Life / What don't you like about Poland or Polish People? [117]

You honestly think they were anything other than SB agents?

Yes, I think I know my own family pretty well. It was not just my family. However, yes I do not dispute that you had to have political connections to have a good job, get a visa, etc. or at least give up a pretty substantial bribe. They have known some local politicians maybe at like the equivalent of alderman but it's not like they were on a first name basis with Gomulka or something.

Life / What don't you like about Poland or Polish People? [117]

Yes I am comparing the cost of gasoline and electronics in Poland to that in the US - it is much more expensive. I believe in Holland gasoline is the most expensive out of the EU countries.

I laughed when I read 'ruski czolg' lol. Yes that certainly would imply that an item is strong. Some of the Polish contractors in the US will use the term '.... zrob/zrobonie po Rusku!' Meaning that something was done to cut corners, perhaps not as quality but with lots of ingenuity nonetheless. One particular example I can think of is 'lanie cement po Rusku' which I guess is an easier quicker way to pour concrete? I don't know, I'm not an expert contractor but I'll ask my dad next time i see him.

Another thing that I'm not a big fan of in Poland is paying for things I'm not use to paying for like using the bathroom and pokrzywa aka nettle. That crap is everywhere!

And yes, Polish people loooove to complain but I think that is just a human thing.

Another thing that kind of bothers me is the poem murzynek bambo... really? you're going to tell make a kid's poem about a black kid in africa running up a tree and scared to take baths so his blackness doesn't wash out lol. at least though they do call him a 'koleszka'

Life / What don't you like about Poland or Polish People? [117]

Yes, I believe I saw some nettle in my mom's tea cabinet. I think it's used for like upset stomach.

There is also a great shampoo made out of nettle that they sell in the US but is a Polish product. Makes your hair feel great and only costs $4-$5 for a 1 liter bottle.

Life / What don't you like about Poland or Polish People? [117]

That's another thing we can add to the likes and dislikes of Poland...

I love how Poland and Polish people (especially the older generations) have so many natural and homemade cures. A lot of these are in tea form.

However, sometimes this can go a bit too far as many Poles (again, more so common with older generations) have pseudo-scientific beliefs especially when it comes to health.

For example, many older generations of Poles state that you will get sick if you go out in the cold, you can get sick if you don't dry your hair completely. Stuff like that. Perhaps, yes if you go out in the cold without proper clothing or go to sleep without totally drying your hair it can lower your immune system making it more easy to catch a bug. However, I highly doubt that just being cold will make you sick.

Life / What don't you like about Poland or Polish People? [117]


It is my fault then for not using better examples. I was merely stating that oftentimes the elderly will be gung ho about psuedo-scientific beliefs especially about health even if there is science to prove that their ideas are false. Nonetheless, resorting to name calling and making an assumption about such a diverse nation with over 300 million people and their treatment of their elderly is stupid. Yes, the nursing home industry is very large here and many people do unfortunately put their parents in a nursing home to make it easier for themselves. I think this is terrible. My parents are the 2 most important people in the world to me. I would rather hire a nurse to stay with them and the only way I would put them in a nursing home is if they wanted to go to one which would most likely only be because their health is so bad that they need to be under constant medical observation. I pray to God that this never happens.


Being cold and feeling cold will not directly make you sick. However, there is a strong correlation between being cold/feeling cold which CAN lower your immune system (again not automatically WILL lower your immunse system) and also CAN creates an environment more hospitable to the rhinovirus which will then make you sick as the rhinovirus tends to prefer dry nasal passages.

In my statement I wrote that they believe you 'WILL GET SICK' while in yours you wrote that you 'CAN GET SICK.' Well, yes that is obvious that you CAN get sick if you go out in the cold and are cold because your immune system is lowered. However, many (again, not all) elderly Poles believe that going outside and feeling cold WILL automatically make you sick.

webmd.com/cold-and-flu/features/cold-and-flu-iq
smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-scientific-reason-cold-weather-could-cause-colds-180953817/?no-ist


Also:



Yes, if you don't dry your hair and go outside in the cold weather you CAN get sick and you CAN get hypothermia. Again, doesn't necessarily mean you will get sick but the chances are higher. I wrote about not drying your hair before bed - not being outside. Yes, you CAN get sick from not properly drying your hair indoors because it creates an environment more hospitable to bacteria/viruses that cause the common cold making it harder for the body to fight back, but again it does not mean you automatically will get sick like many elderly Poles believe.

