I like France but.......

[Jon 1]

I like France but there is something that gets up my nose, quite literally!

We are in a small attractive town that is absolutely blighted by the extensive sight and stench of dog faeces and urine.

This is no exaggeration, but be it the centre, or scenic walks around the periphery it is literally everywhere.  You have to walk with your head bowed or you become a cropper due to someone’s crapper.

The problem is compounded by the SDF who congregate with their dogs.  In the centre, they along with a number of the local French males, also urinate quite freely and often visibly.  It does not need to be that hot a day to be extremely unpleasant as you walk along trying to enjoy the environment.  There is desiccated and ground in poo everywhere.  The streets are covered in old brown pancakes where the cars have flattened the dog deposits of the more civically minded owners who feel that they have done the right thing by ensuring their dogs have done it in the street!

Frequently there are piles of faeces just outside food shops etc, which is absolutely disgusting.

For an urban area there are just far too many dogs.  Most of the town dwellers have dogs, some have two or three, and large ones at that.

The measures taken to deal with the problem are ignored and I see no improvement on the horizon.

I do not want to give up on this area but I find this so offensive that I would consider relocation to a town that has more civic pride such that an attractive environment is maintained.

I know that this is an endemic problem in France, but can anyone recommend an attractive and scenic town of a reasonable size in France that has overcome these problems?  Does one exist?

[Teamedup]

Summer, well it feels like proper summer has hit this part of the Rhone Alps this week. I was in a local city last week quite enjoying the warmth and there it was the stench of drains pervading the pleasant day and a sure sign of summer......... delightful really ne c'est pas! It is the same in the centre of our village too and all the major towns around here.

I can't say that we have crottes all over the place, although there are certainly enough of them to making walking a cautious business a lot of the time. And the smell of urine. Only one place where I was gagging due to the stink was Brest, in the late 1990's during the Boat Festival.

[Georgina]

I must admit, it is a problem we had in the UK not long ago, but with a little education, people are much more aware or the health problems associated with it, although not all.

I was enjoying my garden in France, when a dog suddenly appeared in it, I looked around and saw a couple passing (bearing in mind that the garden is fairly large and he had gone right in it to make his deposit, they never called it or apologised but just walked away ha! 

The same when I was talking to my neighbour in my garden, his dog just came in a pooped and he just laughed, never apologised or offered to clean it up, and I have children.

I don't think things were much different in the UK a few years ago but it's been drilled into us now how unhealthy it is.  It is just one thing one seems to have to accept for now unless you want to fall out over it which I don't.

Georgina

[Teamedup]

Forgot to mention that Paris has a team of full time pooper scoopers, has done for years. They were having so many accidents with people slipping on the stuff. I suppose they still do as I'm not sure that the parisots are any more disciplined these days......... just my reasoning, as if they were, they would no longer need these teams of scoopers would they?

 

Don't think that this is ready to enter in the moeurs. They have after all been going on about this since I arrived here in 1981.

[Battypuss]

St Lô has been promisisng poop bags for several months; haven't seen any yet, though. We wlak our dogs of open hillside, no threat to anyone.

[Tresco]

Is that your own private open hillside then, Battypus?

[letrangere]

"Forgot to mention that Paris has a team of full time pooper scoopers, has done for years. They were having so many accidents with people slipping on the stuff. I suppose they still do as I'm not sure that the parisots are any more disciplined these days......... just my reasoning, as if they were, they would no longer need these teams of scoopers would they?"

The only form of municiple "pooper scooping" I've ever come across in Paris are the guys with the power hoses who wash down les trottoirs every morning at some unspeakable hour, I don't think I've ever seen anyone picking it up.  In fact,  I never realised Parisiens slipped in the stuff, most of the ones I know are blind to it and none would ever scoop.  The only people I've ever heard moan about it were foreigners, principally Americans.  Actually, with a bit of practice you can become pretty adept at avoiding them.  Perhaps if the sport were included in the Olympics, the French would improve their medal chances!  M

[Val_2]

I've been to St.Brieuc twice this week and once to our local town here - both times looked like elephants had crapped everywhere. You just cannot walk and look in the shop windows anywhere it seems here in France now without taking the chance of missing a large pile in the middle of the pavement. As for cleaning up, what a laugh as its back again within the hour!!

[Lori]

Interesting too.. one day when I was walking my neighbor's 3 year old to maternelle, she stepped in a pile. I did my best to removed her shoe and clean it off (ugh). When I told her Mom what happened (it is a French family), she said "oh, was it her left shoe or her right shoe? If it was her left shoe, that is good luck..." I'm not kidding..

