The Violence Escalates

Then, the mother began going away on her own for a weekend, taking the daughter with her.  The father used to allow his son and the son's mates to drink.  So, the father would get drunk, the son would get drunk, and the son's mates would get drunk.  The trail bikes would come out.  They would be ridden round and round the yard and up and down the road, over and over, for hours.  The yelling and drunken abuse would follow.  Beer bottles would be smashed on the road.  Bottles thrown into our yard.  Smokes thrown into our yard.  The whole weekend was a nightmare.  And, it happened every weekend.  We lived for Sunday afternoons, for when the mother would arrive home. 

Finally, we had enough and approached the father again.  I spoke with him and explained the noise and abuse couldn't continue.  His reply was that he would speak to his son. 

Well, after that, the abuse got worse.  We ended up with just about all their rubbish in our yard, and on a daily basis.  We found sandwiches, bottles, bottle tops, smokes, eye drops, a baseball bat, balls, old cat food, papers, tins of softdrink, tins of beer and spirits, bottle openers etc - and this was on a daily basis.

One day we had tradesmen at our house repairing the roof.  Their comment to us was about the neighbours was they had never heard anything like it.  While the tradesmen were on the roof, the neighbours kids and friends, yelled abuse at each other and at the tradesmen, and at anyone who walked past the house.  They were smashing whatever they could find.  Yelling and swearing at the top of their voice.

Again, we spoke to the father about the language.  His response, "I've told the son to keep the language down."  That was it.  He really couldn't or wouldn't see the problem. 

We also spoke to the son ourselves.  He just repeated, "Dad knows everything that has happened."  No mention of we're sorry, we'll keep it down or anything like that.

Of course, because we had again spoken to the father, it was on again.  This time it progressed to getting our roof rocked.  The kids would throw rocks and pieces of metal onto our roof.  The noise was unbelievable, especially in the early hours of the morning.  Then, it progressed to slingshots.  They used small pieces of metal for this.  Then we had our locks jammed with something.  We had to replace the locks on the doors.  Balls would hit the side of our house day and night. 

This behaviour continued for years.  Many times we thought of moving, but when we did the sums, we just couldn't afford it.  We didn't have the money to put to another house, and we wouldn't get enough from the sale of this house, to buy another.  And, we couldn't get a loan from the bank.  So, we were stuck here.