I’ve been away in Canberra-Babylon for the weekend and returned to find something off kilter.  Things feel quite strange…  Something has changed.

It’s peaceful.  Quiet.  Blessedly silent, even.  There’s no ‘fuckin fuckheads’, ‘daleyacunts’ or ‘cocksuckers’ coming from next door.  Not even a ‘stupid arsehole’ or ‘fuckin’ idiot’ here or there… what’s going on?!?  All I can hear is the hum of the highway in the distance, birds chirping in the trees, the creak of a gate hinge moving in the wind and a light breeze rustling through the leaves.  Where’s all the angst and hostility?  Where’s all the abusive and offensive language?  What’s happened to the daily dose of distasteful discourse we’ve come to detest?  Well, I’ll tell you what happened to it…

It packed up its shit, hossed its freight and moved the hell out!!!  

That’s right!  Victory is ours!  Victory is ours!  It is a great day to be alive people!  And we are drinking deep from the keg of glory!!!   Bring us the most disgustingly large Frozen Cokes and all the finest cheeses in the land!  For tonight, we celebrate the peace and quiet!

It would appear that Daleyacunt (aka Mr Dale Raymond Hamson) and Fuckin’ Fuckhead (aka Ms Janita Brown), previously of Belmont (w00t!) who told the wise and knowledgeable Magistrate, “That we got nowhere to fuckin’ go yorhonna, wheres we gonna go ta bafore Christmuss?” did actually have somewhere to fuckin’ go… because they have packed up their worldly belongings/trash and have buggered off!  And all without a peep.  Why they don’t even appear to have said goodbye, sent a parting gift or left a forwarding address… quelle dommage.

And I was SO looking forward to November 1st, which we had already come to think of as ‘Popcorn Day’ and were eagerly counting down until we could send out some invites, BYO lawn chairs and popcorn to watch the miscreants get forcibly removed by big burly law enforcement types.  Oh well, so not complaining if it means they’re gone for good!

Oh and PS:  Happy Birthday Daleyacunt!  I didn’t get you a gift, I didn’t get you a card, hell… I didn’t even get to give you a parting shot.  But… it is Dickhead Dale’s birthday today (DOB 22/10/1972) and we had planned to do ‘something’ to mark the occasion, but we seem to have been, fortuitously, deprived of the opportunity.  Daleyacunt… where ever you are ‘mate’, we hope you are enjoying being an unemployed and homeless deadshit on top of your usual state of being a violent, abusive, complete waste of oxygen on this, the milestone occasion of your 40th Birthday!  Our most sincere and best wishes for your future in Dalby… may someone one day have a 12ga shell with your name on it.  🙂

“Wanna tell you a story,
about our next door blues
We came to court on a Thursday,
To get Daleyacunt and Fuckin’ Fuckhead evicted
Told the Judge their crap don’t concern me,
long as they get the fuck out by next Friday
Now, next Friday was apparently too soon,
So they’ve got until November 1st at noon!”

Yes that’s right.  This morning we finally went off to Court – Area Manager of the Housing Dept by our side, lengthy affidavit in hand – and entered a strange little universe inhabited by people the likes of whom I have never met before… I think I may safely say they appear to be the bottom rung of the social economic ladder that runs through our society and they all appeared perfectly at home in the strange and foreign environment of the Magistrates Court.  So comfortable in fact they largely looked like they were dressed for a BBQ at a mate’s place rather than for an appearance before a member of the state’s judiciary system – and by this I mean they had pulled out their best t-shirts, their cleanest sneakers and some of them even appeared to have shaved and washed/combed their hair?!?!

So Mr K and I walk in.  He dressed, as usual, for work in a suit with tailored shirt complete with French cuffs and cufflinks; me with my hair tied back, dress slacks, closed toe shoes and a buttoned blouse suitable for an office environment carrying my laptop bag with my Latin assignment enclosed – because I had no idea how long we would be waiting… and we stood out like DOGS’ BALLS!  The hairy unwashed eyed us warily as though we might be members of the court, or… god forbid… lawyers.  It was slightly disconcerting at first and then vaguely amusing.

Luckily we didn’t have to wait long and our case was called.  We duly filed into the court room and were greeted by a judge, an administrative assistant of some sort, a Defendant (note – singular), an advocate from the Deadshit Tenants Rights and Advocacy Organisation  and the two representatives of the Housing Department who had rushed through this case after the Ministerial letter I wrote last week.

