Ugly street furniture

So I saw a thread noting some rather interesting placement of street furniture and potential for loss of value of the home nearby.

Thought it'd be entertaining to see if anyone else has examples. I'll start with one that's not as egregious in terms of safety and placement but in terms of density of furniture - the person who owns the property in the shot can't be especially delighted!

http://s11.postimg.org/6w6mlszkz/20150308_162400.jpg

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Mar-15 18:50:01)

Once the hedge grows it will soon hide those.

The houses are nothing to write home about either. Think the cabinets are a perfect match.
Seriously though, any property that doesn't have access to fast internet will find in the next few years that they will be difficult to sell. Might even be the case now. That will be the cause of loss of value.
Personally I wouldn't even look at a property that hasn't got at least FTTC available.

In reply to a post by rogerfp:

Personally I wouldn't even look at a property that hasn't got at least FTTC available.

Same here, though I'm not sure my wife would agree! Once you have it there is no way back.

Teach her how to shop online - that'll do it !!

It's true... we are currently looking around for new house and we saw a house that ticks all of our boxes apart from one thing.

The speed of Internet.

I need fast internet so I can work from home.

Wife need fast Internet access so she can do her online shopping & stream videos (i.e. Netflix, etc) as she's a housewife.

The house we liked only had the max speed of 1MB ADSL. So we didn't go for it. (no plans to upgrade to Fibre till 2016-17)

So yes, it does affect selling houses if they do not have a fast Internet access. Our current house have the full 80/20 and I plan to promote it to the buyers about it so they know they can get the full speed if needed.

In reply to a post by rogerfp:

Teach her how to shop online - that'll do it !!

Oh she does, but she probably still would on slow ADSL or mobile!

Oh, just can't win can we? They have got us beat whatever we do.

Some ugly, utilitarian boxes that all look the same, nobody living in the area wanted.

And some telecom cabinets that some residents of said boxes heavily campaigned for.

Some is really downmarket...

www.idontbelieveit.me.uk/virgin-media-3bn-investment-program/

At least it still has doors unlike some round here and I can't see any scorch marks so someone must love it!

I can only presume its 'free cable TV' that people are chasing by breaking into the VM cabs, they do seem more open door than Openreach ones.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I can only presume its 'free cable TV' that people are chasing by breaking into the VM cabs, they do seem more open door than Openreach ones.

Indeed although vandalism for the sake of it could also be a cause. At least it hasn't reached the level of how masts carrying cctv cameras are being treated where reachable panels are forced open and petrol poured in and ignited.

If the encryption can be broken then it would be cheaper to splice into a neighbours cable than try to run one from the cab.

That one has been like that for months. As you can see it's by a parking bay and the original damage was done by a car I think.

Anyhow as I said as they are investing they can maybe upgrade to gaffer tape instead of parcel tape.

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

If the encryption can be broken then it would be cheaper to splice into a neighbours cable than try to run one from the cab.

People break into them to reconnect themselves using existing drops, they don't run their own cables from cabinets that'd be crazy.

they do seem more open door than Openreach ones.

Ain't that the truth. In my many years of being called out to open cabs, only once has it actually been an Openreach/BT one.

Went to a VM one that had been literally flattened after a lorry had backed over it. It took ages to get through to VM to report it to them, and when finally they did answer the guy seemed non-plussed ??

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Went to a VM one that had been literally flattened after a lorry had backed over it. It took ages to get through to VM to report it to them, and when finally they did answer the guy seemed non-plussed ??

They seriously don't care. Each cable area was a different brand, and the different brands had different qualities / thicknesses of the metal. In the former NTL guildford area the cabinets seem fairly strong, hardly see any with issues. In the former Eurobell then Telewest area most of the cabinets you see have doors held on with tape or missing entirely.

I think they get away with it because these cabinets are generally just passive connection points, no active (powered) equipment to be dangerous.

But it shows how much debt the cable industry was (is?) in.

Now why didn't I think of that?

Are there still hacked modems and set top boxes around theses days though?

Yes.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

I can only presume its 'free cable TV' that people are chasing by breaking into the VM cabs, they do seem more open door than Openreach ones.

Well I have reported several BTOR Fibre Cabinets that have been broken into.
They never got in via the doors, but from the top, seems the roof top shaped top can come off or pulled back if you apply enough force.
Reported to BTOR on the phone explaining where it is and the state of it, and the lady was very polite and thankful.

Still yet to even see a Virgin Cabinet.

Paul