Nightmare neighbours: Public housing tenants terrorise Perth suburb

Welcome to the town where 10-year-olds are threatening people with knives, people are attacked with hammers at the local supermarket and the only way to go out after dark is if you’re carrying pepper spray and a cattle prod.

Not London, Mexico or the Middle East but Maddington, a small suburb in Perth’s south-east.

And its residents have had enough.

Last week a community meeting attracted more than 150 people who claim they have repeatedly reported antisocial behaviour, violence, death threats, vandalism, theft and drug use from public housing tenants to the Department of Communities with zero outcome.

They shared their stories in what they say will be the first of many public forums as they call on action from the government and WA Police to step in and do something about what they have labelled an escalating “crime crisis”.

Horror stories

Katrina bought her Maddington home 15 years ago. Two years ago she took out a violence restraining order against her neighbours after repeatedly being verbally abused and threatened with violence, but it wasn’t until she hired a lawyer and threatened the Department of Communities with legal action that they were evicted.

She calls those two years, in which she made 47 official complaints, “complete and utter hell”.

Another local said her three children slept with baseball bats in their bedrooms because they had been broken into five times since December.

“What are we supposed to do?” she asked at the meeting.

“We’ve been to the police. We’ve given them our footage but every time their faces are covered, so they can’t do anything.

“They’re taking fingerprints but they’re always wearing gloves. So that’s my question; what are we supposed to do? We’ve had a gutful, and I’ll be honest, I put spikes around the inside of my fence because my kids are scared. They won’t go out after five o’clock. They don’t go anywhere anymore. They stay home with us.”

Locals told the meeting they believed it was a small section of Department of Housing tenants responsible for an increase in general crime in the suburb.

One attendee alleged he was attacked with a hammer at the local IGA two weeks ago.

He had been intervening in a dispute, trying to protect the store’s young staff when he allegedly got assaulted.

A street away, 62-year-old Esther Montgomery lives in an over-55s complex on Sheoak Road. She says the elderly residents there have been terrorised by groups of youths.

Some tenants are making life a misery for their neighbours. Credit: Rebecca Peppiatt

“I was robbed, my car was smashed. The kids who did it, one was 10 and the other was 15,” she said.

“They were caught and charged. The 15-year-old, two days later, went to Maddington Central and held a knife to a woman holding a baby.

“The very next day, he went to the shopping centre again, there was a man holding his baby sitting at the cafe, and he had a knife held to his throat too. It was the police who told me that.”

Another woman told WAtoday a group of youths defecated in her neighbour’s front yard then smeared it all over her fence.

Why aren’t they being evicted?

Melanie Samuels, deputy director general of WA’s Department of Communities, attended the meeting with the Housing Minister’s parliamentary secretary David Scaife and Steve Martin, deputy leader of the Liberal Party, as well as numerous City of Gosnells councillors.

“What are you going to do to protect us?” one woman asked.

“What are you going to do to protect us from the people that you won’t deal with, that you won’t hold accountable?

“What are you doing for us? Because our lives are being ruined.”

Samuels, the deputy DG, told the audience the department did its “very best” to ensure tenants fulfilled their tenancy obligations.

She said a magistrate was the only person who could evict a public housing tenant, but locals retorted that the department’s too-narrow complaints procedure and an outdated Residential Tenancies Act needed to change.

“Communities does investigate all disruptive behaviour complaints in accordance with its obligations under the RTA,” Samuels responded.

A car with a smashed window at the local shopping centre.Credit: Rebecca Peppiatt

“We do take a firm approach to disruptive behaviour, particularly if there are serious and ongoing disruptive behaviour complaints at a particular property.”

But community members claim they are being told their complaint will not qualify as a “strike” against a tenant if they are not an immediate neighbour.

“These people aren’t just a nuisance to their immediate neighbours; they’re terrorising the town,” one told WAtoday.

“And some of their immediate neighbours won’t complain because they’re scared of the consequences.”

City of Gosnells councillor Glenn Dewhurst chaired the meeting and said 60 per cent of the people he had spoken to about crime in the town would not attend because they were scared to go out after dark.

“We’re talking about houses that have been provided by the state that are actually being used for criminal behaviour,” he said.

“We’ve got people down here living in absolute fear.”

A WA Police spokesperson said Maddington had recently experienced a reduction is crimes such as burglaries and the stealing of vehicles but acknowledged the area had experienced an increase in offending relating to matters such as stealing (such as retail theft) and family violence.

They said officers were working hard to address the issues “that are not unique to Maddington” and said it was not possible for officers to attend all community events in response to questions as to why they were not at the meeting.

“Local and district-based officers, including Officers in Charge and district management teams, regularly engage with community representatives and try to attend as many community forum type events as possible,” they said.

A petition has been launched to lobby the government to take action and further meetings are planned.

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