Not sure a constant freeze thaw freeze thaw cycle would do tile much good, but I dont really know. The absence of any local material is probably a factor too.


But we digress....crime wasnt it?

Have you got a source for that? The last time I read anything on building types in the UK timber frame construction was still very definately not the norm and it was still mainly double leaf masonry.

I've noticed in Calgary in some of the nicer areas with more expensive houses probably built about 20 years ago or so have proper tiles (concrete or clay I can't tell) and they seem to weather quite well. The wooden type tiles here don't seem to last long and the covering that seems most common would be considered suitable for a garden shed in the UK.

Wow, I've never experienced that here...just goes to show how much it varies.

As long as she doesn't hear all that humming.

I disagree with you about statistics. I think they are a lot more reliable than the press, which is how most people get their impression of the risk of crime. But never mind. This is my personal experience.

The second night I was living in Edmonton, there was a knife fight in the street outside our house, that spilled over from a party in the basement suite below us.

Within a few days we became aware that the people in the house next door were in a bad way, with drugs and drink. However, they were harmless. They just sat on the porch all day, stoned.

After a few weeks, early one morning we were woken up by a police raid on the house next door. The police were waving guns and tasers around. The inhabitants of the house were led out in handcuffs and made to sit cross legged in the back yard until the house was cleared and then they were driven away.

We thought it was a drugs raid. But, no, we were told the police were just evicting the tenants for the landlord, because they had stopped paying their rent.

The same evening the tenants moved back in, because the landlord had not secured the property.

Another few weeks went by, and then the police evicted the tenants again. This time the landlord did secure the property. A few days later his new tenant moved in -- the local crack dealer who went by the name of Pitbull.

Move on another few weeks, and I'm patching up one of Pitbull's customers, who has failed to pay for his fix, and got beaten up and left on my doorstep. My husband drives him back to his dad's house, and I ring the police. I haven't done so before, because it is fairly obvious that the police take a cut from local drug dealing activities, but I've had enough.

When I say I want to make a complaint about the drug dealer. the cop on the end of the phone tells me that there's no point. There's nothing they can do about it because local people won't complain. I point out that I'm complaining. I don't get the impression that he is writing anything down.

I ring the landlord of the house next door. I tell him that I've complained to the police. That I will keep complaining, and complaining about the police if necessary, and I will keep telling people that the landlord knows he is renting to a drug dealer. The landlord reacts by disconnecting Pitbull's electricity the next day.

Pitbull connects a lead to our exterior socket and gets his electricity from us for a few ours, until I go and knock on his door and tell him I'm disconnecting him.

Pitbull moves out. A couple of weeks later our purchase goes through and we move to a more salubrious area.

The first couple of years I'm here (06/07) there are a lot of mentally ill people on the streets. Some seem very disturbed. Their numbers have decreased in the last few years, but I'm not sure why. Since this is Edmonton, I think it is too much to expect that they are actually getting help. Probably the police are just dispersing them and spreading them around a bit.

One day, walking through the snow downtown, a drunk gets hold of me and tells me to give him my boots. What he gets is a kick, and proof that I can run quicker in my boots than he can run in his.

I know you don't like statistics, but Edmonton has a murder rate significantly greater than inner London.

Erm. The police cannot evict anyone for non payment of rent. Only a civil enforcement agency can, and only following an Order of the Court permitting them to do so.

If you say so. But the landlord told me that it was an eviction and that he'd paid a fee to the police for it.

Safe as houses around here. Not so where we lived in London - burgled once, car broken into twice.

What's crime??? Don't experience it here,keys are in our vehicles,haven't seen the house keys for years....
Live in a town of 1800 pop.crime isn't an issue,somebody steps out of line and they're dealt with pdq,usually involving a trip in the bed of a pickup truck down a grid road for some education!!!!
Call it what you want,but it works,and the results are a peaceful community to live in.Not pc,definately redneck,but a damn sight better than life in the U.K.

I feel way safer here (rural Ab no visible neighbours) than in the UK - however being born then brought up in the following council estates in Leicester - Thurnby Lodge, Northfields and Eyres Monsell - I think playing with a match in a dynamite factory would be safer

Everyday there is another horror story here. The latest unfortunately was a 31 year old mum stabbed to death in a small Welsh village for asking the neighbours to turn the music down..

I know everywhere in the UK is not like that but I would love to live somewhere where I FEEL safe, which I dont really in the area I am in.

I think that feeling safe is just as important as being somewhere that is statiscally safe!

I apologise for my poor spelling above....having a teething baby is not doing my spelling any favours!

Stop reading the papers and listening to the news - how far away is this small Welsh village from where you live?? Information overload can seriously damage your mental health.

Somebody was shot in a Tim Hortons last night in downtown Vancouver. Doesn't make the place any more dangerous or safe.

Article didnt mention if it was a pissed off Starbucks employee
You actually are saying not all Vancouverites drink Starbucks and are prone to drinking the highly addictive swill at Timmys.