Brian Holden: Council toothless as noise annoys

Our car received a parking ticket when we weren't even in town. Photo / File

Stroll down virtually any suburban street during the day and apart from the occasional drone of a weed trimmer or lawnmower, you can hear the sound of a swishing paintbrush six doors away.

But come night time, that same street could become a battlefield of fights, flying booze bottles and deafening music. This is when the little kids are tucked up in their beds and the big ones come out to play.

Rue du Tilford in Christchurch is one such street. Christchurch's rowdiest house for several years and infamous for late-night drumming sessions is driving the neighbours bonkers. And do the occupants give a damn? Nah. With 71 complaints made about the noise coming from "a particular" Tilford St house over a period of 12 months, it would be fair to say that the tenants are turning a deaf ear to the complaints.

It would also be fair to say that the actions of the local council are ineffective. Ironic too, that the council will not name the exact house, where a search on Google Earth's Street View will beam you right to the front gate.

One of the house's two occupants, the elegantly named 16-year-old Shadow Virtue-Paul, confirmed this week that he is "proud" that his house has the reputation of being the city's most complained about. "It's fantastic" he claims. "We've thrown a few parties. We had 300 to 400 people here on New Year's Eve."

He boasts that he keeps the council's Excessive Noise Notices on the wall in his garage, and is "not too worried" about the effect the music has on those nearby. His father says he doesn't really care about the complaints and refuses to comment further. Oh dear.

In our world with more than its fair share of selfish people, this young git raised by his equally selfish old man must surely rate near the top of the honours list for the obnoxious.

Christchurch City Council too must rate as one of the most toothless, with no seizures having been made from the property. However, they do confirm that their staff have had "onsite meetings" with the owner and have sent him a letter. Whoop-e-doo.

To be fair, the council's noise "controllers" have been rather busy having to deal with over 12,000 noise complaints from stressed Christchurch residents during the past year. That's one heck of a lot.

No-one jumps for joy when a parking infringement notice arrives in the mail. Immediately, denials and accusations arise as to who was driving the car on that particular day. Well, one such notice appeared through the slot of the And Another Thing's mailbox a couple of weeks ago.

Immediately after tearing open the official-looking envelope (which I try to get to first), I was dismayed to see the vehicle description to be - Honda Accord, registration blah blah blah, which is mine. But how could that be? I pretty much always park where I legally should. With my wife now having materialised by my side to more closely examine the fine print, it was clear that a dash to the diary was the next course of action. What? It was revealed that the accused vehicle was actually parked in the garage at home while we were holidaying in Auckland with our other car.

Somehow a traffic warden claims to have seen my car parked in a street in Hamilton.

With no-one other than ourselves having access to the vehicle, it was clear a mistake had been made when the warden had keyed the registration.

Immediately we went to the company's website and sent them a "definitely not us" letter of explanation. Being over two weeks now, it is interesting that we have not heard back.

Could it be that having accepted the error, the company has gone ahead and removed the mistaken infringement from their files - and not bothered to let us know?

Time will tell.

Whatever the case, the And Another Thing team is confident their Honda Accord is not getting up to the same devious tricks of the Toy Story characters who come to life and run amok after the lights go out, or when the occupiers of the house are away.

-Brian Holden has lived in Rotorua for most of his life and has been writing his weekly column for 11 years.