When the cops came calling

You won't believe the story I have to tell you this morning. Last night at about 9pm there was a knock at the door. Funnily since we don't really know anyone in Brisbane we were wondering who on earth would be knocking on our door. So Paul opens it up to find not 1, not 2 but 3 police officers standing there. They introduced themselves and asked if they could come in - obviously we said yes. The last time a cop knocked on my door at that time of the night was to deliver some pretty awful news, so that's what I thought was about to happen! Well that or tell us about some convict in the area, or talk about a break in etc. But no! Apparently there had been a report by someone in our street of someone taking suspicious photographs of their kids - and apparently we were the culprits. Right - because that picture fits!!

So ... the background to how this started. We discovered since moving in that people use our street as a shortcut to avoid the main roads. Despite being a "quiet" suburban street, with no footpaths, people barrel down our street really fast - obviously deciding that the cops aren't going to be out there with speed cameras so they can cut off some time from their trip! Last Friday morning I almost got bowled over by a woman going too fast while cutting a corner at the end of the road. Plus the neighbours kids play in the middle of the road all the time and it's only a matter of time till one of them gets bowled over.

So Paul and I have decided we're going to write a letter to the council in the next few months (after local body elections this month). To support out letter and differentiate it from every other letter that crossed their desk we thought we'd provide some photographic evidence of the problem. Yesterday when Paul got home from work he took some photos of the front of the property and driveway area. We're getting our water tank installed tomorrow (we think - the guy isn't the best communicator in the world) and we want some before and after shots. So when Paul noticed the kids playing on the street with traffic about he decided the take a couple of snaps. Now these were a good 50-60m away from the kids and with my crappy instant digital camera. Because it was dusk the photos were a bit blurry anyway and you can barely tell that the kids are kids and not trees or big dogs in one of the snaps. The main focus was the fact that at the end of the street there is a car coming towards us and the kids are in the middle of the road. And anyway Paul then turned around and took a pic of the road in the other direction as we currently don't have any and thought they might be interesting to show people the street where we live.

And apart from this fact, we're entitled to take pictures of anything we blimn well like. I have similar photos (the street, front of house etc) of almost every house I've lived in - including when I stayed at Ben & Megan's before I moved to Aussie last year. It's just interesting to have a record of the area so that you can look back when you're older and remember.

So I think it's a little disturbing that, when seeing someone taking a generic picture of a street, that woman jumped to the conclusion that we were taking picture of her kids so that we could then go home and do dirty things with them. Hello - what kind of a sick human being thinks like that! Why on earth would that be the first thing that pops into your mind! And even if you were a sicko and thought like that, the least you could do is knock on the door and ask us about it. We've tried to be good neighbours and are on speaking terms with the neighbours either side and directly across the road. There is no need to call the cops and have 3 of them turn up on our doorstep at 9pm at night (I think 2 of them had guns too - that's pretty scary as I hate guns!). Stupid woman!

At least the cops figured out she was being paranoid fool. They asked to see the pics and then didn't even ask for a copy or even tell us to delete them which they would have if the pics were dodgy. The stink thing is that they still took our details - so now we'll be on file somewhere with that sort of a complaint against our names. Good thing Paul has a blue card already (required in Aussie when you do anything to do with children - involves a police check etc to make sure you're not a weirdo). Hopefully when it comes up for renewal this doesn't surface and become a problem for him!

Anyway there's my rant about the whole thing (have I mentioned yet that she was a stupid paranoid women). It's actually really upsetting when you think about it. I'm shocked that someone would think of us like that. Especially Paul - I mean he's a good person - anyone who knows him would say that. He volunteers his time for this, that and the other thing. So to have someone turn around and accuse you of this sort of disgusting thing when you were just trying to be a "good citizen", and were in fact worried for their kids. Well up yours to them I say (not very pc I know). What goes around comes around! If it wasn't for the fact that I can't be bothered having a neighbourhood scrap with them then I'd ring up the council and complain about their annoying dog that barks all the time!

I hope you all have a good day and that cops don't turn up on your doorstep at 9pm at night!