loup_lou
Reviews
"Thugs driving honest families out of town!"
We moved to Cooroy after being spellbound by the pretty street-scape of lovely, classic Queenslander-homes and the quaint village. It seemed like something out of a fairy tale when we bought our dream home and moved our family from interstate with the highest of hopes for a new life in the famed Noosa Hinterland. Within a few short weeks our dreams turned to the stuff of nightmares as we discovered that the reality of life in Cooroy was very different to our expectations...
Our neighbours were odd, to say the least despite the fact that we bought on apparently "the best street in Cooroy". There were multiple homes within our block that were half-way houses, the people residing there would have noisy, drunken parties literally every day of the week. They would perch on their front porch drinking and smoking and carrying on, heckling us walking our dogs in the evening. Then the house next door to ours, which had been for sale for a while was sold and went up for rent. The tenants who moved in were complete ferals. They never dressed their children, who ran around screaming and mostly naked all day until their mother screamed at them to eat their dinner (it was "nuggets" every night) and then the parents would continue the carrying on and noise. The worst sound for me was the sickening thud of the husband's fists as he punched his wife repeatedly most days. Her screams and cries were heart-wrenching and the worst part of it was that she was pregnant and still being subject to this domestic violence. Then the neighbour set his sights on our little family and began to terrorise us - throwing bottles of beer and burning cigarettes at my toddler and baby when they were in the yard. He and his friends then destroyed our front garden - cutting down our Poinciana tree and doing burnouts on our grass. He began to trespass on our property, he attacked our visitors and made verbal threats of violence to us directly. The local Police were unable to help without video evidence and we were terrified for the safety of ourselves and our little ones. The Police actually warned us though that this sort of anti-social behaviour was literally rampant throughout Cooroy and we were lucky that things had not gotten worse for us already as some parts of the town are downright unsafe.
With our dreams in tatters we felt we had no choice but to sell our home and flee the area. We have never looked back and feel grateful we escaped with only property damage and no injury to our loved ones.
Look carefully at the volume of homes that change hands within Cooroy in a given year - it is a HUGE proportion of them. People move there and then realise what the town is really like and they get out as quickly as they can.
Don't trust the local real estate agents who tell you it's a lovely, supportive community - they cannot be trusted. It's interesting that most of the higher end properties are sold to people new to the area - the smoke and mirrors fools us all.
Be AWARE!
Sounds like you were lucky to escape without injury. I have lived in BLACK MOUNTAIN for 24 years & NEVER have had/seen such behaviour here. There has been the odd ocassion of a donut king at the T intersection but could count those on my fingers. We have the same postcode as Cooroy and never experience such carry-ons. Unfortunately, my observations have led to conclusions that many/most small towns near popular beaches have riff raff: this is due to Centrelink not paying benefits to folk who aren't close to available work. I dare say if you were to go to places like Cooloola cove you would not experience that type of conduct . Acreage areas are different, I admit, as occupants need to maintain or have stock maintain their land and PEACE, TRANQUILITY & PRIVACY are the NORM. That said, parts of black mountain have a high turnover & I suspect that people moving in from "down south" may not have done their research properly. Despite what R/E agents advise, one needs to do own research & to be mindful, not just what you are escaping but what goes on in the area. An example: before I moved from the lovely Sunrise Beach, I would drive up to Black mountain a couple of times per month (or more often when extremes of weather/flooding occurred etc) and got a "real feel" for the place. I have known folk who have rented/camped in a few areas before investing: that is "REAL RESEARCH" and can save heartache .
What attracts people to High Turnover areas? The price is predominately cheaper than similar areas forcing the price down even in the best street: there is continual competition to sell. What seems like a great buy is a cheap buy: you have proven that. You can understand & emphatise with Police especially if they display/exercise a negative view of a total area when there but a few rat bags causing most the commotion and instigating others.
An old real estate agents addage is "Buyers are liers. Vendors...." but they earn their living from putting the very negative thumb screws on vendors while twofaced telling possible purchasers all the star qualities of most sites and "selling" one against another. Human natue to like this heaps & that less so. This scenareo is EVERYWHERE, everywhere & finding integrity therein is like looking for hens teeth or a needle in a haystack. The industry, Australia all over, has been trying to weed out the back stabbing, inproper,& immoral behaviour for some decades. There ARE some out there, and you need to get the vibe: slow down and avoid haste. You are talking about the biggest investment that most undertake in a lifetime. Independant agents are worth a good long look. With the bigger agencies there is generally only one licence holder, I am told, which means that there only hundreds of folk with licences not many, many, many thousands.
I must comment on a baby being within a flick of a cigarette: very curious indeed! Well lots of areas have recently had zoning changed allowing for population growth. This involves astute builders capitalising on the situation and cutting blocks by subdivision & building another house thereon. Northlakes (SEQ) population is expected to exceed that of Tasmania within a couple of years & that type of density brings out the best & worst in people.
Nuggets for nuggets! Interesting! I would not know what my neighbours fed their kids when I lived in suburbia. Just a point that you may well heed or not, and that is take much LESS notice of Ferals and therefore have less likelyhood of antagonising folk that may have been exposed to all manner of "stuff".
Good luck on your next adventure!