RESIDENTS of the Coldstores housing complex in Fremantle’s Beach Street say the stress of living next to feuding drug dealers triggered a neighbour’s psychotic episode Wednesday evening.
The man became agitated after an argument with one of the dealers and barricaded himself in his unit. From the balcony he started yelling threats at the dealer, leading to about a dozen police — some with riot shields — swarming the Department of Housing complex.
After about 45 minutes, during which the man apparently smashed up his unit, police talked him down from his balcony. He was restrained, then detained under the mental health act and taken to Fiona Stanley Hospital.
A small delegation of tenants met with the Herald Thursday morning to say it would be a miscarriage of justice if their friend faced charges.
They say conditions in the once-flagship social housing complex are hellish.
“[He’s] about 35 and he’s been a tenant for about 10 years, and he’s never caused any problems,” one delegate told the Herald.
Daily squabble
None wanted their identities published, fearing backlash.
“Over the past four days, it’s been getting hotter and hotter and people are getting tetchy, and there’s been drama between the two units who are the active drug dealers,” a delegate reported.
A daily squabble escalated into a shouting match across the complex’s common area Wednesday around 8pm, causing several tenants to intervene and ask for the volume and language to be toned down.
That sparked a fierce verbal backlash from a dealer, which caused the man to retreat into his unit, where the friends say stress tipped him over the edge.
“All the time we were telling the police ‘it’s that mob there, the junkies, who started it,’ but they were not interested.”
The residents’ concerns echo those of a separate group who spoke to the Herald last year (“Tales of blood and bins,” Herald, July 4, 2015).
They say the problems start early: “From six in the morning, people start banging on the door, saying ‘are you there?’, and then someone from inside will call out ‘fuck this or that’ and then ‘it’s ok, it’s ok’ in that druggies’ voice.”
Daylight hours are punctuated with arguments and shouting, while evenings are spent locked inside units.
Two cars were torched in the garage in the past year.
Police raided a unit about a month ago, tasering and dragging out a screaming occupant, but the group say not enough’s being done.,
“The police are coming less and less. After dark it’s really hard to get them in here,” says one delegate.
They hope that if the dealers get evicted, it goes better than last time; their last problem tenants simply dossed down in another tenant’s apartment until finally stealing his car and disappearing.
by STEVE GRANT
