Panel beater living in my campervan

Diggety said :

@ ThatUniStudent:

Every day that I am on this site, I see you whinging about something, or reminding us all you attend a magical place called “university”. Human beings, you can be sure, don’t like hearing that sort of thing.

Now that you appear to have a legitimate grievance, you’d forgive those of us not believing you.

Here is my advice:

In my experience, sometimes you need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for motivation- if that’s what it takes. Now, close your eyes and picture the mechanic in your campervan; stark naked, sweating, f@rting and greasy. Now picture him j#rking off, probably thinking about you on his vinegar stroke.

Make no mistake ThatUniStudent, he is beating it like it owes him money.

Now, if that doesn’t motivate you to rectify the situation on your own two feet, you’ve only got yourself to blame.

Don’t give him a cent, a dime, a scrap of manners, and above all, don’t give him another slumber party in your campervan.

Gee, I’m sorry mate. I didn’t realise my questions to a community forum so reminded you of your recent S&M sessions that you had to use them as the basis of your post. I’m genuinesly sorry to hear about your financial issues and the methods you describe so well and in such detail that you use to pay off your debts. Yeah, in the small town I came from people used to look after each other and discuss soloiutions to issues like yours, but this is Canberra, where people obviously don’t give a fuck, except for you, to whoever it is who’s tapping your ass.
Have a great day mate. 😉

Reminds me of a time I had to go into work on a weekend purely to “supervise” renovations, coz the builders decided it was okay to “steal” drinks from the fridge in the cafe next to us (which just happens to be in the same building, but not affiliated with us. I say “steal” because in their defence, they didn’t realise it was stealing and they thought they were allowed to take them… wtf?! (sarcasm – in case you’re wondering!) when would it ever be okay even if they were owned by my work?! (we only found out coz the cafe noticed, not coz the builders told us they were thirsty and took some)

Needless to say, the builders knew why I was there & were incredibly rude to me the whole 6 hours I sat there, reading a book & doing homework. The cafe ended up putting a lock on their fridge. The only reason they didn’t previously, was because they are located in a Government building, and the area the cafe in is locked to all staff over the weekend (there’s no offices in there, so no reason for govt employees to go in. Just the cafe & my work). Cleaners only came during the week, never the weekend, so there was never a need for a lock (until then…)

Diggety said :

@ ThatUniStudent:
…

Make no mistake ThatUniStudent, he is beating it like it owes him money.

…

Hahahahaha. I think that has to be the funniest thing I’ve ever read on The Riot Act. I literally laughed out loud. (I’m still chuckling). Thank you!

Reply

ok guys ive done a complex text analysis on thatunistudents original post and i’ve determined that the truth of this matter is that the panel beater is actually the one true pope

Diggety said :

@ ThatUniStudent:

Every day that I am on this site, I see you whinging about something, or reminding us all you attend a magical place called “university”. Human beings, you can be sure, don’t like hearing that sort of thing.

Now that you appear to have a legitimate grievance, you’d forgive those of us not believing you.

Here is my advice:

In my experience, sometimes you need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for motivation- if that’s what it takes. Now, close your eyes and picture the mechanic in your campervan; stark naked, sweating, f@rting and greasy. Now picture him j#rking off, probably thinking about you on his vinegar stroke.

Make no mistake ThatUniStudent, he is beating it like it owes him money.

Now, if that doesn’t motivate you to rectify the situation on your own two feet, you’ve only got yourself to blame.

Don’t give him a cent, a dime, a scrap of manners, and above all, don’t give him another slumber party in your campervan.

Exactly my sentiment. +1

Sounds like he is a salami beater, not a panel beater.

@ ThatUniStudent:

Every day that I am on this site, I see you whinging about something, or reminding us all you attend a magical place called “university”. Human beings, you can be sure, don’t like hearing that sort of thing.

Now that you appear to have a legitimate grievance, you’d forgive those of us not believing you.

Here is my advice:

In my experience, sometimes you need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for motivation- if that’s what it takes. Now, close your eyes and picture the mechanic in your campervan; stark naked, sweating, f@rting and greasy. Now picture him j#rking off, probably thinking about you on his vinegar stroke.

Make no mistake ThatUniStudent, he is beating it like it owes him money.

Now, if that doesn’t motivate you to rectify the situation on your own two feet, you’ve only got yourself to blame.