To make a long and drawn out boring story short – let’s face it legal proceedings only come in the ‘long and drawn out’ variety – no one has ever said their legal proceedings were ‘entertaining and pithy’ now have they? Daleyacunt was nowhere to be seen leaving Fuckin’ Fuckhead to deal with situation all on her own.  A cowardly move you might be thinking, hiding behind his GF’s skirts?  Not at all, in fact Dickhead Dale’s absence demonstrated a keen insight into “How to Work The System”.  His not being there meant he couldn’t lose his temper and screw things up for them worse.  His not being there allowed Fuckin’ Fuckhead to say “I don’t know what I’m doing here, mate. My hubby dealt with all that crap with the neighbours complaining all the time and isn’t allowed anywhere near them anymore”. His not being there enabled Fuckin’ Fuckhead to lie through her arse saying she “hasn’t done nothin’ to annoy the neighbours and they just keep calling the cops on us for nothing.”

I was called on to give evidence…

“Please state your full name”
“borys M SNORC, Your Honour”
“And your current address, please”
“7 Curiously Chaotic Court”.
“Please state your occupation”
“I am currently a full time Higher Degree Research student doing my PhD at the University of Queensland.”  

Well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone’s eyebrows raise so high so quickly in my entire life!.  I swear they nearly lifted fair off his face.  I gather from his reaction he doesn’t get a lot of ‘my kind’ in his courtroom.

“And err, what are you doing your PhD in?”
“Medieval political philosophy, Your Honour”…
“Right… I… see.”

said he.

He then asked me to explain the nature of the complaints and events of the last few months, whereupon I was allowed to explain at length the numerous incidents of objectionable behaviour we have endured at the hands of our fucktard neighbours.  For the first time ever, I lamented my above average command of the English vernacular as I found myself unable to resort to name calling, swearing or overly emotive language to describe the ordeal.

Note to self: must learn to remedy that and appear less educated, less well spoken and more distressed and emotive when required.

As things progressed, it rapidly became obvious that Daleyacunt and Fuckin’ Fuckhead had played this game before.  When asked to swear or affirm that her evidence would be truthful, Fuckin’ Fuckhead replied “I can’t read.” and had the court assistant read out the declaration to which she duly replied “I do.” but not five minutes later she was asserting that she had written a letter of “support of her hubby last time the neighbours had him dragged through the court for no reason.”  Sigh.  Not too bright this one.  She made an emotional plea about having three kids and no where to go and then said the most stupid thing I have ever head, “We want to leave and move to Dalby, we’re just waiting for money to come through and we’re gonna move outta Brisbane, we hate it here.”  So, having just shot herself in the foot and admitting to the judge that they weren’t happy with their living situation it was now just became a matter of haggling over timeframes.

Under the Act, the judge was required to give them two weeks to vacate and Fuckin’ Fuckhead was desperately trying to hold on until Christmas or later saying they were expecting money and wanted to move to Dalby.  Pulled out all the stops, said they’d had a loss in the family (Dickhead Dale’s mother passed away), mentioned her ‘hubby’ had mental conditions and had paperwork with her to prove it (*scoff* … well that’s hardly news!) and all her wailing and gnashing her teeth of poor me I’ve got no where to go got the court’s attention and compassion… and they were given three weeks to vacate the premises instead of two.

So now the Final Count Down (der, di, der, der… der, di, der, der, der) is on!  They have to vacate the premises by November 1st and if they don’t the Department will roll up with removal trucks, cops to supervise, physically remove them from the property if necessary, chuck their shit in a storage unit and kick their arses to the pavement…

And I’ll be right there for them… across the street with popcorn if anyone wants to join me.

So I spent Thursday night penning another strongly worded letter to yet another Minister of the Queensland Government. This time it was the Honourable Dr Bruce Flegg MP who was in the line of fire as it is his misfortune to be the Minister for the Department of Housing and Public Works, and as such responsible for the disastrous situation that has devolved between our offensive and disruptive neighbours and our long suffering selves.

You see after the conversation I had with Mr Bob Thomspon, Housing Officer of the Capalaba Housing Office I decided I wasn’t going to take his ‘wait in line girlie, it’s not my/our fault the Wynnum Office was closed’ attitude lying down and was going to go over his head… in fact about eight levels over his head to begin with.

If you’ve read my crap before, you’ll notice that I rarely, if ever, name people using their actual names but Mr Robert ‘Bob’ Thompson of the Capalaba region, pissed me off so much that I don’t care if his friends, family, clients or prospective employers Google him and stumble on this diatribe relating to his gross incompetence and blatantly dismissive and patronizing attitude towards my ongoing concerns for my family’s safety and sanity.

