An angry, bankrupted debtor will still have to pay an outstanding bill of $97.25 despite sending the most abusive letter Lakes Environmental (LE) chief executive Hamish Dobbie has received in his 18 months with the company.
The letter, obtained by the Otago Daily Times, was in response to an overdue account sent by LE on April 14, giving the recipient 10 days to pay the balance or the debt would be referred to the BayCorp Advantage Collection Agency.
The response, from an unknown writer, received by LE on April 21, reads (offensive passages have been removed): "Dear Sir.
It was your lousey (sic) council that (expletive) up my development at Glenorchy (Lochburn) by slamming on a huge sewerage bond - (expletive) the deal, you did ! Then when the mortgagees (sic) took possession and sold the sections up you (expletive) released the bond for them.
"Hypocritical (expletive) you are ! Which one of you dirty mongrels took the backhander . . . (deleted); Well, as a consequence of your unfair, unjust and general (expletive) behaviour, you sent me bankrupt.
"So you now have my bankrupcy (sic) number and you can now go . . . (deleted) . . . because I am not paying this lousey (sic) little account.
"Yours, in utter disgust . . .
"PS: you are a . . . (deleted) . . . Fry in hell (deleted)".
When contacted by the ODT yesterday, Mr Dobbie said while it was not unusual to receive abusive letters from ratepayers, this was the most abusive he could recall.
"People express their views using strong language and we just ignore it - basically, there's no point responding to that sort of thing. That was a pretty extreme example.
"My guys don't react to that because it only inflames the situation . . . some people aren't very rational when they write those things."
Mr Dobbie said staff always checked responses to see "if there's any kernel of truth" to allegations.
In this case, there was not, he said.
Mr Dobbie also had some advice to others contemplating penning equally abusive letters to the council-controlled organisation.
"The message that we'd like to send out is that we're quite happy to listen to the points that people want to make, but there's really no need for the use of bad language or accusations."
While the letter writer was expected to pay the account, Mr Dobbie said the person had been declared bankrupt, so it was unlikely the debt would be recovered.
• One of the original developers of Lochaber, Buzz Scown, of Arrowtown, said when contacted he had not written the letter.
Stuart Mitchell, of Auckland, who was also associated with the development, could not be contacted for comment last night.
