All Bobcat Services has it all covered
Making landscaping and earthmoving a breeze
You can have the tidiest property on the street by clearing out that messy corner of your section with All Bobcat Services. All Bobcat Services’ equipment makes light work of all your landscaping requirements, making outside jobs easy and cost efficient.
Local owner/operator Stu Isles has excellent equipment and is highly skilled in performing a wide range of earthmoving services around your home, lifestyle or rural property.
All Stu’s services are completed to an excellent standard and include creating large gardens, mounds, windbreaks and hills, driveways, tree and hedge removal, hole boring for fences, soak pits, gates, buildings and decks.
All Bobcat Services can make holes for large pole sheds and the large plantings of trees. Overgrown areas, trees and hedges can be removed quickly, as can rubbish. Sections and new sites can be cleared for a general tidy-up.
Digging out courtyards, paths, car parks, shed pads, house pads and driveways ready for concreting are all part of the service. Old concrete pads and paths can also be broken up and removed.
All Bobcat Services also clears sections after buildings are erected to make way for lawn and gardens. With the rotary hoe and Harley rake, creating gardens is easy and making lawn surfaces smooth and flawless is a breeze.
Delivering and removing a range of supplies including topsoil, metal, lime and decorative rock is another trick up Stu’s sleeve. The Bobcat is small enough to manoeuvre in most house sections and powerful enough to carry out a multitude of tasks quickly and easily.
Visit allbobcatservices.co.nz for more information, to see finished jobs or to book a free quote. Alternatively, ring 0274 643 649. You won’t be disappointed.
Have you ever thanked someone and they brushed it off? Have you ever thought someone’s praise was inauthentic?
Has someone ever thanked you for work done in a way that hit the spot?
Imagine two kids — Jack and Jane. Jack grows up with two highly driven professional parents who hold corporate roles. He knows he is loved because whenever he mows the lawn, stacks the wood and rakes the leaves a parent stops for a short while and notices and comments. When he washes the dishes, sweeps the kitchen floor and clears the table it’s noticed and he gets thanks and a hug.
Jane also knows she is loved. Her family loves doing puzzles together, they have a sun lounge and sit and have chats over cups of coffee in the mornings, long lunches on weekends and bowls of soup in winter. They play games — darts, Monopoly and, Jane’s favourite, chess.
As life has it, opposites attract and Jack marries Jane. He wants to show her how much he loves her. How do you think he does it? If you guessed mowing lawns, doing dishes, painting the house, fixing the car, etc — you would be right. Do you think that would make Jane feel loved?
According to marriage counsellor Dr Gary Chapman, this mismatch of how we feel loved is the cause of a lot of marriage breakdowns. His classic book The Five Love Languages is an excellent read.
So what does this have to do with businesses? In my experience, many business owners and managers try to show appreciation and have the same outcome as Jack and Jane above. We tend to show appreciation in the way we like to receive it. For many people this is verbal.
We tell someone they have done a good job and thank them for it. However, some people don’t like public praise and will actively avoid excelling again if they think you will thank them publicly. They would much rather a personal one-on-one word of thanks.
Others prefer their words in writing. Others think words are cheap. Maybe they had a parent, sibling or friend who often promised to do something and never did, or often apologised and then repeated an offence.
One owner I worked with shared in dismay that, in his staff reviews, most of his team felt they were not appreciated.
His anguish came from the fact that he made a point to go out daily and notice things people had done well and thank them for it. We surveyed his team and found most felt appreciated when somebody did something nice for them (acts of service).
That week, while the team did overtime to get out an urgent order, he had their cars valeted as a surprise thank you. They were delighted! The right action hit the appreciation spot.
Another director I work with has regular coffees with individual team members — giving them the gift of a coffee and some quality time. Many managers I have worked with will leave encouraging sticky notes and/or small gifts on the desks of the team.
At home we need to be loved. At work we need to feel appreciated. It starts with knowing how you feel appreciated and then understanding how your team feels appreciated. Dr Chapman wrote The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People to help managers navigate this important concept. It’s a great read if you are looking to do better in this space.
Mike Clark
There will always be a certain level of noise in any neighbourhood, eg, from motor mowers, building work, barking dogs, rowdy children or loud party music.
If the amount of noise coming from your neighbours' place is bothering you, it's best to start by talking to them about it.
You may be able to come to an agreement about, for example, the timing of construction work on their house or turning down the volume on their stereo.
If you cannot resolve the issue by talking to your neighbours (or you are not comfortable with talking to them) you can make a complaint to your council's noise control officer.
Under the Resource Management Act, the council has the power to control unreasonable or excessive noise.
If you make a complaint to the council about noise, they will not tell your neighbour who made the complaint.
It is important to make the complaint while the noise is happening, otherwise the council may not be able to do anything about it.
Depending on factors such as the time of day when the noise occurs, the duration, frequency and loudness of the noise, and the reason for the noise, the noise control officer will assess whether it is “excessive” or “unreasonable” and take appropriate action.
If your neighbours are renting their home and you are able to find out who their landlord is, you can also complain to their landlord about it.
One of a tenant's responsibilities is to not disturb their neighbours. If you and your neighbour have tenancies with the same landlord, you can complain to your landlord. Tenants are obliged to not interfere with other tenants' quiet enjoyment of their rental property.
The landlord can serve a notice to tenants giving them 14 days to remedy behaviours such as excessive noise.
If your neighbours are renting a Kainga Ora house, you can make a complaint to Kainga Ora.
For free and confidential advice and information on this or any other matter visit the Palmerston North Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) in Hancock Community House, 77 King St. CAB is open weekdays 9am-4.30pm, call 357 0647 or 0800 367 222. We have a free legal advice service by qualified lawyers most Thursdays at 7.30pm, and a JP is available on Tuesdays 12pm-2.30pm.