Even my mom tells me 'Adrian nie siedz na zimnym betonie bo zachorujesz'

Tale: You'll get sick if you go out in the cold with wet hair. The truth: Exposure to viruses-not skipping the blow-dryer-causes cold and flu. "Scientists have studied this really well," says Vreeman. "They've put cold viruses in the noses of two groups of people.Nov 6, 2011

health.com/health/gallery/0,,20306931_5,00.html

abcnews.go.com/Health/ColdandFluQuestions/cold-flu-wives-tales-debunked/story?id=14884135

webmd.com/cold-and-flu/features/cold-and-flu-iq
This article even argues that you catch colds once your immune system is lowered. Yes, the cold is caused by a virus, most commonly rhinovirus but of course there are others. By giving a virus, or bacteria like in the case of influenza, a hospitable environment i.e. a lowered immune system, dry nasal passages, etc. increases the chances of your body not being able to fight off the virus/bacteria and hence getting sick. It doesn't necessarily mean it will always happen - your immune system can be weakened and you can still fight it off just like you can be perfectly healthy and rested and still catch a bug and get sick. However, creating a hospitable environment for the bacteria/virus increase your chances of getting sick and your body being unable to fight.

I am simply saying that many times elderly Poles believe that being cold/having wet hair/etc. will automatically make you sick. That is not the case, but it does raise the chances of getting sick.

News / Poland's trump card, the most famous Pole alive (L. Walesa) - what do you think? [38]

I don't think that he was all that great of a president. I do admire his courage for standing up to the reds and organizing people but I don't think as a president he was that great. I think he would've been better as perhaps like a human rights minister or labor minister or something. I don't think economics were necessarily his specialty. Nonetheless, Poland did not have an economic wild west free for all to nearly the same extent that Ukraine and Russia did after the collapse of communism.

Life / What don't you like about Poland or Polish People? [117]


I don't think this is the case 100% of the time - maybe with people that are more Euro-centric.

Whenever I travel to Poland or many other parts of Europe I find that actually the U.S. is behind the times in many regards. I find that Polish people are actually very sophisticated.

History / Cars made in Poland - during communist and post-communist times [23]


Not exactly. I don't know the exact specifics of the dollar and its purpose in Poland but I do know that buying things with dollars was not illegal.

The cinckiarz profession I think was technically illegal but kind of accepted by authorities. The PL government was unable to provide basic goods for citizens during several years (forget what years it was I think it was either under Gomulka's or Jaruzelski's reign) and even during the 'good years' a lot of items were very scarce and rationed out. This is kind of similar to North Korea where there are markets where citizens can buy and sell goods - often using dollars or Chinese currency but rarely NK currency. Although technically illegal, they are a must since the NK currency has hardly any value and oftentimes an average citizen can't purchase certain goods from NK government run stores because the items simply aren't there.


Yes my parents had an old diesel Mercedes. The Skodas I hear were actually regarded, and still are, as pretty good cars for the money. Opel were also pretty popular but I don't know if that was pre 1989 but I sure saw a ton of them in the 90s


You are correct - the engines are imported. Also these cars are made in very small amounts like the Hussarya is 33 units and the Leopard is handmade with about 80 to 200 units a year. Oftentimes manufacturers will import engines or other components because of economies of scale. The Germans make great engines but their electronics aren't the best in their cars. I had a 2004 Saab 9-3 Aero and the car was a mut. You would think oh a Saab - well that's a Swedish car. However, only the metalwork was in fact Swedish, the engine was a German VW/Audi - 2.0 turbo (used in the Audi A4, VW Jetta and GTI, etc), and the transmission was Japanese. The radiator was actually from Poland. Another example is Jaguars and Land Rovers since they use Ford engines but are often considered to be British cars.

Life / What don't you like about Poland or Polish People? [117]


Not a big fan of the meandering groups of aggressive street beggars and pick pockets in my city. Makes me sad though that instead of sending their kids to school they basically force them to beg for change all day.

History / Cars made in Poland - during communist and post-communist times [23]

Not sure kpc21 - this was before my times. Communism in Poland was quite different right after WW2, different during the 60s and 70s, different during the martial law times, and different yet in the 80s right up to the explosion of the solidarity movement.

