To the editor:
I recently sold my home to my son and decided to buy a mobile home in order to be debt free. In the past three days I have seen approximately ten mobile homes. I cannot believe the audacity of some of the people selling their homes. I also must ask, are their real estate agents so hard up as to put their name with these places? One would have to assume that they have absolutely no self esteem.

I looked at a mobile yesterday. The pictures on the MLS site were beautiful.

The fridge and stove were black but the fridge was painted with a spray bomb and was very old! The granite counter-top was put together by an amateur and had 1/4 inch gaps in it. I wonder where all of the raw chicken juices go? There was no heating vents in either bedrooms or the en suite bathroom. There were also no heating vents in the addition. There were two plug-in heaters and two non-working air conditioners in the mobile.

Keep in mind these places are advertised as:

Cozy single wide with large addition. 5 Appliances, laminate, granite counter, jetted tub in 4pc en suite, large covered deck, nicely landscaped fenced yard. Family Park.

I'm not done yet! The ceiling in the addition was hanging down. It obviously had a leak. When I went outside to look at the roof there was four different types of roofing material up there and I only saw one side of the roof. The flooring was laminate, in 75% of the home it was put over 1/2 inch underpad. Needless to say the tongue part of the tongue and groove fitting were broken.

How dare you sell a home in this condition? Do real estate agents have no shame? How dare you try to sell a home in this condition, I suspect the heating costs in the winter are probably over $200.00 dollars a month and the electric cost to run the heaters and the rest of the home is likely about $150.00

How dare you try and sell a piece of junk like this and not disclose what it really is? How can you possibly put your name to this? You are shameless.

I get e-mails on a regular basis telling me I have been chosen because I am such a wonderful person that they want to give me several million dollars. You know what real estate person, you are as low as they are! How dare you!

jvdlee - Kelowna

To the editor:
I am just another unhappy British Columbian regarding the new carbon tax.

I usually take my family on an annual family vacation to the West Coast of Vancouver Island. We like to take our travel trailer and travel to Parksville for fun on the beach in Parksville Bay, and then on to Ucluelet where we like to charter a boat and go salmon fishing for a day. Along the way we spend a lot of money and support a lot of B.C. businesses. RV parks, gas stations, restaurants, the boat charter company, various tourist attractions, grocery stores and BC Ferries.

We have been making this trip for the last ten years. We are not going to do it this year. Given the high cost of fuel, and the carbon tax, which affects our vehicle operating cost, the ferry cost, the boat charter cost, and just about everything else we buy, it has finally gotten to the point that this annual trip is no longer affordable. That is unfortunate, as it has been a very enjoyable family experience.

This year, we will be towing our trailer directly south, where we will be buying our fuel and spending our holiday money in the good old U.S.A.. About 50 liters of B.C. purchased fuel puts us across the border, where we will be spending only about $1.00 per liter for U.S. fuel from there on, and no carbon tax. I know from talking to others that we are not the only ones that have changed their summer vacation plans in such a manner, and I suspect that taking our vacation money south of the border will become the norm, as the carbon tax “kicks in”, and we are intimately paying the intended 12 cents per liter.

The carbon tax is reported to be designed to target high fuel consumers, which I am, but you know what? I enjoy my big truck, and my RV, and I don’t have any intention of downsizing because some yahoo has decided that my carbon footprint is too big, and is going to penalize me by taxing me for it. Nope. I will be carrying on, but my vacation money will be spent outside of B.C.. This year, the amount of money that we would have spent in B.C. on this trip would have been about $4,000. Instead, we will be spending about $75 to get out of B.C., and about $75 to get back to Kelowna from the border, with the rest spent in the U.S..

K.C. - Kelowna

To the editor:
Here we go again, more politically correct taxation based on junk science and the "new" religion of Green!

Why hasn't anyone in the Canadian media made it known that within the last month there was the petition submitted to the Bush administration signed by over 31,000 climate scientists, almost 10,000 of which hold legitimate Ph.d's in the field, that stated there is absolutely no evidence linking man's actions to climate change. To discredit the very reverend Al Gore and his "global" petition of 2000 so called "experts" which included among others, landscape architects, school teachers, etc., why doesn't anybody listen to the science? This is a popular culture gone completely mad!

