Mum’s desperate fight for security in $1150 rental as thieves roam streets
A family-of-four has been in a desperate battle to get one simple change made to their rental.
Shocking photos have revealed the “ridiculous” measures a mum renting in Brisbane has been forced to take to keep her family safe as they fear machete-wielding thieves in their neighbourhood and their young daughter escaping through the insecure front door.
Cindy* pays $1150 a week to rent in the northern suburb of Hendra in Brisbane with her family of four.
Despite pleas to the property manager to fix a serious safety issue with the front door, nothing has happened.
The double doors are locked from the inside with a latch, which the couple’s three-year-old daughter can easily turn to open the front door and get outside, where there is no front fence and the street is just metres away.
A key also won’t lock the door from the inside — something Cindy said she has never experienced — and there is no bolt to hold the door in place on the right side where the lock sits.
When a locksmith was sent out to investigate the issue, Cindy said she became even more alarmed when he described the front doors as some of the “worst” he had seen and the “weakest” security option.
“Not only can our three-year-old open the door, but we are also vulnerable as the locksmith said a decent kick could open it even when locked with the latch,” she told news.com.au.
The family recently captured chilling footage from the doorbell camera they installed at their own cost showing a masked person trying to enter their car in the middle of the night.
Three weeks later they captured more footage of three people trying to open their car door which prompted them to call the police.
“We have had two incidents of people trying to break into our car in our driveway in the space of three weeks, and to be fair they both just tried the lock on the car and didn’t try get into house,” she said,
“But the concern is … if there were people motivated to get the car keys they will come into the house and there have been lot of breaks in and attempted breaks-in in the area.
“In January, a house on our street, they had people with machetes trying to break in. I don’t want to have to think about this and be vulnerable because of the front door. We don’t want to be in situation where people are in our house.”
The family have had to take desperate measures to secure their front door – at first using a chain to secure the door.
“We were resorting to using chains to lock the door to buy us a few minutes if someone was kicking in the door and we needed to call the police,” she said.
“But it was unnerving as we wouldn’t be able to get out in an emergency.”
Cindy said her husband wanted to put in an even more extreme measure.
“My husband wants to put a bike lock around the bars of the door but that’s concerning for me because if there is fire how do we get out? If we didn’t have a lot of time to get out, we would potentially be putting ourselves in danger in an emergency situation,” she said.
Now her engineer husband has crafted a block of wood to secure the front door.
“My husband built a wooden block, which works well but is f***ing ridiculous. We are paying $1150 a week and have no security door, no screen door and that door is the only barrier between us and anyone who wants to come in,” she added.
“He built that block as we did have a chain with a lock and it was unnerving and the kids didn’t like it.
“My son started asking questions about why we have a chain around the door and I didn’t want to say: ‘As we don’t want someone to kick down the door’ and then he wouldn’t sleep. We had to come up with bulls**t reasons.”
Havig & Jackson Real Estate are responsible for managing the rental.
Property manager Michaela Hully told news.com.au that the agency “takes tenant safety very seriously”.
“I can assure you that the tenant safety in this situation is not compromised,” she said.
“The property is secure with the current locking system which has a drop bolt at the top and bottom of the left hand door and a lock on the right hand door.”
She added the locksmith’s statement that the door was the “weakest” option was “someone’s opinion however this is a standard set up for entry doors on residential homes”.
Regarding the use of the wooden block, she said: “Again, as the front door is secure, this is something that the tenants are choosing to do not a requirement.”
But Cindy said they had also been forced to take drastic measures to keep their daughter safe – installing a device on the outside of her bedroom door to prevent her opening it at night.
“It’s so we could sleep at night, she’s a bit of an adventurer, so if she woke up in the middle of night and decided to go out the front door we might not hear her. We have lock her in her room so we don’t have to worry about that,” she explained.
“It’s not fair we have to lock our child in her bedroom at night so we can sleep … This isn’t normal – you don’t lock children in bedrooms. We don’t do it with our son, who is seven, but we can’t trust she won’t leave the house as she is three.”
Ms Hully reiterated that he property is secure in response to news.com.au’s questions.
