Bhat et al. (1998) presented a model in which they explain the increase in scintillation bandwidth with decreasing pulsar distance as being due to a shell of scattering material associated with the Local Bubble. However, Britton et al. (1998) concluded that the scattering material for local pulsars is nearer to the pulsar (i.e. possibly in a bow shock or shell near the pulsar). We have investigated the effects of the local bubble shell and pulsar bow shocks on the scintillation bandwidth, the scintillation timescales and the angular broadening of pulsars. We find that a) there is no evidence for a shell of scattering material associated with the Local Bubble because the scintillation timescale data do not fit the Bhat et al. model and the angular broadening measurements do not suggest a scattering screen near the Sun, and b) that pulsar bow shocks cannot produce any enhanced scintillations.