Sunday, 11 September 2011

Caboolture Brothel

We live in Caboolture in Qld, Australia.  In our first house, we lived next door to a brothel.  Underage girls would call in before and after school.  They would be dressed in their school uniforms.  This was an everyday event.  Some of the guys would remain outside the house talking, and others would go inside.  Calling the police did nothing.  By the time the police arrived, they had all bolted out the back.

The guys in the house, set up a vantage point on their roof.  They had a lounge chair up there and binoculars.  One guy would sit up there all day and most of the night. This was quite disturbing to us as our bedroom was right alongside.

The music would be playing almost 24 hours a day - loud music.  This was probably to drown out any noise from inside the house.  Sounds could still be heard though.  Fights, arguments, girls crying, guys yelling - constant noise 24 hours a day.

Cars would arrive at all hours of the day and night. A car would pull into the house, the garage door would go up, the car would drive in, the garage door lowered.  Five minutes later, the garage door would go up, the car would drive out, the garage door would go down.  This was a regular event.  Probably drugs - but no proof of this.

Then they got into making weapons - 'Numchucks', and other weapons. The guys would walk around the front yard of their house playing with the weapons.  This was in daylight. In full view of cars going past.  They didn't seem to fear anything or anybody.

We heard walls inside the house being smashed, windows smashed, and rubbish was thrown around the yard.  We had to put up with the guys doing burnouts under their house - at 2.00am. 

We couldn't hear the television, we couldn't hear ourselves talking to each other.  Visitors wouldn't come to visit us - it was too dangerous. We had to increase our security.  We installed locks and bars on every window and door.  We had steel mesh installed around the entire inside of the house downstairs.  We had a large dog.  We could never leave a window or door open.  We were forced to install air conditioners in nearly every room of the house. 

We contacted the police, the local Caboolture Council, the Councillors, just about everybody we could think of.  We were told there was nothing that anyone could do.  The police would have to get them in the act - and that was almost impossible.  Finally, we discovered, through a police liaison officer, that they were renting the house from an owner who lived interstate.  They were trying to contact the owner, but weren't having much luck.  We continued to live there.  I was crying most nights.  The noise was terrible.  The fear was worse.

One night I walked out to the front of our house, which was enclosed.  I saw the guys next door wheeling a rubbish bin over to another street nearby.  This was in the early hours.  They gathered stuff from everywhere they could find and then set the bin alight.  It was burning quite strong.  I was concerned that a car might come round the corner and hit it.  I called the police.  By this time, the police knew us by name.  They sent two cars. One car came sideways round the corner and managed to grab one of the guys.  The other guys ran back to their house, turned off all the light and music and locked all the doors.  The police told us later that the one guy was charged, but let free until the court date.  So he came back home.  Then the guys tried to find out who had rang the police.  They asked certain neighbours, friends etc.  We decided it might be time for us to sell our house.

We contacted a real estate agent, who said it would be almost impossible to sell our house, while the neighbours were living there.  So we went back to trying to get the neighbours out.

Finally, four police cars arrived one night, and evicted all the people in the house.  Apparently, the previous tenants had left and new tenants had moved in - but were not paying. It was further complicated because the owner of the house had apparently declared himself bankrupt.  The police had to try and contact the bank for permission to enter the house.  Anyway, the end result was they were all evicted and a notice was put on the front door.

We quickly contacted the real estate again, put our house up for sale and had it sold within a week.  We dropped the price drastically - just so we could get out fast.  We then spent some time looking for another house.  We checked the neighbourhood, the neighbours, everything we could think of.  There was no way we wanted to end up in the same situation again.  But -----Yes -----We did.  After some months of living in absolute happiness - one of our neighbours sold their house.  And yes - again the Neighbours from Hell moved in.

Police Response

Contact the President of the USA and get him to send a Scud Missile to their house.  That's the only way you are going to get rid of your neighbours.

This was the final comment I received from the police officer handling our complaint about our neighbours.  This was after months and months of trying to get the problem solved.  The police cannot help us.  The law is not on our side. 

That's why I have decided to publish what happened to us.  Maybe it will help someone else.  Maybe the authorities will read it and change the law.  You can only hope.  But if I don't 'tell it to the world', then nothing will happen. 

This blog will detail the events leading up to the above comment from the police.  It will also tell of some of the strategies we were forced to put in place - to protect us from our neighbours.  It will also hopefully get our story out - the more that know what we (and others like us) are going through - the more chance of change.

Please come back to the site and check often.  Tell your friends about it.  Tell the authorities.  Let the world know just what it is like to live next door to the 'Neighbours from Hell'.