Gracemere residents fed up with housing commission neighbours

Residents are resorting to extreme measures to keep their properties and families safe from housing commission tenants like getting a guard dog and avoiding leaving on holidays.

Neighbours are fed up with a Gracemere property.

Neighbouring Rockhampton region residents are resorting to extreme measures including buying guard dogs and installing security cameras, saying they live in fear of the renters from hell.

The Gracemere residents have even created their own neighbourhood watch group to deal with what they say are unruly residents in nearby government housing, with some reporting they’re too scared to even walk to their own mailboxes.

Residents of about five separate households shared their concerns and requested their identities be kept anonymous out of fear of retaliation.

The suburb has gained a reputation as a hotspot for break-ins and stolen vehicles, with drug offences and theft-related offences reported near the problem house in the quarter to December.

The online police crime map shows 11 more offences were committed in the surrounding streets, with 260 crimes carried out in Gracemere over the past three months.

The neighbours say they are concerned about one particular property, which has strange activity all hours of the day and night, an unkempt yard and residents who trespass through others’ yards as shortcuts.

The yard of the Gracemere property.

The DoH has owned the home since 1988 but neighbours say the issues started about two years ago.

“Our little neighbourhood has been battered with numerous stolen cars, repetitive domestic violence complaints, drug dealing and using and theft of property,” one neighbour claimed.

“Years of complaints to housing have not resulted in any changes to the situation leaving neighbours scared to leave their own homes (and) health and hygiene issues due to excess rubbish and state of the house with mice and rat infestations.

“We have had to resort to installing security cameras and creating a neighbourhood watch messenger group to manage the problem and look after each other’s safety.

“This is not somewhere where I want to continue to raise my children as it is not a safe environment.”

The neighbours have made complaints to Rockhampton Regional Council but were told it had no jurisdiction over the state government-owned property.

“We have a housing crisis and people not being able to get houses and you have people in there abusing that service,” one neighbour said.

The fed-up residents have sent numerous complaints to DOH but say they were met with “bureaucratic processes” and “generic responses”.

“They told us that people have the right to live the way they want to live. If they don’t want to pick up rubbish in their yard, they don’t have to and they don't have to put out a rubbish bin,” a neighbour claimed.

“As a rental you have inspections, they are obviously not doing house checks.”

Neighbours are concerned about snakes coming into their property.

A DOH spokesman said “the vast majority of Queenslanders living in public housing did the right thing”.

“Tenants need to look after their home and be good neighbours,” they said

The spokesman said the department’s policy focused on early intervention to maintain the tenancy, but said warnings, a notice to leave, and legal action were possible.

As Christmas approaches, the neighbours are worried about leaving their homes.

“I don’t want to go out of town, you don’t know what state your home is going to be in,” one neighbour said.

The Department encouraged anyone who witnessed any illegal activity to report it to police.

Some of the neighbours have been in the street for more than 20 years and feel they are left with no other choice but to move.

“But it would never sell because of the state of the house,” a neighbour said.

“It’s affecting the value of properties, there goes $10,000 or $20,000,” another said.

“Can’t sleep, can’t feel safe, what can you do?” another neighbour said.

Originally published as Gracemere residents fed up with housing commission neighbours