I do know that things were rationed and I actually still have an old ration card. I found it funny that the government rationed out cigarettes and alcohol.

As far as gasoline rations I have no clue but that's a good question. I do remember though having to crank up the engine on the old MB to get it going.

I've always wondering how popular Russian made cars were in communist Poland. I do know there were a bit of Ladas around. I would absolutely love to get my hands on a M13 Chaika. They're rather expensive though - $60k 70k+ for the sedans and $100k+ for the convertibles. Even when they are available they go very quickly.

History / Current Polish-Russian relations.. What do the Poles think? [60]

Russia has done a lot of bad and the US is suspicious of them. However, I think that the US should at least engage in more meaningful diplomatic discussion with them concerning ISIS and the middle east. They've certainly done a better job of bombing ISIS than we have and in a shorter time too. Economic sanctions don't really hurt the leaders of these countries but rather the everyday citizens. In fact,

People don't respect the US anymore. Russia, Iran, and China are starting to realize that the US isn't all that strong anymore and they can start doing what they want.

That's besides the point though. I am interested to find out what the opinion of Russia and Putin is in Poland - especially among the youth and the euro skeptics.

History / Current Polish-Russian relations.. What do the Poles think? [60]

Well Poland has been betrayed by many countries - both Russia and the west.

I have heard of some news outlets accusing Russia of sponsoring groups in Poland and the Baltic countries. I haven't looked too much into it but it wouldn't surprise me given the situation in eastern Ukraine.

Personally, I don't think Poland should put all their faith in Germany, the EU or Russia. I don't think they should chose one side over the other though as both sides have screwed them over. Ultimately, Poland needs to continue to modernize their armed forces and think for themselves instead of going by whatever Brussels tells them to do. I think we are starting to see some changes in Poland - whether they are for the better or for the worse only time will tell.

Also, Didn't Mikke-Korwin write a pro Russian (anti-Russophobia or however it is spelled) book? I think he also stated that supposedly the snipers in Maidan were trained in Poland were CIA agents there to cause unrest or something like that.

History / Current Polish-Russian relations.. What do the Poles think? [60]


That beautiful Stalinist syringe wedding cake looking 'Pajac Kultury' building in Warsaw of course! Just kidding.. to my understanding that 'gift' from the Russians was paid for by the Poles anyway.

That was actually the very first thing I wrote - I know that Poland and Russia historically did not have a good relationship. The question is if that is at all changing now as some Poles want the country to exit the EU (oftentimes because they are critical of Merkel's policies) so I am wondering if they are perhaps looking more towards Russia as a partner instead of the Eu. I guess the general consensus is no - distrust of Germany and the EU is not warranting a better relationship with Russia and Putin.

It does look like it rose a little bit from the year before for Poland.

The one thing if you look at their methodology the sample size used is very small - just over 1,000 Polish people:

Survey Methods for Poland in 2015

Country: Poland
Year: 2015
Sample Design: Multi-stage, area probability design. Primary sampling units (PSUs) are gminas (communities) stratified by province, urbanity and gmina size. Twenty-seven large gminas are selected with certainty. Within these gminas, PSUs are blocks. The number of effective PSUs is 257. Individuals within households are selected using the next birthday method. At least three attempts are made to complete the interview with the selected respondent.

Mode: Face-to-face
Languages: Polish
Fieldwork Dates: April 7 - May 13, 2015
Sample Size: 1,028
Margin of Error: 3.5 percentage points
Representative: Adult population 18 plus
Primary Vendor: Princeton Survey Research Associates International
Weighting Variables: Gender, age, education and urbanity
Design Effects: 1.28

If you pull up Germany, Russia, etc. the sample sizes are all around 1,000 as well.

History / Current Polish-Russian relations.. What do the Poles think? [60]


I agree with you 100% on that. The Visegrad 4 must stand firm with each other. Quite frankly, I would love to see Serbia included in this group too.


The Serbs have enjoyed close ties with Russia throughout history. After the fall of the USSR, the average Russian began to view the US very favorably - they wanted to live and work in the US, study in US schools, listen to US music, etc. etc. The bombing of Belgrade changed all that right away and Russians have viewed the US unfavorably since then.


