Things you can't get used to in your new country

Electricity and water is a complete no no.......use a rechargeable electric toothbrush!


Use a Standing order instead, or pay when you get the bill,what is the matter with you?


A simple and sensible safety precaution.

I have to do that with my Polish bank account.

It's normal nowadays for security reasons.

Exactly,I don't know why Lenka is moaning so much, maybe life in the UK is not working out for her.

How weird.


Do you Limey's know what a gfi circuit breaker, ground fault interrupt is used for ?


LOL, you are the one doing the moaning, not Lenka.
Why you attack the girls here and bully them shows what a weakling you are.
Now please back off and control your mouth here.

I am telling ya man these fu.cks have no sockets in bathrooms,Seriously how they charge there razors,toothbrushes,dryers lol.They still have 2 taps for hot and cold water in there bathrooms wash basins.

I do and it's charching in the bedroom. Annoying.


First you have to set up the recipient, then you have o make the transfer and then remove it again so it doesn't clutter your bank account. Pain in the bottom.


The matter is l
That I'm not too fond of Dirwct debit? Wasn't clear enough?

SO is basicallythe same thing. And many places require DD or charge more if you don't set it up

In fact, give a discount if you set one up.

I don't like them either and use standing orders or simple bank transfers.


You'd feel far more annoyed if you got an electric shock while charging it in a bathroom.

Life is about calculating risk.
I'm prepared to live with that risk. Especially since I already live with electrical sockets in kitchen where I have plenty of water or outside sockets.


Standing order is basically the same thing from my points of view. Where I can I pay by transfer e.g. water.

Unfortunately insurance companies, your loved ones and society as a whole are very much not.


Which are safer.

Remember, the U.K. and a few other countries use a Ring Main system which most of mainland Europe doesn't. This is due to two reasons. One is the relative lack of copper ore in the U.K. and the other is due to far higher safety standards. On a Ring Main system, you really would not want to have a normal socket in your bathroom.

Nevertheless, you can have a "shaver socket" provided its fitted properly. I have one in each bathroom and you can use appliances with Polish plugs in them. I charge my phone from it using the Polish adaptor.


The difference is that with a Standing Order, you control the amount that is transferred. I pay my U.K. bills mostly with them. Except for electricity which I pay by transfer,

It's too dangerous, ok. Then why it's not that dangerous in the kitchen?

I know Standing Order but the amount has to be the same, obviously and still there is a date set and it just leaves your account.

Good side of DD is that you can recall it. Not the case with transfer.

It is dangerous in the kitchen if you touch a socket with wet hands. The main ring circuit is protected by a RCB, which means you could get a shock, but it probably wouldn't kill you. The only socket allowed in a UK bathroom is a shaver socket with a two prong connection (there are no switches to turn it on or off), and is at half the voltage compared to the kitchen, it is also possible to buy an adaptor to charge a toothbrush, which is safe. You will also notice that the light switches in a bathroom are a pull cord type as well, this is to stop people with wet bodies touching anything electrical.

No system is ideal, however my bank in PL and my bank in the U.K. both insist that you set up the kontrahent before making a transfer and use two-step verification. It's an anti-fraud measure and is more ore less ubiquitous in the U.K. where phone scammers target old people. This happens less so in Poland since far fewer people in the countries scammers come from can speak Polish. Nevertheless it does happen.


Remember Lenka that it's better to be safe than sorry. The little switch on sockets in the U.K. is there for a reason. You can never be too careful around electricity, the system in the U.K. is very different from the one in Poland.

I know two people (in countries that have the same system as PL) who had electric shocks. One bit his tongue off and the other, fixing something at home, died horribly. Be careful to use the right plug too. A while after EU expansion in 2004 the London fire brigade reported that 50% of fires in London were due to people from abroad ramming two pin plugs into three pin sockets. Be careful with electricity, we prefer you alive than dead.

@Vincent
@jon357
We have as many as 3 sockets in the bathroom in our 20-year-old house in Germany. Also in Poland, in our house from the 1960s, there were sockets in the hanging mirror cabinet in the bathroom . It was completely normal. But when I was still going to England, I was told that not only the electrics in Victorian houses are strange, but also a few other things.

