The Fells Connection is a community web site provided for the exclusive use of residents of The Fells at Amherst. The site hosting and ongoing maintenance is being donated by Amherst Partners, LLC.

Bear warning for our community!

One of our residents here at The Fells was out dog walking around 10:30PM last night (5/10) and saw a bear walking up the emergency road in phase 2. The bear took out bird feeders at 2 houses near the emergency road. Unfortunately, as much as we all like to feed the birds, bird feeders attract bears - especially in the spring when food for them isn't as plentiful.

A mother bear with 2 yearling cubs has also been seen in The Fells in the past few weeks. An encounter with a mother and her cubs can be very dangerous since she may attack you to protect her cubs. In addition, the cubs, born last year, are also large enough to be aggressive. Such an encounter can lead to disastrous consequences for anyone who gets too close. Please follow the advice from the NH Fish and Game to prevent serious injury to anyone here at The Fells. We also would hate to have to call in the game wardens to destroy a bear.

Read more: The Bear is Back!

To the Residents of The Fells,

Just a quick FYI on the de-thatching process, the plan is to get the de-thatching done between now and June 1st (weather permitting). Because we now need to mow weekly, we will be focusing on de-thatching a couple streets at a time over the next few visits.

The process will take place with the weekly mowing.

Best,
Brian

Read more: De-Thatching - A Note from Brian Labrie

A couple of weeks ago Sharon and Mike Fake experienced something none of us want to repeat.

While away on vacation the fitting connecting their guest bathroom toilet to the water supply failed completely.

Read more: Warning - Potential for Leaks

Byron Gayman called me this afternoon and then sent me the following information pertaining to a piece of malicious computer software that has actually been around since 2007. The good news is that the FBI effectively took out this criminal ring this past November so the risk of being scammed because of this malware is minimal.

However, the remedy that the FBI put in place to mitigate the harmful effects of this malware on infected computers was only a stop-gap measure and not a fix. The FBI's temporary work-around will cease to function some time this July. If you are infected after July you may lose email and web browsing capabilities. Below is Byron's email and a number of links to resources for both determining if you have this malware on your computer and how to fix it if you do.

~Mike Ronayne

Read more: IMPORTANT! DNSChanger Computer Virus/Malware

Update 4/19/2012: Several people associated with the Fells in one way or another have had their e-mail account hacked and their contact lists stolen. This results in a scammer sending folks notices in the contacts and soliciting money and other things. If you receive a notice regarding your hotmail, AOL, or other account under no circumstances give out your account password. Your e-mail provider doesn't need your password, the scammer does. Once they get your password they will go into your account, change the password, lock you out of your own account and have a party... It is very difficult to undo this mess. Never give out your password to anyone.

You should also use complex passwords of 10 or more characters consisting of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols - for example $uMMer2o12@)!@. Many hackers use sophisticated automated "robots" to execute a "brute force" attack attempting to break into an account.

Read more: Email Scams on the Rise