That's what I was thinking! Why should China, Iran, Belarus, etc. be the only ones to benefit from increased trade caused by Western sanctions? I mean Russia is so hurt by sanctions and oil prices but unfortunately Poland can't really become a bigger trade partner with Russia because that could mean political backlash from the EU and losing trade with Germany and the EU. The PiS government is already in a precarious situation for their 'rule of law' violations. Merkel really has Poland by the balls.. I do know there is a good business relationship between the Poles and Russians in Kaliningrad. The politicians, not so much - they're worried about military deployments there.

I know Poland and Russia have had their share of problems. I think though with the craziness going on next door in Germany, Poland should at least consider making better relations with Russia if even only for their own financial gain through exports.

News / Nike company breaks Polish child labour policy [7]

I was cutting 2x4s and hanging drywall before I even had hair on my balls, I don't see what the big deal is... Quite frankly, I think it made me a hard working and more ambitious person because of it and helped my family out financially at the same time.

I can understand though how people think it's cruel or a bad thing and that brings up a good question, what is better? A child working in a factory making a meager wage so he and his family don't starve or a child and the family starving because he can't find a job and his drunk dad refuses to work? In the 1st world we look as child labor as evil but in the 3rd world child labor is looked as a blessing by the locals - of course their situation is being exploited though by 1st world corporations.

Boycotts have a rather limited effect unless they are sustained for long periods of time. It's actually illegal for certain institutions to boycott certain country's goods in England. This policy was apparently implemented without any vote or debate by Parliament too.

History / Current Polish-Russian relations.. What do the Poles think? [60]

I do think that Serbia would be an excellent mediator between NATO dominated Central Europe and the Russian east. This is why the whole war started in Ukraine and thousands paid the price for it. It was an important chess piece for both Nato and Russia.

I'm happy to see that at least the Slavic countries aren't being sucked into the craziness of their western neighbors.

History / Current Polish-Russian relations.. What do the Poles think? [60]

There is a lot of speculation still on what did and didn't happen, whether there was a genocide or not, whether the 8,000 Srebnica figure is accurate and so on. I personally don't know whether there were real war crimes or not and this is a topic that should be investigated further by independent committees. I did follow these events very closely as this was really the first of many large international conflicts that the US would become involved in my lifetime. I'm certain there were abuses on all sides - Serbs, Croats, KLA, etc. I do however know that the U.S. media is very biased and a lot of the claims weren't based on proven evidence. The media would report that the reason they couldn't find the thousands of bodies outside of Srebnica is because they were supposedly moved. Then they said that they were melted in an aluminum factory. There really isn't much evidence for or against a lot of the events that occurred. The media also ignored the Krajina 'massacre' committed by the US and Croatian forces. Even if say the Croats didn't kill the supposed 2,000 or so Serbs as claimed, they still drove out hundreds of thousands from their homes. Even the figure of Serbians raping women was lowered from 60,000 then down to 20,000 then finally only 119 documented cases were found. Besides, the commanders and politicians were investigated and tried already by the Hague. It's over and done with. Serbia is not like some international pariah like Cuba or North Korea. Yugoslavia was split up, each nationality got their own land whether fair or not, it's over and done with. I personally would've rather seen Yugoslavia stay as one like under Tito but that's history.

I have a favorable view of Serbia in the same way I support Czech Republic and Hungary. I feel that the Slavs must be united as they cannot only rely on the major European powers.

Life / What on earth is the fascination of Indians, Pakistanis and Nepalese with Poland? [112]

Could it be perhaps a lot of the highly skilled IT people and those in the medical field will get paid more in Poland than Nepal/India/Pakistan?

Life / What on earth is the fascination of Indians, Pakistanis and Nepalese with Poland? [112]

It also has to do with socioeconomic status like dalits tend to be darker than the top castes because they're more exposed to the sun.

Law / File complaint against Poland's police [97]

I would immediately go to the Dutch embassy/consulate and explain everything that's going on. Hiring a defense lawyer may be a good idea. I am very sorry to hear that - I had a lot of problems with the Polish police also on my recent trip.