Don’t give him a cent, a dime, a scrap of manners, and above all, don’t give him another slumber party in your campervan.

p1 said :

The OP is just testing the waters, so to speak, for a new TV comedy.

Surely?

And with that, a mighty cheer went up from the heroes of Shelbyville. They had banished the awful lemon tree forever, because it was haunted. Now let’s all celebrate with a cool glass of turnip juice.

I don’t know what that’s in reference to, but it’s bloody funny and I’d watch a TV comedy about that.

I’m inclined to believe this story. I remember years ago being at a large party where my mate’s brother foolishly left his RV parked in the backyard overnight. That thing did some hard rocking all night long, almost blew a leaf spring. The owner returned to find it trashed with the floor covered with used condoms. You’re probably lucky to find only fat a fat lazy panel beater snoring inside it.

poetix said :

And please, OP, I believe that this event occurred, so don’t ask for my details.

Me too. I’m not sure what the trouble people are having with belief here is.

Henry82 said :

ThatUniStudent said :

Well through a round about way I now have my campervan back, minus some of the appliences inside.

I’m not sure if it comes under property damage/theft, but you should consider making a police report. Otherwise you should get a bill together (including damage and rent) and send it to him. Then i suppose the next step is small claims

I agree, this definitely sounds like something to report (though I don’t know what the ’round about’ method of retrieval was, so I don’t know if there’s some connection there I’m missing).

The OP is just testing the waters, so to speak, for a new TV comedy.

Surely?

Names? ‘Pimp my van’ isn’t quite right, since no actual pimping was done. (So far as we know.)

And please, OP, I believe that this event occurred, so don’t ask for my details.

The OP is just testing the waters, so to speak, for a new TV comedy.

Surely?

And with that, a mighty cheer went up from the heroes of Shelbyville. They had banished the awful lemon tree forever, because it was haunted. Now let’s all celebrate with a cool glass of turnip juice.

Padoof said :

I accepted an offer, the settlement was delayed. The buyer asked for another few weeks, and in the meantime keys to the property so they could do bathroom renovations. I said ‘ok’.

Never, EVER, hand the keys over early unless you sign an actual document where early occupation is identified and charges agreed on. The charges should be something slightly higher than the cost of their financing, to give them an incentive to get on with settlement.

If your solicitor fails to advise you of this, use a better solicitor and let your current idiot get back to bottom-feeding in the Family Court.

I had a similar experience when I sold my house three years ago.

I accepted an offer, the settlement was delayed. The buyer asked for another few weeks, and in the meantime keys to the property so they could do bathroom renovations. I said ‘ok’.

Just before settlement date (whilst the house was still mine) I drove by one night with my kids, said ‘let’s go in and see what they’ve done to the bathroon’ only to find that the buyers had moved in. Even had washing on the line. Apparently there was nothing to be done (I asked my solicitor to charge them rent) and hard to prove because they simply denied moving in before settlement date.

No wonder I’m becoming a cynical sod.

NoAddedMSG said :

I’m not hugely surprised by the story – we have painters at work doing a large commercial job over summer and found they were sleeping on the premises when we had to sort out a plumbing disaster late one night – they were very pissed off to be woken up and we were very suprised to find them sleeping there. (I’m in the accommodation industry, so plenty of spare beds.)

Let me guess, Iranian painters?

I’m interested to know how you got it back, what was involved and what was taken from the van .. the panel beater has reportedly stolen from you, are you going to try and get it back .. seems like a nasty piece of work.

Note to self; don’t use the panel beater whose office doubles as a sleep out.

I’m not hugely surprised by the story – we have painters at work doing a large commercial job over summer and found they were sleeping on the premises when we had to sort out a plumbing disaster late one night – they were very pissed off to be woken up and we were very suprised to find them sleeping there. (I’m in the accommodation industry, so plenty of spare beds.)

colourful sydney racing identity said :

PickedANickname said :

ohhh sounds like a job for Today/Tonight!

Even they wouldn’t touch something this concocted.

You too you coward. You’re okay when you’re hiding behind a computer aren’t you. You give me your contact details or make them avaliable here and I’ll prove this is all fact. Then I expect a written apology. Otherwise, shut up with your cowardly attacks, on me and others. I challenge you, put up or shut up.

LSWCHP said :

If this story is true…

Fine you skeptic, you post your contact details here or otherwise advise me how to contact you and I’ll take you there and you can ask the mechanic next door if my campervan was there since the start of December and if I was around on a regular basis bugging the panelbeater to do the work. And you can take a look at the state of the panel beater’s ‘office’ and it will be plainly clear that he occasionally sleeps in it.

