Jennifer
Reviews
"Picking good neighbours = draw a straw"
First off, this suburb appears nice, close to Redcliffe and Brighton/Sandgate. You are on the northern outskirts of what can still be called Brisbane, even though it's quite a trip to the CBD unless you take the train from Sandgate (door to door will be in excess of an hour each way; more if you can't find a parking spot near the train station). My husband and I were attracted to the location thinking it would be more peaceful than other areas, being further out from the "action" but once again we were disappointed to realize it must be pure luck to be picking a quiet street. I have read through the other reviews and can't relate to those with glorious 5star ratings, claiming this was a "quiet" suburb (I wonder how many are written by home sellers or RE agents). We can more relate to Uey's experience and what others have labeled the "wrong side of the tracks". However, from having moved twice within Bracken Ridge (actually lived in 3 different areas, if you count in living with friends initially), we found it's not really a "two-part" suburb, but it comes down to pure luck on a street by street level, no matter if in an established part of newer estate. The houses don't make good neighbours, it's the people of which many appear to be renting. We found that when you have relatively quiet neighbours, there's always a few in adjoining or surrounding streets that are not. And those are the type of neighbours that you know when they are home, or not. We also used to go for extensive walks (or 10km runs) through Bracken Ridge and encountered multiple levels of nuisances, usually noise related. Why would anyone crank up their stereo with all windows and doors open while mowing their own lawn? Why doing the same while fixing/tuning their cars in the driveway? Why not go to the pub instead of inviting 100 people over to their home for a party with big loudspeakers outside? I agree with Uey's observations that police are hopeless, we always had to call at least three times between 10pm and 2am for them to dispatch a car. Their excuse always came down to being busy due to local break ins or domestics. Btw, Gawain Rd shops are broken into regularly. Police admitted at one point they only had two cars available for the north side of Brisbane. The selfish party hosts know this. Sad but true. We can't see any difference to living in some parts of Caboolture/Morayfield or Redcliffe, where we lived previously.
Great for
- Leafy streets, some on nice hillsides
- Convenience to the north and south coast/ airport
Not great for
- Drunk people walking home from pub on weekend nights, swearing at each other (regular occurance).
- Not safe at night (especially weekends)
- Police not effectively enforcing people's right to quiet enjoyment in neighbourhoods (noisy party complaints)
- Real concern about reckless driving and illegal car modifications (often P-plater)
Not that this has anything to do with this, but yes..we have in fact lived the majority of our lives outside of Australia, on three continents in fact, and then here in Australia (over 15 years). I am really glad for you that you have picked a good street, I accept that there are some better streets but my point was that you can't predict this as a newcomer as has been proven for us and others. Just like others have mentioned, we have also been having major noise related issues most of the time. During half the time in one place we also had neighbours who would sit on their front balcony every night from 5pm to late at night (weekends until 2am at least) and just get drunk and talk rubbish from across the street. From one day to another they moved out and we couldn't believe our luck. Then the house was advertised for rent for $450pw and we knew it would attract shared living. And guess what happend...three parties moved in. Parties, noises. 6 houses down the road on a corner of another street, we had about 4 or 5 youngsters that were constantly blasting their music, it could be heard from 100m away. To our back, we had another house shared by about 6 or 8 parties (it was a large rather expensive house in a newish area) .. it was actually about 30m away as we had a reserve inbetween. Nearly every day there was rather loud music blasting from there (somebody can be expected to be home at any time, given that many people). Every weekend between Oct and May they had dozens of mates over with loud music from the back. I stand by our view that police are hopeless...this has nothing to do with compassion. They certainly have no compassion for sleep deprivation due to constant noise nuisances. It's not the community's fault that they are under staffed, *especially* during the weekend where there are always more serious issues to attend to (break ins, domestics, hooning along Norris and Telegraph Rds, etc). Good luck to you, too. Cheers. Jen
sounds about right jen
Well I stated that it is a quite family suburb and as I suggested on Uey comment I am a teacher not a real estate agent. My children are growing up in this area, I work within this area and find your comment insulting to say the least. I wonder if you are Uey under a different username? Calling the police hopeless, suggests that you have no compassion. Have you ever travelled outside of Australia, seen real suffering? Good luck Uey.