer anywhere.

Customs have not been answering the phone all day (must have confiscated a shipment of hammocks).

The shipping agent just directed me to the customs contact number.

I have all of the certs, import, export etc.

All I want is a figure of what customs duty will be.

I know the other fees; 100 B for the import licence, 250 for some other paperwork, 500 for the airline but no one will tell me what the customs duty is and I want a solid figure before I go to the airport.

Found the same problem with sales staff.

If we find them they stay for 2 weeks then gone again.

If I was being honest they are too lazy to work hard.

We offer a basic + travel allowance + commission and if they got their finger out and worked like a farang they could earn 50-60k.

We don't even care about qualifications, sales is not about what they did in school but still no takers.

Advertised in every medium but applicants that could be counted on one hand.

simple no ? farmers with no education come to bangkok for work and off course take their habits with them overhere... hence the increase in crime, beatings, rapes, ...

And where is the evidence for your bigotry (i.e., that it's 'uneducated farmers' from outside of Bangkok and their 'habits' that are responsible for this)?? Perhaps you should stop spending your days watching the yellow shirt channel and actually go out and see the rest of the country (and the farmers' habits) for yourself. BTW, in most countries, per capita rates of violent crime are higher in urban areas than in rural areas.

Actually the approach to beatings and rape in some areas of Thailand is medieval. I know of a girl who suffered an attempted rape and although she was lucky enough to escape it she said she could tell no one in her family as the parents would have forced her to marry the rapist, attempted or real.

I have had this same conversation with a number of girls from rural areas and they have confirmed that this is the standard practice.

Also remember that there are witnesses and support in urban areas that are not available in rural areas so a lot of abuse is never recorded or acted upon.

I have spent some time in rural areas of Thailand and have witnessed a number of blatant attacks by husbands on wives with no regard for who sees it. Fortunate to never have seen one in Bkk.

I don't think his assumption was bigoted at all just realistic.

My god that shirt...!

And which plastic planet are you from ? needs , wants , dreams ,desires ? bro its cash, simple fact indeed if the wallet is empty so are you .disagree with me ? then go tell a woman u have no cash etc see how far that gets you .maybe she will politely smile and say its ok but no money does indeed means no honey

You my friend hang around the wrong areas and the wrong sort of women ,if you date hookers then you are dead right ,but when you meet and make friends with decent Thais its a different game altogether.

rubbish..... money money money...... BG or not

Lived here for years, not a part timer that trawls the low life areas.

Dated a lot of girls, any that remotely looked like they were interested in money were given a quick exit.

Never (to my knowledge) been near a BG and only dated Thai girls with a job that didn't concern being on their back or knees.

Even when I was broke there were a number that wanted to stay with me forever and would try to pay for things if we were out.

On the whole I have found Thai girls less materialistic than western girls, if they worry about a guy doing well at work or showing common sense with money well why wouldn't they? There is no social or welfare structure in place when people get old so why would they sign up for a loser.

When I met my Mrs she was making more money than me, never asked me for a satang. Now we have companies that do well and I have a good income even by western standards and I make more money than I ever did in my life. Still never asks for a thing, most supportive woman I ever met, 10 years younger than me and had a successful career before I met her.

If you learn to speak some Thai and stay away from hookers you might be surprised by what you find out there.

If you lay down with dogs you will get fleas, plain and simple...

Lifts usually are run by electric motors driving traction cables or counterweight systems and they have automatic brakes in the event of slippage but I don't think they have anything to offset a cable breakage.

Just the opposite, the emergency braking system is meant to handle exactly that emergency.

Elisha Otis would demonstrate his invention in front of crowds by being hoisted up in an open wooden elevator and then having the rope holding it cut to demonstrate that it would not fall more than a few feet.

How does he know it was a scam by the rental guys and not just a theft?! If theft then usually the renter is liable and should cough up...

He enlisted the help of a local farang and his Thai wife to go to the BIB about it. Apparently when the hire shop owners name was mentioned the cop said in Thai the equivalent of "not him again" and gave stern orders to a subordinate to ensure the shop owner showed up the next day.

That would indicate he does it often but 2 days later the BIB cooled (probably helped by tea money from the rental guy)

Also there were 2 Thais sitting outside the restaurant he went into when the bike was 'collected' and they were still there in the same chairs 10 minutes later when he returned. Of course they saw nothing.

When the guy asked where his scooter was they pointed at an old scrapper laughing

So;

Option #1 they missed 2 guys lift the bike onto a pickup and drive off.

Option #2 they missed someone calmly roll up in daylight and break the lock with a screwdriver and drive off.

Option #3 they knew the guy who arrived with the key and drove off on it and are not prepared to say anything.

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I know which option I am going with...

<deleted> it was in Ao Nang, par for the course there!

So your friend wants to screw the poor small time rental shop operator

There's always one...

If he reports the passport stolen it will be cancelled and he will have an Emergency one to go home with.

Of course if he did rent something, without insurance, and it was stolen, then he should be up for that replacement cost.

It was brand new and would have had full insurance, just a scam and the BIB haven't helped at all.

So do we think he would have any issues walking through the gate?

Or should he create a stink through the embassy?

A mate was out from the UK to visit and after spending a week in Bkk with us headed off down the coast alone.

Before he left I gave him 10 copies of his passport and warned him not to give anyone his passport for any reason under the sun and to use the copies.

We can all guess what happened next; he hired something and handed over his passport

They ran the 'stolen so you have to pay' scam on him and refused to return his passport.

Now I was thinking let them stick the passport where the sun don't shine and get an emergency one before he leaves.

Question is what do we think are his chances of walking through the gates at the airport?

The crooks have his passport and departure card so he is worried that will all tie together and work against him.

Thoughts?

Please no 'I would never hand my passport over' that ship has sailed.

Thai dog owners are the worst!!! 6 months of a neighbors yappy dog 14 hours a day and I live 3 houses away. It is remarkable that people tolerate such abhorrent behavior for so long without snapping like this guy did. I have been tempted to just sit out in front of their house with an airhorn but I am a Farang so I would be the one in trouble!

Couldn't agree more, tye Thai attitude towards dogs is ridiculous.

Dogs with owners are bad enough, completely untrained in any way but the soi dogs, unbelieveable!

Disease ridden, broken limbs that never healed properly, ticks, fleas, internal parasites and open sores from the constant scratching but would Thais agree to have a dog catcher and the dogs put down? No chance!

If most of thosr dogs could talk they would say 'shoot me please'

Couple of weeks ago a pack of the local soi dogs got agressive when I was going to the shop, the pack leader made a charge for me fangs out and ready to bite, caught him perfectly under the chin with a well timed kick that sent them off yelping. Seconds later I was surrounded by angry Thais screaming at me.

Really what is wrong with these people...

The numbers of the local dogs have been slowly decreasing and will continue to do so one or two at a time.

Now where did I leave that chicken...?

you can always go back to where you came from and problem is solved

oh but wait, you want for the entire nation to accommodate you and please you just the way you like, after all you are the big man with a pension, so they all should honor your presence in their little country

Ah the Thai'r than Thai brigade.

So to clarify you think it is ok to have packs of dangerous dogs roaming the streets, you are ok with that?

Really what is wrong with these people...

Nothing - its you - you're living in the wrong country.

Don't think so, whatever country I live in I am not going to let an animal bite me to placate others.

Are you saying you would let a dog bite you before you would kick it?