By Mikayla van Loon
A Nimblefoot Way resident now lives in fear in her own home after her garage was broken into earlier this month, something that sadly is becoming more common.
Michelle moved to Lilydale eight years ago and said there had always been antisocial activity in the Gateway estate but it has only gotten worse over the last six months to a year.
Preparing to go to bed, Michelle went to take her two dogs outside but “neither of them wanted to go out, they were scared”.
“I heard a rustling noise, and then I heard a mobile phone, like a text message noise, and saw a guy in black gear running out the driveway down the street,” Michelle said.
“I thought, ‘ok, they’ve obviously been around our cars, they won’t come back again’ so I didn’t do any more.
“I woke up the next morning to my partner saying, ‘oh, did you have the garage door open last night?’ I said, ‘No’. And he said, ‘because your car door was open as well’. So they’ve broken into the car, they’ve got the garage remote and opened it up and helped themselves.”
Putting a post into the Gateway estate’s Facebook group, Michelle said there were at least 10 responses from other residents whose cars had also been broken into or checked out as seen on CCTV cameras.
While the total value stolen is not known, Michelle estimating a couple of thousands of dollars, she said the most concerning part was how close these people were to her bedroom.
“That’s the scariest bit, they just had to open that internal door, and they were in our bedroom, so they were basically on the other side of the internal door.
“And if somebody had got up, you don’t know what they’re gonna do. They carry knives and machetes and you’re too scared to defend yourself, even in your own home these days.
“We’ve got to get new remotes for the garage, because they’ve kept one of them. We have to change internal door locks because they had access to the house.”
Scared to go outside and nervous each time there’s a noise, Michelle said “I’ve got two dogs here and I still don’t feel safe”.
Michelle said the antisocial behaviour seen in and around the Gateway has been building since she moved to Lilydale but “even in the last three, four months, the extent is just getting bad”.
“There’s a gang of up to about 15 youths, probably aged 18, and they ride around on E bikes, revving them up to aggravate all the dogs in the estate. They’re doing wheelies. They’re popping monos down the roads,” she said.
“The other day, I actually saw them, they were six abreast across the road and doing about two kilometres an hour holding the cars up so they couldn’t get past.
“They sit in the middle of the roundabout, so the cars actually have to stop and they can’t go anywhere. They do the wheelies on the paths in the parks digging grooves in the walkways probably 10 centimetres deep.
“So then any elderly people that walk along there are going to trip over and injure themselves. There’s also drug deals done day and night.”
Michelle said Nimblefoot Reserve, meant to be a family-friendly park, has become a hang out area for this group.
“There was a night where we had to call the fire brigade because the kids had set the picnic table under the gazebo on fire. Illegal fireworks were let off there, that would have been at the end of January. They damage all the play equipment,” she said.
“People use it all the time, they take their dogs there and everything, and then just have to put up with what’s going on.”
Understanding that regular police patrols may not be possible, Michelle said even the addition of lighting and CCTV cameras in Nimblefoot Reserve may deter 60 to 70 per cent of the behaviour.
“I’m trying to push for CCTV footage and lighting in the park to help try and deter some of it,” she said.
“There’s not one light (there at the moment) and they can do what they want, nobody can see them.”
Yarra Ranges Council and Victoria Police were contacted for comment.
