This is my fifth year in the city and it was early on I realised the best preventive method to feel safe was to simply lock everything up. If you don’t want something stolen, or broken into, lock it up. Simple. In the first few weeks of my stint in the city, an opportunistic young man with no respect for other people’s property took advantage of my ignorance when forgetting to lock the front door. I had learnt my lesson.

 In a perfect world we shouldn’t have to apply my sometimes ‘obsessive compulsive disorder-like’ addiction’ to locking up. Locking up is enough for me to feel safe in my own home, despite not even having a front gate to our property.

I drive along, and sometimes walk along Abel Smith Parade at night and regularly do my shopping in notorious hotspots such as Pioneer or at Kmart Plaza. I don’t mind walking home alone after a few drinks at the pub. I would be putting my head in the sand if I said I didn’t come across concerning scene every now and then and said crime wasn’t a serious problem in our city, but very rarely do I feel unsafe or threatened.