J.B. - Kelowna

To the editor:
I am writing this letter in addition to the numerous letters I have read regarding the price we pay to live in Kelowna. I am the fifth generation of my family who has been born and raised in the Okanagan - this is my home, I love it here and I feel privileged to live here. However, as I continue down the path of my adult life by starting a family, assuming a mortgage and carrying the costs and responsibilities as we all do on a daily basis, my husband and I find it difficult to make ends meet. The thing that is most frustrating to me is that we both hold good jobs, make a decent living and we still find it difficult.

We recently purchased a town home so my son could have a small back yard to play in. Due to the price of real-estate in this city our monthly mortgage payment is by no means small and here's to hoping interest rates don't go up in the next five years. I am lucky enough to still be able to stay at home part-time (funny how being able to stay at home with your children has become a privilege) and enroll my son in daycare only two days a week, but that payment still runs us $400.00 a month. After you factor in the increasing price we have to pay for groceries and the cost of gas for our commute to work we do not have a lot of change to spare at the end of the day and any small amount we do have usually gets eaten up by the unexpected expenses of daily life.

I really feel like our government is letting us down. Day care should not cost a family $50.00 a day. Why do we not have a subsidized program like Quebec does? Daycare should be federally regulated. Personally, I feel as though daycare in Canada is the equivalent of the US Health Care system. Now onto gas. What used to cost me $40.00 to fill my tank last year now costs me $65.00. What will it be next year, 85.00? That money has to come from somewhere and it isn't the big raise my employer is handing out to help with the cost of living. Why do I have to make the choice to buy whole wheat bread vs. whole grain bread because a loaf of whole grain bread costs $3.97?

It's ridiculous and there has to be a point when the government must take action and fulfill it's obligation to keep its citizens best interests in mind. I will continue to live in the Okanagan because all of my roots are here but for those people who are up-rooting and leaving town - I don't blame you. We need to come together as a community, a province and a country and fight for a better standard of living for ourselves and our children.

C.C. - Kelowna

To the editor:
RE: Loud Pipes Save Lives

Really? In my experience while driving (over 20 years – no accidents), all the extra noise emitted by loud pipes has done is cause a distraction where previously proper due care and attention was being paid. Example, stopped at a stop light, first in line to proceed through the intersection on a green light, window rolled down enough to let air circulate into the vehicle while my baby sleeps in his carrier in the back seat. Light turns green, upon initial acceleration into the intersection, one of your ‘life saving loud pipes’ bikes blows by me on my left. Result? The noise not only startles me, causing me to instinctively look away from the road ahead of me to make sure the biker has not just blown the intersection on a red light to which I will now be on a collision course with, but scares and wakes my sleeping baby causing a robust crying fit where previously he was quiet – a secondary driving distraction. Now I am looking in my side and rear view mirrors and over my shoulder at the baby. Should "Loud Pipes" make another sudden lane change and end up directly in front of me, how safe do you think he is now? He has caused a distraction, partnered it with erratic driving and is now a perfect accident target because my eyes are no longer on the road in front of me.

Thanks "Loud Pipes". You have shown that you are a stud, in your own mind maybe, but now that all of the drivers in a one block radius are startled and distracted, how much safer are you really? I would bet that if you polled all of the other pedestrians, cyclists and drivers in that area, you would be surprised at just how many of them would consider your noise making more of a hindrance than an enhancement to your overall safety on the road.

Something you should know - we are also proud bike owners, and belong to a family who has owned and ridden bikes since world war II, so feel confident representing both sides of the coin, so to speak. Our current bike of choice is a Softail Heritage Classic, without the ‘look at me’ loud pipes, and to be honest, we feel no more threatened safety-wise for not having loud pipes. And again, ironically, one of the main causes of being distracted while riding is the noise coming from fellow bikers with your modified ‘life saving’ pipes. So nice try with the whole ‘safety’ argument, but statistics prove that this is just not the case.

I do 100% agree with you on one thing, however – there are far too many drivers out there multi-tasking while driving when they should be paying attention. I was recently rear ended while slowing down to turn right, with my signal on, by a female driver who was talking on her cell phone instead of paying attention. Luckily I was in my car in this case, but should I have been on a bike with loud pipes in the exact same scenario, I doubt very much that it would have changed the outcome at all. I would have been gearing down, not revving up, so all of that safety noise would have been a mute point. Bottom line, everyone who operates a motorized vehicle, 18 wheelers down to scooters, needs to pay more attention and take more of a proactive role in ensuring overall safety as our roads get busier and busier by the day.

D.K. - Kelowna