FOR more than eight months, property owner Kevin Spanner has dealt with vandals trashing his vacant house on Walton Avenue in Pioneer.
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Mr Spanner has lived in Mount Isa for 56 years and said he had never seen anything like the damage caused to his property.
In recent months, 17 windows have been broken, 18 holes have been put in a wall, three doors have been broken, the back fence kicked in and the clothesline destroyed.
Mr Spanner said this was the first set of problems he has had in 15 years of owning the property.
“Someone has to stop it,” he said.
“I come here four times a day and I still can’t catch them.”
Mr Spanner said Mount Isa Police and the Department of Housing had been informed, but he just wants to fix the property and sell the house.
“I’ve been try to fix the house up for rent for eight months,” he said. “Police have probably been here half a dozen times.
“I caught a little girl once, but I didn’t know what to do so I let her go.”
Mount Isa Police Sergeant Brendan Poustie said police spent most of their time in Pioneer, either patrolling or actively attending to calls.
“There is a lot of damage done in Pioneer and in particular vacant residences,” he said.
“You can’t really stop people.
‘‘The only thing we can do is stay vigilant.”
Sergeant Poustie said a lot of people resorted to having their own cameras (CCTV), however this did not stop vandals. It only assisted in catching the people responsible.
“The fact is we are not looking at one or two offenders. It appears to be anyone walking by,” he said. “The area around Walton Avenue is a high foot traffic area.
“We go take the reports and when we can identify suspects they are dealt with accordingly.”
Police encourage the community to call policelink if they see an incident that requires police assistance as they do have people on the road may be able to respond quickly.