Coastal dwellers on high alert over fleeing Melburnians

Coastal dwellers are leaving notes on cars and flattening tyres to those they believe are fleeing Melbourne during lockdown.

A note left on a car in Kilcunda. Picture: Supplied

Coastal dwellers are fighting back against Melbourne and interstate invaders who they believe are defying lockdown.

Police say locals have been dobbing people in breaking lockdown rules or fleeing the city.

But shockingly, some Bass Coast residents have been at the centre of unwarranted attacks.

One woman in Kilcunda found a scathing note left on her car on Thursday that read “if you don’t live within 5km, f*** off!”

The woman, who wished not to be named, said she has lived in the town for 12 years.

A Queensland nurse also believed she was targeted by vandals over her interstate licence plates in Phillip Island.

Olivia Ostrowski was on stress leave and living with her parents in Smiths Beach when four tyres were let down on Tuesday night.

The 37-year-old believes she was targeted because of her Queensland plates.

“This is the last thing I expected,” she said.

“I’m here to get better.”

Ms Ostrowski moved in with her parents in March this year.

“It has been tough because my role and workload doubled because of the pandemic,” she said.

“It was extremely hard and I needed to take a step back.”

Ms Ostrowski said people needed to stop jumping to conclusions during lockdown.

“People don’t know the circumstances of someone being somewhere,” she said.

“Everyone’s in a pandemic, everyone’s going through something at the moment.”

Despite these incidents, Senior Sergeant Scott Morison said local police hadn’t seen an increase in vigilantes.

“We are certainly not seeing people taking the law into their own hands and addressing matters that way,” he said.

Sen-Sgt Morison said more people were reporting violations.

“Each of them are investigated to the best of our ability in regards to identifying whether it's a breach or not,” he said.

“There are rules in place and if people are breaching them, then people are reporting it.”

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