Step squatters dialled pizza, drugs before landlord chainsawed off staircase

A fed-up landlord has gone to extraordinary measures to get rid of bold squatters who made his property their home, from where they ordered pizza and got drugs delivered at night. WATCH THE VIDEO.

Shop owners, sick of drug addicts camping on their second-floor veranda for a year, have solved the problem by sawing off the stairs.

BEENLEIGH HOUSE RAIDED

BEENLEIGH DRUG WAR

Beenleigh jeweller Adam Hatton said police and the landlord’s private security firm had unsuccessfully tried to move the drug addicts for more than a year.

Mr Hatton said his family business was at the peril of the dossers who had been caught on security cameras taking drugs and ordering pizza – all from the veranda steps.

He said the brazen squatters were even videoed dialling a dealer to deliver them drugs.

Police ramped up their patrols after his Hatton Garden Jewellery store in City Rd was broken into in January and a man later charged with possessing drugs and a gun.

Pizza delivered to the back steps where four people were squatting.

“We were at our wit’s end,” Mr Hatton said.

“The security guys would come and move them but they would be back in 20 minutes.

“Police then took up the patrols and started moving them on every day but they would be back within an hour.

“After the last break-in in January the landlord decided on a new tactic and the back steps were sawn off so nobody can go up there now.”

Landlord Tony Pennisi said he had no alternative but to saw off the back steps.

Landlord Tony Pennisi cut off the back steps to his City Road office building to stop squatters dossing on the steps.

Mr Pennisi who owns two properties on the once-bustling City Road, said he spent $140,000 a year on rates for the two properties and $120,000 in land tax.

“On top of all that I am also spending big to hire security to protect my properties and then on top of that I have to pay for all the repairs,” he said.

“It’s impossible when I can’t rent out the properties because the tenants are intimidated by drug addicts living on my back steps.

“This time I decided to make it permanent and cut off the stairs – what else could I do to keep these people out?”

A squatter moves in to the steps with a blanket and bedding.

A squatter arrives to the steps wheeling a suitcase.

Mr Pennisi said he recently had to fork out $5500 to repair and fortify a powerbox outside one of his properties after thieves broke into it and stole copper wire.

“Only drug addicts would take the risk of breaking into that powerbox to steal something that’s worth $20 after it’s melted down,” he said.

“It’s extremely frustrating because Beenleigh never had this drug problem until about 18 months ago when I believe drug addicts moved here for a methadone clinic.”

Other businesses in the area have also been hit hard by drug addicts intimidating clients and shoppers.

Another nearby jeweller Natalia Tormasi said the drug problem in Beenleigh had killed off trade in the city centre.

“Something needs to be done immediately or else the last remaining shops in the CBD will shut and leave.”