I’ll expect a written apology then.

So put up or shut up. Your contact details please. Or send them via the admins if you want to.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Sorry you have gone through this hassle but lol just lol. Cant stop laughing at the entire story.

If the story is true, i wonder how many time this guy has done this? Does he get excited whenever somebody brings a camper van in for some work?

If this story is true…

ThatUniStudent said :

Well through a round about way I now have my campervan back, minus some of the appliences inside.

I’m not sure if it comes under property damage/theft, but you should consider making a police report. Otherwise you should get a bill together (including damage and rent) and send it to him. Then i suppose the next step is small claims

ThatUniStudent said :

Well through a round about way I now have my campervan back, minus some of the appliences inside.
I should clarify that this guy is a sole trader, and judging from the mess in his ‘office’, he occasionally sleeps on his premises. Some years ago I had some work done by him which was good, done well, affordable, and on time. Hence why I tried to use his services again. He kept on promising to get the work done with promises like “I’ll start it next week”, I’ll get it done before Christmas” ,”I’ll start after Christmas.” and so on. The thing is, he’s a nice enough guy, he just didn’t do my job, focussing on cars instead and bullshitting to me that he was either doing the work or was about to start the work.

Also, GPS tracking systems / alarms are not as expensive as you might think, and are dead easy to wire up. http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=gps+gsm+tracker&_sacat=See-All-Categories Most require just 2 screw in connections and a posative live wire and a negative earth connection. Mine lets me monitor internal noises, is connected to the car alarm and has geofencing capability. Such a system cost me just $320 when I brought it and is even cheaper now.

The reluctance of people here to belive the simple truth amazes me some days. Everything is a conspiricy theory to some people. They’re always looking for hidden meanings and crap like that.

The mispellings in your post spell E A R E A.

Co-incidence? I THINK NOT!

Well through a round about way I now have my campervan back, minus some of the appliences inside.
I should clarify that this guy is a sole trader, and judging from the mess in his ‘office’, he occasionally sleeps on his premises. Some years ago I had some work done by him which was good, done well, affordable, and on time. Hence why I tried to use his services again. He kept on promising to get the work done with promises like “I’ll start it next week”, I’ll get it done before Christmas” ,”I’ll start after Christmas.” and so on. The thing is, he’s a nice enough guy, he just didn’t do my job, focussing on cars instead and bullshitting to me that he was either doing the work or was about to start the work.

Also, GPS tracking systems / alarms are not as expensive as you might think, and are dead easy to wire up. http://www.ebay.com.au/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=gps+gsm+tracker&_sacat=See-All-Categories Most require just 2 screw in connections and a posative live wire and a negative earth connection. Mine lets me monitor internal noises, is connected to the car alarm and has geofencing capability. Such a system cost me just $320 when I brought it and is even cheaper now.

The reluctance of people here to belive the simple truth amazes me some days. Everything is a conspiricy theory to some people. They’re always looking for hidden meanings and crap like that.

HenryBG said :

p1 said :

I love the fact that you have not just an alarm system, but one from the very high end of the market, fitted to a campervan which is so decrepit you thought 6 weeks was reasonable time to leave it with them before considering demanding it back.

Is this Campervan equipped with a road anchor?

Next time, he’ll install a trunk monkey.

p1 said :

I love the fact that you have not just an alarm system, but one from the very high end of the market, fitted to a campervan which is so decrepit you thought 6 weeks was reasonable time to leave it with them before considering demanding it back.

Is this Campervan equipped with a road anchor?

I love the fact that you have not just an alarm system, but one from the very high end of the market, fitted to a campervan which is so decrepit you thought 6 weeks was reasonable time to leave it with them before considering demanding it back.

ahappychappy said :

colourful sydney racing identity said :

PickedANickname said :

ohhh sounds like a job for Today/Tonight!

Even they wouldn’t touch something this concocted.

ThatUniStudent sure does lead an interesting life…

Maybe the panel beater was looking for a laptop bag?

NickD said :

While it would be fun if this was true, it does sound like total fiction.

Calling “hilarious trolling” on this one! No way is this true!

While it would be fun if this was true, it does sound like total fiction.

Sorry you have gone through this hassle but lol just lol. Cant stop laughing at the entire story.