“I would also comment that many young children once they reach a certain age would be able to unlock a door,” she said.
Cindy, who works as a senior adviser, said the outside lock on her daughter’s door impacts her too.
“If she does wake and gets out of bed, she will bang on the door … She gets upset when she can’t get out and she is banging and she will start screaming,” she revealed.
“She is obviously a bit stressed as she can get out during the day where she can go in and out of her bedroom.”
A community Facebook page has also raised a disturbing number of break-ins in the area.
“It’s ridiculous to see it. A couple of times a week people are posting about attempted break-ins here,” Cindy said.
“A neighbour across the road was broken into in January so they actually got into her house so they have put a security system in now.
“The person behind her was broken into prior to Christmas – they are definitely in this area and active – they come to the nice areas to steal the cars.”
The family’s neighbourhood, Hendra, has been one of the most targeted for stolen cars, while the Queensland police services online crime map shows there were 216 unlawful entry offences in the suburb between February and May this year.
Ms Hully reiterated that the current door was “secure”.
“Unfortunately, with high crime in Queensland, all we can do is ensure the home is secure for the tenant,” she said.
Cindy’s request for a security screen door to be installed in front of the doors has been outright refused.
The 40-year-old said she first raised the issue with the real estate in May 2023 during a routine rental inspection.
A handyman was sent in July last year to install a bolt on the right hand side of door, but it was the wrong type so it did not happen and there was no follow up, Cindy claimed.
Ms Hully said the handyman sent out had assessed that the door was secure and “as this was the case no further works were completed”.
The couple have further raised the issue, according to Cindy.
“We have been following up with the real estate agent asking the owner to install a security screen and offered to contribute to it … but were told it can’t be done easily and it would be costly,” she said.
Ms Hully said the tenant inspected the property for its suitability for their family prior to applying and moving in.
“The owner is not required to provide screen doors,” she added.
Cindy most recently raised the issue with the property managers at the start of April and in an email seen by news.com.au she was told the “front door is secure and as previously advised the owner will not be installing any additional locks”.
She said she is at a loss at what to do – having contacted the Residential Tenancies Authority — and discovered raising a dispute would be a lot of work.
“It feels like we don’t have any options. We are not prepared to pay thousands of dollars to install a security door for a property we don’t own,” she said.
“We pay rent on time, we pay a lot of rent and the property is well maintained. We are not asking for something cosmetic — the door isn’t secure.
“Its just frustrating that it’s something quite serious and … they continually say they are not prepared to do anything, we consider it to be a secured properly, but how can it be considered secure if a toddler can open it? It doesn’t make sense to me.”
While the wooden block is working as a temporary solution, Cindy said it still causes issues.
“I understand my responsibility as a parent and that I need keep an eye on my daughter but it’s impossible to watch her 24/7,” she said.
“If I’m at home just me with the kids I put the block on even during the day. If I’m in the bathroom or hanging out washing I just don’t want to take the chance.
“It’s an inconvenience for us – I went to an appointment on Saturday and my husband was out the back mowing, so I had to call to get in as the block was on. It restricts how we have to get in and out as we have to use this measure.”
Cindy said paying more than $4000 a month in rent was a lot of money to not feel secure in her home.
“It’s not the drain is blocked, we want something painted or the paint is flaking – its not cosmetic. The consequences of someone being in our home possibly armed or our daughter in the street, the risk is high,” she said.
“Could you just imagine waking up and she’s not there or we all sleep upstairs and someone enters?”
“I’m not going to be able to defend myself. They can take the keys, the car is insured, but how do you know that is all they are after and they are not going to stab you just because they can?
“There was incidence of people with machetes trying to break into a house – this happened in our street – so I am not being overly sensitive. There is real risk that these people will target another house and they are looking for the easiest opportunity.”
Since news.com.au reached out the rental agency, Ms Hully said they had communicated with the landlord again.
“They have agreed to provide an additional security bolt, which whilst we believe is unnecessary, should provide the tenant with more comfort,” she noted.
*Name changed for privacy reasons
sarah.sharples@news.com.au
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