shards

Shards of Glass

The ground was seeded with glass shards that Housing would not remove. Or cover with topsoil. Or do anything about. And we have two childen - one now 4 and one now 18months. Toddling and crawling around that ground.

I was told by neighbours that they came from the previous tenants who had daily and nightly drunken commotions, screamings, fightings, breaking and smashings.

I await news of how much these charming people were charged for making good the premises after they departed - and how much of their bond was both paid and retained. The place was not repainted. Our walls were marked with crayon (or paint?) and pen or pencil and stained. Inside and outside. And so on.

It seems predictable that the result will be that they were charged nothing.

We were not the right kind of tenants. What Housing Katherine prefers is drunken trouble makers who smash the premises and disturb everyone's peace with animals that roam the vicinity day and night, with hosts of visitors all claiming to be relatives who threaten neightbours and insist upon making a maximum amount of noise both by screaming and shouting and fighting and by turning up their music machines. The preferred machine being a souped up cassette player inside a four wheel drive which is parked in the drive with the doors open and the sound blasting out at its absolute maximum.. Such people don't get charged as we have been and such people can be seen being squired around, driven here and there, by Housing Department officers in department cars almost anytime.

We started asking almost before we were in the place if anything could be done about the glass in the ground. A man who works with the crew that goes around cutting the grass told us that glass had been taken out of the place on two previous occasions. But it wasn't to be for us. They took nothing. They did nothing about almost anything we asked about - except, later, the stove which had a wonky element. I guess they weren't game to ignore the stove thing, because it could potentially cause a fire and have repercussions. But everything else they ignored. The ' drop bolt ' for the gate. The falling gate itself. The holes in the fence where the neighbour's dog happily got in and out whenever it wished. Not that it needed any holes in the fence, it was quite capable of jumping clear over the top of their front gate - and frequently did - so I'm sure it could easily jump our common fence. But it didn't need to. It could just go under it, or through the hole.

So we asked that time, right at the beginning and we asked later and we asked repeatedly when we started getting hassles from them. At one time they were hassling us and to us - quite illegally - that we had to get out directly. At that time we were quite disturbed and so we brought up the glass issue again. But nothing, of course.

And now, guess what? They claim no knowledge. And there's no record in their files they claim.

This is what we mean about your relations with Housing. They 'investigate' things by looking at their own files. They choose what they will put in their files. They will communicate with you by choice by telephone and, of course, keep no record of conversation. They construct their own files as they wish and then look at them to 'investigate' things and then decide against you! All without any consultation with you whatever. So you cannot contest anything in those files - anything present or anything not present.

That's what's called a 'kangaroo court' , my friend, that's what that is.

So anyway. Seeing as Housing loves photographs so much that they took 60 of them of our place we are sending photographs of the glass we removed from the ground and asking them to comment on it, piece by piece.

Not ALL the glass we removed. 90% of it was removed in the first weeks of our being there and thrown out in the garbage. Raked up, shovelled up and put into the wheelie and gone.

It was only later when the continued silence and inaction of the department - and some of their irritating actions - got under our skin and the continual turning up of my glass shards continued to be a real annoyance and worry that we started keeping them, for 'evidence' some day. Some day such as this.

We've got very little now. A tinfull. A mere smattering. Just a suggestion of the quantity that was there. But it is a representative smattering. There's a samply of just about every kind of shard there I'd guess.

Housing to date doesn't acknowledge receipt of the photos and has made no comment about them individually - we are asking for comments from the manager. Well that's just the kind of behaviour we've come to expect from them.

Housing is charged with and promises to provide a 'safe' environment.

Pictures of Some Shards Return to Main Page