[Will]

Strange, isn't it. The smell of organic waste is something I've always associated with France, and as such it has quite pleasant connotations. You know, the whiff of the pissoir or street corners in the towns, the dungheaps in the Normandy countryside, the way the Paris metro always has a scent of urine about it, not to mention the public loos.

So that part of life in France presents no difficulty. I like France too but...
being self-employed here causes quite enough merde.

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

Yes, even a 14 year old French boy who was staying with me recently commented that England was much cleaner than France in this respect. But having said that, it really was awful 10 years ago - so bad that my friend and I started to take the children to Playgroup by car because we were fed up of walking along with the children dodging all the dog muck on the footpaths through the village. It has improved a lot, but there are still people who seem to think that it is acceptable to leave dog muck lying around in both countries.

As for dog muck being OK on open hillside - I don't think so!! It is totally unacceptable for it to be left around anywhere. Other people walk there, often with childen. Personally, I feel that if people have dogs, they should make sure they have done their business in their own gardens before taking them out for a walk. Poop scoops are a good idea to some extent, but you can't get it all up. It still leaves residue that children could fall onto, and as with the previous discussion elsewhere about Toilettes Asiatiques, most of us don't really want to be walking on the stuff and taking it back into our cars and homes.

[Jonzjob]

An anuty of my ex's had the right idea. She lives in Blackpool (well someone has to) in one of the nice quiet back streets. Each day one of the women that lives down the road would wander past with her little dog. The dog, obviously a creature of habbit, would stop outside Aunt Mary's gate and crap on the pavement. Aunt Mary, who is only about 4 foot 8 inches tall, got fed up with clearing up, so one day she waited by her door. Along came the woman and dog, dog dropped another, Aunt Mary shot out of the door with the coal shovel, scooped up the crap and called to the woman. She stopped, Aunt Mary went up to her, told her she had dropped something, opened her shopping bag and dumped the good stuff in it. She turned and went home again. Would you belive that the little dog never crapped there again, so you can teach an old dog new tricks.

This is a true story folks.

John.

[letrangere]

 "was in a local city last week quite enjoying the warmth and there it was the stench of drains"

And I meant to say in response to TU's observation that I still quite like the smell of drains in France but they're not so common these days, are they?  One of my earliest memories of France must be the smell of the drains, closely followed by the smell of the cigarettes.  And although I loath the smell of both anywhere else in the world, they have certain appeal in France.  There, that's my perverse admission for the month.  M

[Dick Smith]

The smell which turns me right off when I first arrive in France is the supermarkets - it's the general smell of not very fresh butchery. After a bit, though, I get used to it and look forward to it. Also, at times, the fruit and veg areas smell of - fruit and veg. So unlike the UK!

[Evianers]

Jon

Sounds JUST like Antwerp, where we live: same problem, same or similar amounts of dog....t all over the pavements, gutters, green areas, squares. A new law was introduced to penalise anyone leaving their pooch's droppings - 'geen kakje zonder sakje' meaning 'no poop without scoop' trouble is, there is never anyone around to enforce it. Unfortunately it is not only endemic to France, so we do sympathise.

[Weedon]

[quote]Strange, isn't it. The smell of organic waste is something I've always associated with France, and as such it has quite pleasant connotations. You know, the whiff of the pissoir or street corners in t...[/quote]

On our one and only visit to Paris a couple of years ago we found the stroll along the Seine past the Tuilleries (sp) so romantic?? and funnily enough the tune that came to mind was "Hey round the corner dog poo" I think you may know it as something like "Hey round the corner behind the bush looking for Henry Lee".

 Sorry but I have trouble remembering the real words to tunes. I recall thinking that the words to "Shake rattle and roll" was "You gotta s**g Marilyn Monroe".  Personally, very often, I think my words are better but then I digress...............

Weedon (53)

[Teamedup]

I still don't like the smell of drains, and it seems to be in the same places it always is around here.

Blackpool, maybe that has changed but, years and years ago there was always the pervading smell of horse muck and fish and chips........delightful!

[Dick Smith]

Made me giggle, TU. Reminded me of the old joke about a bloke who was seen running down the road after the milkman's horse with a shovel and bucket. "What are you doing?" asked the milkman. "Collecting the droppings", said the man, "I puts 'em on me rhubarb". "Funny", says the milkman. "I always put custard on mine".

I'll get my coat. Again.

[Teamedup]

Ah how I love british puddings........ I love custard on many of them..........and I've never made one here that people haven't raved over and everyone has loved custard too.