Residents at two West Busselton retirement villages and surrounding areas are “living in fear” after being the continual targets of crime and petty behaviour from unruly teens.
More than 50 residents surrounding Carter Street met with police to find out what they could do to prevent crime in the area.
The residents have been subjected to verbal abuse, burglaries, vandalism, drug dealing, had their water mains switched off and hoons doing burnouts.
“I never thought I would fear for my own life, living in my own home,” one resident said.
An elderly lady who was putting her rubbish bin out had it tipped over in front of her and asked, “what the f..k are you going to do about it?”
Another man had his arm broken during a home invasion and in a period of three weeks lost $3000 worth of items from his home.
Another lady was woken up at 1am with a torch shining through her window for a period of 15 to 20 minutes.
“A man was walking down the street in slippers and a backpack, with nothing else on. How does that happen?” a resident said.
The area has a bike path which runs through to Queen Elizabeth Drive and bush land behind a row of houses on Moore Street which the teens accessed.
Busselton Police officer in charge senior sargent Jason Van Der Ende said that residents should report all incidents to 131 444 or Crimestoppers so police could investigate leads and patrol the area.
He encouraged residents to install CCTV cameras which could be used to identify culprits, report registration numbers of suspicious vehicles and asked people to ring 000 if someone was in their home.
Senior sargent Van Der Ende said he was concerned about the lack of discipline installed in the children involved and questioned what family values they were brought up with.
“Who is bringing up these children and where is the respect?” he said.
Vasse MP Libby Mettam said the meeting followed a similar community meeting she organised in Port Geographe last year which had a positive result.
“I am hopeful this will help residents work together and with police to ensure they are making maximum use of the resources that are locally available,” she said.
“It is essential that all crimes are reported to ensure our local police can respond.
“It was surprising to hear that some people were not bothering to contact these numbers as they thought the response was not local – that is not the case.”