The conversation I had with him basically went thusly:

‘It’s not my fault that the Wynnum Office was closed down and your case stalled’
‘I’m not stating or even implying that the Wynnum Office closure was your responsibility, but I want to know why once those cases were transferred to your office, no further action was taken on the situation’
‘It wasn’t our responsibility to follow up on the cases of the Wynnum Office as it no longer existed’
‘So you’re telling me that the Wynnum cases were not placed under your offices’ jurisdiction?’
‘No, they were transferred to our office, but it’s not our responsibility to have followed up on them’
‘So whose responsibility was it?’
‘It was not my responsibility’
‘I understand that Mr Thomson.  You’ve made it quite clear that you’re not personally responsible for anything that occurs in your jurisdiction, I want to know who was supposed to have followed up on these cases and given that nothing has occurred, what are you going to do now in order for us to move forward?’
‘It was the Department’s fault that the Wynnum Office closed and that your case wasn’t completed’

Ad infinitum… seriously, it was like talking to a fucking house brick. He was being extremely clear that he wasn’t at fault for the Notice to Leave order not being sent through to the Courts for the eviction to be enforced and his ‘I’m old enough to be your Dad’ voice was ringing through loud and clear in his tone and general demeanour. So of course I told him I’d be writing a Ministerial about the matter and that I was extremely disappointed at his unwillingness to assist us with this situation….So, even though it wasn’t his fault but I was certainly going to make it his problem

Fucktard. He’s exactly the sort of public servant who should be shafted with all this government downsizing.

Somehow I don’t think he was expecting to come to work Friday morning to be greeted with a well thought out four page Ministerial letter outlining not only the ongoing trouble with our neigbours but also the complete ineptitude of the Wynnum and Capalaba Housing Offices that has basically left my family living next door to someone who had threatened to kill us, threatened to ‘fuck us up’ (whatever that means when it’s at home), threatened us with violence, threatened to poison/kill our family dog and also threatened to burn down our home in our absence.

And I am 100% certain he wasn’t expecting to see that same piece of correspondence cc’d to every single person between him and the Minister in his Department’s chain of command –
The Office of the Director General
The Office of the Deputy Director-General, Housing Services
The Executive Director, Service Delivery and Community Housing Development
The Executive Director, Housing Programs
Area Manager, Community Housing – East Brisbane
Manager, Capalaba Housing Office
Mr Robert Thompson, Housing Officer, Capalaba Housing Office
Ms Didn’t Follow up, Housing Officer, Previously of Wynnum Housing Office

Let’s just say the words patronizing condescending, indifferent and several other choice words were laid at Mr Thompson’s feet and I dare say he had a bit of a rough day at work yesterday explaining himself… because as fortune would have it – that phone call was being recorded for training purposes and the DG, the DDG, both Exec Directors and a Liaison Office all called today saying they had read the letter, heard the phone call and were extremely apologetic for what our family had been put through at the hands of the various functionaries of their Department.

It was somewhat fortuitous, and completely coincidental, that the Courier Mail ran an editorial piece today (that I knew nothing about), outlining how the Dept of Housing’s processes and procedures are largely geared towards protecting tenants that failed to meet their obligations, and were not protecting the interests of the general public who were forced to live beside these uncivil, unemployed deadshits.

I had no idea this article was being run but it was a happy coincidence indeed for my purposes, especially given my letter ended with my intention to contact various media outlets if the Department failed to action the original eviction notice.

So it turns out that Mr BoB Thompson was WRONG… something could be done, he was just too far down the food chain to make it happen (found out later the supercilious, snide little man was an A03) . Today, the DG, DDG, and EDs put their heads together and appointed someone to take care of this mess and it was heard in front of a magistrate this morning (within hours of my letter being received) and at 3:30pm precisely, a representative of the Department of Housing and Public Works visited Daleyacunt and FuckingFuckhead in person, and informed them that their Notice to Leave had been enforced by the courts and that they would have to vacate the premises.

From my kitchen I could hear the horribly intelligent and politically expedient response from Dale to this news – he decided that yelling abuse at the Department’s representative would somehow further his cause? What a complete chicken fucking moron Dale has proven himself to be – as yale put it “I’ve had farts with a higher IQ than that dickhead.” So eloquently put.

Anyway, if they fail to leave within the next 9 days a court date has been set where we will be called to give testimony against them (some of which could put them in breech of the $1500 Peace and Good Behaviour Bond already in place) and they’ll very likely end up having to leave anyway, given they have a long standing history of being evicted from public housing for this sort of behaviour and we have no history of making neighbour hood complaints for no reason.

Oh, and just for good measure, today I called the City Council to lodge a complain about this weird burning off they are always doing in their back yard which is against BCC bylaws (was Bob’s idea… he asked me why I hadn’t been calling in noise complaints etc to the council, to which I replied that I had foolishly assumed that the Dept of Housing had things under control). When the BCC inspector turned up, he called me and said no one was home but that he saw the brazier and the smoke, as well as two pig dogs. He informed me that he was going to check on the state of registration for these two animals and if found to be unregistered he would be back Saturday morning with fines for the burning off in the backyard as well as fines for having unregistered whole dogs! So bonus points for that one.

All up a very exciting and exhausting day was had at Azerbaijan yesterday… and now I need to hibernate because I am fucking exhausted and determined not to be writing to any senior government officials for at least the next six months. Writing complaint letters is an art you know and it really takes it out of you!