In Wroclaw, they're doing some work in my neighborhood, Psie Pole, on the Wisla river. I guess they're building canals or something. Anyway, the city hired a construction company who snuck onto our property and dug an enormous hole. We have a 1.3 hectare property that has a nice 2 story home on it and a large apple orcharch, or at least use to. Anyway, the company dug up a hole literally large enough to fit the foundation for a factory or one of those old communist bloki. The hole itself is probably approaching a hectare. All the apple trees are totally destroyed. My aunt was actually the one who found this out because she was driving next to the property and called me to tell me what was going on. I called the police but all they did was take down the driver's information of the dump trucks and excavators and their license plates. However, they allowed the work to continue and my property continued to get damaged and more and more rubble was being illegally dumped onto the property. I flew to Poland and hired a lawyer. We worked with the police who not only was totally lazy and seemingly refused to do anything, the higher-up officers began to not answer my phone calls. So I had to go in person and after a while they would hide to avoid me. They literally were like hiding and avoiding me so they didn't have to do work. In the 2 months I was in Poland they basically just started an investigation and had some license plates/ids written down. Even though I had every document showing this was my property they still didn't press charges against the company. I had to take a bunch of time off of work, spent $10,000+ on my trip, hotel, airfare, lawyers, food, etc. on top of the income lost as only about 1/4th of my trip was paid for by vacation time. This was barely a vacation. I don't think I've ever been so stressed out and frustrated in my entire life.

On the plane ride back though, as I was reading a magazine, it dawned on me that it would be a good idea to talk to the media about this and perhaps you could too. Exposing police ineptitude would be a good story. I have had several interviews lined up for next time I go to Poland about my case. I would recommend you make yours as public as possible - especially if you are innocent or there is little to no evidence to prove your guilt. Definitely hire a lawyer though and talk to your consulate. If your facing some serious charges and you are in fact guilty and the police can prove it, then I would think about taking every necessary step to avoid prison.

I am truly sorry for you - I know first hand how much of a pain it is dealing with the Polish police. Good luck to you buddy.

Law / File complaint against Poland's police [97]

I was in the US when this occurred. My aunt notified my about this as she was driving by and asked if we sold the property. I was really worried at first that maybe I forgot to pay the property taxes or something and our property got repossessed. But yeah, 100% true story. It makes me so sad because that home survived WW2 and a shady construction company managed to destroy it within a month because they were too lazy and too cheap to drive the 45 minutes to the proper disposal site. It's been a nightmare dealing with the police. Here, they would've stopped the work and probably arrested people for trespassing, damage to property, and illegal dumping. The police did NOTHING. As soon as the police left the dump trucks came back and continued dumping. They stopped once I came to Poland but who knows what's going to happen with this. All I know is that the home that I was planning on retiring in is totally ruined. I can't even sell it because no one will buy it. The property was assessed about a year ago and was worth 3.8 million zloty which is a substantial amount of money. I didn't care about that though because I was planning to live there and not sell it. Now my dream of retiring in Poland is over unless the property is either fixed or the they pay for the damage they did. I don't expect to like win the ghetto lottery - i.e. sue them for millions. However, I do want them to either fix the property (which will probably cost over $1mil dollars because of the damage) or buy the place for a fair market value. I haven't cried since my grandmother died when I was like 16 and when I saw our family home I cried. It literally looks like the place was bombed I mean they dug a hole 10 feet deep and filled it with rubble. It's been a nightmare and it's still far from being over. The sad part is I know the company that did it, I have pictures, videos, witnesses, testimonies (ironically, one of the drivers from the company is actually a family friend but of course he had no clue that this home was ours since no one lives there and he even agreed to testify in court), and despite spending thousands of dollars and 2 months out of work, I left Poland without even a complete police report because of the cops' laziness... insanity..

Law / File complaint against Poland's police [97]

Jesus dude that is a crazy store - I would get your witnesses to write a statement, get a good defense lawyer, and most importantly contact the dutch embassy. That sounds like a huge pain and even worse if you left the country they may issue an international warrant. Although you never know out of sheer laziness and ineptitude.

I wonder if there is a statute of limitations in Poland? In the US for a crime like that it wouldn't go to court because it's over 2 years old. Only murder doesn't have a statute of limitations. I think you may just be wanted for questioning - I don't think you have an arrest warrant otherwise they would've picked you up already.

I'm not bsing delph... I have pictures of this I can even share - both old pictures with my parents in their 20s when they lived in that house (which was my grandmas and she gave it to me) and current pictures with the apple orchard totally dug up and the property in ruins.