If the story is true, i wonder how many time this guy has done this? Does he get excited whenever somebody brings a camper van in for some work?

Imagine the outrage if the panel beater doesn’t return the rust flakes.

Not sure TT will do anything positive, they’ll film you, take your story and never talk to you again. If you want to take them to small claims, then do it.

colourful sydney racing identity said :

PickedANickname said :

ohhh sounds like a job for Today/Tonight!

Even they wouldn’t touch something this concocted.

ThatUniStudent sure does lead an interesting life…

RiotACT > TT

Sorry about that previous post of mine. I only read the story, not the comments and was unaware that someone had already beaten me to the Today Tonight angle. Next time I’ll make sure to read the other comments before adding mine.

This sounds like something straight out of a story on Today Tonight. I suggest you phone TT, they’ll lap this up.

RedDogInCan said :

Remove your campervan NOW. If the panelbeater can’t afford a place to live then what other bills can’t he afford to pay. Remove your property before the creditors come calling and seize everything in sight.

Yep, do this. Go to dickson shop front, get a temporary permit, go down there, demand the keys and drive it away. You’re being taken for a ride.

let’s not do any naming without the evidence.

Sorry, this sounds outrageous – borderline unbelievable ..

I suggest you actually name the panel beater in question because this sort of behaviour is really unacceptable. If you are unwilling to do that, take photos and post them to RiotAct, this guy will be out of business in no time.

take a photo and tweet it with the name of the panel beater

PickedANickname said :

ohhh sounds like a job for Today/Tonight!

Even they wouldn’t touch something this concocted.

ohhh sounds like a job for Today/Tonight!

poetix said :

Is he Swedish?

Was he wearing socks and sandals when you dropped the camper off?

quewastaken said :

I’m involved with the industry and am in and out of panel shops every day and I’d love to see you name and shame the responsible shop.

And if you are going to take this further, even if you’re taking it to the owner (assuming this isn’t a chain and you haven’t been dealing with him already), GET PROOF. Video, photos, anything that can prove someone has been living/sleeping in your van.

9 times out of 10 the boss will turn around and defend his workers and if it gets to a stage where you are in court, it’s very easy for him to say “My panelbeater/painter was working on the car after hours” or something along the lines of that. Look at it this way, if the guy is being allowed to live in a customers vehicle, they’re going to go out of their way to keep him out of trouble.

Unless of course they ARE working on it after hours. Which of course is entirely possible.

I am willing to bet, London to a brick, that no such evidence will arise.

Just make yourself at home in his workshop. There’s not much he can do about you when you have all of his tools too.

I’m involved with the industry and am in and out of panel shops every day and I’d love to see you name and shame the responsible shop.

And if you are going to take this further, even if you’re taking it to the owner (assuming this isn’t a chain and you haven’t been dealing with him already), GET PROOF. Video, photos, anything that can prove someone has been living/sleeping in your van.

9 times out of 10 the boss will turn around and defend his workers and if it gets to a stage where you are in court, it’s very easy for him to say “My panelbeater/painter was working on the car after hours” or something along the lines of that. Look at it this way, if the guy is being allowed to live in a customers vehicle, they’re going to go out of their way to keep him out of trouble.

Unless of course they ARE working on it after hours. Which of course is entirely possible.

Remove your campervan NOW. If the panelbeater can’t afford a place to live then what other bills can’t he afford to pay. Remove your property before the creditors come calling and seize everything in sight.

Is he Swedish?

DermottBanana said :

You’ve let this go on for 6 weeks?
He obviously saw you coming a mile away.

Not sure about that! How many panel beaters are there that think: “Awesome! A home to live in!” when they get a van to work on??
Funny story though!

You’ve let this go on for 6 weeks?
He obviously saw you coming a mile away.

I’m with JessP, since they have been using your van, charge them rent. Explain that if they don’t pay the rental bill, and do the repair within a time period (specify the time exactly and hold them to it) explain that you will take them to fair trading. Also explain that you will be taking them to the small claims court to enforce the invoice.

Funny. Guess not for you though.

How about when you pick it up you charge him rent for use of the van? Say $100 a night?

See fair trading first, see what they say. If this panel beater has a boss or the business has an owner, approach them and see what they say. If you approach the panel beater in question first before going to anyone higher on the totem pole than he is, he’s likely to clean out his gear.

…but if he’s the boss and owner, not sure.