Back in the day, there was no health and safety, so anyone could do their own wiring, and this lead to many strange (and dangerous) circuits. New regulations were brought in about 15 years ago to stop this, and now if you do some wiring, you need to get a qualified electrician to inspect it, and issue a certificate to proved it was checked.

Mine was in the Wicklow mountains in Ireland.


Well, if they haven't been rewired they would be! But the UK electrical system is far superior to the European ones. It's much safer.

Yes, and you have an entirely different system of electrical installation in that country; hence 240 volt sockets in bathrooms. In the U.K. you can have them, however they are 110 volt. This is not a random capricious decision, and safety standards and the safety culture as a whole are higher in the U.K.

Remember, we were early adopters of technology, then as well as now. Mains gas supply from 1812, mains electricity from 1879 and the chaotic urbanisation of the Industrial Revolution. The systems now were developed over decades of trial and error. With electricity there are some very good reasons that the U.K. uses a ring main system.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_circuit

And it should be said that we have a far lower rate of deaths by electrocution than in Poland.

And yet it is permitted. So obviously it was decided that the risk is worth it.

But hey ho, my little annoyance with it will stay just that. It's not like it's going to change just because I hate it.

I have new thing: letter slots in door. I don't want to think how annoyed post people are with those new door with letter slots at the bottom....

That is why it is a law in the U.S. that both the bathroom and kitchen circuits must be on a gfi or ground fault interrupt breaker in the service box.

They pop the breaker if the circuit gets grounded in the least bit.
You might get a zap but not enough to kill you before the breaker pops off and kills the current in that circuit.

They must have small bathrooms like closets.Everything including cars,streets,houses is so small.As you land and get out of airport looks everything is miniature toys.

Thats why I like living on my spread here where I can go out front and pee on the lawn if I want to or shoot my gun if I want to. (Freedom)

Back to a gfi for Kitchen and bathroom circuits.
The ground-fault circuit interrupter, or GFCI, is a fast-acting circuit breaker designed to shut off electric power in the event of a ground-fault within as little as 1/40 of a second.

Google it for yourself.
Why Europe doesn't have these baffles me.

I do leafleting come election time and yes, they are a nuisance. Especially the older ones.

The kind at very low level are getting rarer and rarer due to fewer people having glass doors.

In Polish apartment buildings there's something I like even less. Those banks of boxes for letters which can all be opened at the same time by someone with a key. I once got home and found the building's caretaker looking at peoples letters and holding them up to the light!

Another think is that 'dezynsekcja' scam. When I lived in Powiśle we got a leaflet pushed under the door about it and later that day I caught the old lady who'd delivered the leaflets scattering live insects outside people's door. She actually had a bag of them.

How exactly can one get electrocuted in the kitchen? The last time I licked a socket all I got was a little tingle. It was very pleasant - almost like licking a battery - and cleared my sinuses.

I should do it again...

By having a dish pan of water in the sink and knocking something electrical in it like a can open and grabbing for it.
Spilling water in the microwave and turning it on.
Unplugging a faulty electric device with wet hands.
Standing in spilled water on the floor and plugging something in.
Many ways Novi.
You need to be spending more time in the kitchen.

Or taking a shower while drying my hair with a hair dryer? Preferably with a 220V model. This way I can get a perm at the same time.

They're called a letter box, strangely enough. Why don't you like them?


Yes, they're awful.

I know but I wanted to make sure to distinguish them from actual boxes.

I hate that they let cold air in. Especially if someone doesn't push things all the way through, that your mail lands on the floor of your main entrance and makes it hard to come in and I hate that strangers can throw stuff into your house just like that.

All good points, but you can get a wire cage thingee to catch the letters, they don't have to drop on the floor. Such letterboxes are the only option really when you have houses without front gardens or space to put a free-standing mailbox.

Mine doesn't.

They aren't compulsory however. Anyone is free to install, say, an American one in their garden or a Polish-type one next to the gate providing it doesn't breach planning law or building controls.

If your front door opens straight onto the pavement, you can buy a metal type that screws onto the external wall.

Do you Yanks know what happens to you you when an electrical appliance that is plugged in falls into the bath you are sitting in?


Says the biggest mysogynist on PF!!!!!

We die. That is why our AC outlets are far from the tubs so a hair drier cannot be plugged in and in the tub at the same time.