It is both a civil matter and criminal matter. Criminal in the sense that the company trespassed, damaged private property, and illegally dumped. Civil in the sense that I'll have to sue them for damages to my property. First I have to get them prosecuted for the criminal so it's easier to win the civil case. It's going to be a very very long process though. I am so sick of this already I'm ready to give up on this as I simply can't afford to just keep taking off work and fly to Poland for month's and keep bugging the police to do some work. They wouldn't do anything over the phone when I called from the US so I pretty much had to go and even once I did the police didn't do anything. They didn't even make a single arrest or charge anyone - all they did was write down some info, take some statements, and that's it. It's been about 4 months since I first found out about this and still no one has been even charged or anything. If I were the owner of the company I would disband it or declare bankruptcy or something to avoid prosecution and a civil case - they certainly have enough time for it.

Law / File complaint against Poland's police [97]


I can gladly send you pictures of this incident. And yes, I am in the process of doing that... I have not exagerrated anything in this story

Law / File complaint against Poland's police [97]

Since you don't believe me Delph - here are some of the documents from the lawyers and pictures... I have over 2 dozen I can share... I had to redact some of the names and addresses of my lawyer and myself...

Sygn. akt RSD 186/16 Wrocław, 29 lutego 2016 r.

adwokat Tomasz XXXXi

pełnomocnik z wyboru

pokrzywdzonej -------
Komisariat Policji

Wrocław - Psie Pole

we Wrocławiu

WNIOSEK DOWODOWY

Jako ustanowiony pełnomocnik z wyboru pokrzywdzonej, na podstawie art.

167 § 2 k.p.k. w zw. z art. 169 § 1 k.p.k. wnoszę o zwrócenie się do firmy XXXX

S.A., 02-119 Warszawa, ul. Pruszkowska XX o wskazanie jej podwykonawców,

którzy w okresie czwartego kwartału 2015 r. oraz stycznia i lutego 2016 r. zajmowali

się usługami transportowymi w rejonie ul. Pełczyńskiej we Wrocławiu, albowiem z

zeznań świadka Ivo XXX wynika, że prace na tamtym terenie wykonywała

właśnie wskazana firma, korzystająca z pomocy podwykonawców, co w

konsekwencji wymaga ustalenia tych podwykonawców i sprawdzenia, czy to nie oni

(co jest przecież prawdopodobne) dokonali zniszczenia ogrodzenia znajdującego się

na nieruchomości pokrzywdzonej położonej przy ul. Pełczyńskiej XX oraz samej tej

nieruchomości.

Łabuda Razowski Wojciechowski adwokacka spółka partnerska

also from the lawyer

adwokat Tomasz XXXXX

pełnomocnik z wyboru

pokrzywdzonej XXXXXX- KasperXXXX
Komisariat Policji

Wrocław - Psie Pole

we Wrocławiu

WNIOSEK DOWODOWY

Jako ustanowiony pełnomocnik z wyboru pokrzywdzonej, na podstawie art.

167 § 2 k.p.k. w zw. z art. 169 § 1 k.p.k. wnoszę o zwrócenie się do firmy Skanska

S.A., 02-119 Warszawa, ul. Pruszkowska XX o wskazanie jej podwykonawców,

którzy w okresie czwartego kwartału 2015 r. oraz stycznia i lutego 2016 r. zajmowali

się usługami transportowymi w rejonie ul. Pełczyńskiej we Wrocławiu, albowiem z

zeznań świadka Ivo XXXX wynika, że prace na tamtym terenie wykonywała

właśnie wskazana firma, korzystająca z pomocy podwykonawców, co w

konsekwencji wymaga ustalenia tych podwykonawców i sprawdzenia, czy to nie oni

(co jest przecież prawdopodobne) dokonali zniszczenia ogrodzenia znajdującego się

na nieruchomości pokrzywdzonej położonej przy ul. Pełczyńskiej XX oraz samej tej

nieruchomości.

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Law / File complaint against Poland's police [97]

The worst one... Keep in mind this use to be a beautiful apple orchard with 100s of trees... a big 2 story home utterly destroyed and all the land with it too... that was going to be my retirement. Quite frankly, I don't care if you believe me or not Delph the fact of the matter is I'm not BSing. I did have a local person look out for this property but he took advantage of the situation - I was letting him live there for free in return for maintaining the place which of course he failed to do. I will never purchase a property in Poland again unless I'm living in it or can stop by and see it at least weekly.

Yes, I expected the police to at least charge the people for trespassing and damage of property. I mean the cops literally saw them creating this mess but all they did was take their IDs and write down their license plates. This has been a horror.

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Law / File complaint against Poland's police [97]

Don't buy property in Poland unless you yourself look after it regularly or have someone you can really really trust look after it. You can't just assume that the police will make sure no one breaks in and steals stuff. You could bribe a cop or two and pay them some money to drive around it or install cameras. Still though, leaving a property alone and unguarded in Poland is like leaving your car parked in a really bad neighborhood.

Law / File complaint against Poland's police [97]

This place was in good shape, at least on the inside until this year. I let a person live there for free in exchange for maintaining it. I didn't expect a family 'friend' to rip out the fixtures and everything. Aside from hiring a full time property manager or a security guard I don't know what else I could've done - and even then it's not guaranteed that they'd even look out after the place while I'm gone.

I've already spent around $10k USD with this - counting the wages I lost while there the figure is much higher.


The issue is though I wouldn't sue the dump truck driver as he has little to no money and it's not he that decided to go there, it was his boss who told him to. We know this from interviews with the drivers. I just don't understand why the police wouldn't stop people from continuing to dump. Like they knew what the company was doing is illegall and that they are dumping on private land yet they continued to do it. They only stopped once I physically got there and start photographing the 'boss' (judging by his brand new BMW and suit and tie attire).

Once this is over, I'm putting in land mines, electrical barbed wire fences, and rabies ridden German shepherds. Ideally, I'd like them to just get the land back to the way it was. The house is old and needs a lot of remodeling or to be torn down completely. The land is zoned as agricultural because of the apple orchard that use to be there. I don't know how likely it is that they company will fix the land they destroyed which to me is actually preferable than giving me money equal to the damages. I'm not an expert, but I'd imagine fixing that land up, clearing all the rubble that the company dumped, and replanting the grass and tress would probably cost close to $1mil. Although the monetary value of this property is high, or at least use to be prior to the destruction (was appraised for 3.8 mln zloty like 2 years ago) its more of a sentimental value to me and I wanted to return to the same neighborhood I was born in and grew up (Zlotniki - not too far from Psie Pole where this house is).

I may add that we sold the Zlotniki (Wroclaw) property a bit too soon because we fell on hard times. If we would've waited just 6-12 months more we would've got around $350k-$400k USD. We got around $80k USD. This was around the time of the recession like 2008-2009ish. It was in nice shape though - little outdated kitchen and bathrooms but very cozy and well maintained.

Law / File complaint against Poland's police [97]

That's what the value was according to some website that's similar to Zillow in the US when I checked it like 6-12 months after the sale out of curiosity. I mean it's not 100% accurate but it gives a decent approximation. Even if it was $250k that's still 3x more than the $80k we got for it. We needed the money though at the time as the situation was rather desperate in the US (early US recession years, perhaps even a little before the US recession). The person who bought it must be jumping for joy now though. I'll have to look it up and see what the current value is. I don't remember the exact address by heart but I have it at home.

The house that I posted pics of though I had it formally assessed but although the home isn't worth much but there is a lot of land. I do remember when we sold the Zlotniki house it was around the time that housing prices were falling drastically in the US because we needed to sell that property to pay off the property taxes, which are ridiculously high in Chicago. But yeah, we didn't get much for it.

I don't know I mean my brain is like fried from dealing with all of this. It's in the lawyers and polices' hands now. I mean if I could stay in Poland and just focus on resolving this I would but unfortunately I had to get back to work. I will go again in a few months although this time I'm going to vacation a little before and after dealing with this situation. What I did wrong is I spent almost everyday on the phone, surrounded by paperwork and an ashtray overflowing with Marlboro Red butts. I did at least get to see my family in Wroclaw, Walbrzych, Rychwal, and Konin but even then I felt bad because I was always on the phone.

It seems like real estate prices fell a lot. When I last checked similar homes in Zlotniki a bit after the sale of ours (around 2006 - give or take 1-2 years) they were much more expensive. Also, we put it up at a very cheap price so that we could get some cash asap.

Our zlotniki home would've been almost exactly like this: 4-5 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, 2 stories, lots of wood everywhere,

This one would come out to around $240k or so with the current exchange rates. So yeah, someone basically got the same thing for $80k.. lucky family = ) I'm kind of glad they did though since they seemed like a very nice young couple.

otodom.pl/oferta/dom-310-m-wroclaw-ID2MI7X.html#3b5c8bb9f6