I was expecting the eviction to go okay. I mean, he had trashed the joint before the eviction, so I expected all of that to be there.
Oh, how I was wrong.
Firstly, the carport roller door didn’t work—he had disabled, if not broken, the system. Bugger.
Then when I went to open my front door, I couldn’t. It was wedged closed by my kitchen steps.
I found it difficult to get into my house. This is one reason why.As I wandered into my house, this is what greeted me. Even his own dog doesn’t like the food Mitch gives him. Caz, my trusty Labrador and a Dyson vacuum on four legs, wouldn’t touch it. The milk is at least a week old (see the previous post on Mitch) and the casserole dish might have to be thrown away. Still a mess. My expensive knife block, minus a paring knife and a pair of heavy-duty scissors. One of the chairs in the living room. Mitch had cleaned up much of the mess on the chair, but obviously not the paperwork and yoghurt lids around it. A close-up of the chair in the last photo. Lots of pasta shells (perhaps a bag had split) that was obviously too hard to clean up. The very crappy monitor that Mitch left me. Thanks, mate. He didn’t help himself to two expensive big monitors, just me with his small crappy one. Bizarre. The plants that I had bought and Mitch had willingly planted (see previous post). Stolen, just because. Some more of the fenceline where Mitch had willingly planted plants that were going to grow into a hedge sort of thing (Annie knows far more about plants than I).
What our lovely row of plants looked like before Mitch ripped them out and stole them. This video taken by Mitch in March of 2023. Annie and I loved how my garden was progressing, and we are heartbroken that everything has gone. Interestingly, a good friend of mine has retired from being a Prison Officer. He said that while the name escaped him, there was no escaping his recollection of seeing Mitch’s face in the prison system.The side-rear of the garden where I was going to plant more of the hedging shrubs. Mitch decided off his own bat to concrete the areas next to the colorbond fence, thus stopping any chance of growing hedging plants. The strata by-laws state that no construction in a garden should be undertaken without the strata body’s written permission. I told Mitch this. On top of that, the Rental Agreement that he signed said the same thing. The carport. The object in the middle is the remnant of a brick wall that Mitch had decided he needed to build to make my garden perfect. It’s a mix of concrete and brick. It also means I can’t park my car in my own carport, because the object is too heavy for me to move. More of the building site detritus left behind by Mitch and needing me to hire someone and a skip to get rid of it. One day Mitch decided to take apart the garden seat and ‘repair’ it. He painted the metal work black and was going to paint something onto the wooden slats in order to protect them. It never got put back together again, so the garden seat/bench that my late parents had used heaps while they were alive is now going to have to go into the skip. Thanks, Mitch. I have absolutely no idea what this is. But Mitch left it for me anyway. My lawnmower and some garden tools. I take care of my tools and they are always stacked away neatly so as not to be an eyesore (my mother taught me that, as did the RAAF). My tools holder. Brooms, brushes, etc., in the bottom section. Smaller tools in the upper section. Don’t see them? Oh, that’s because Mitch stole them—cordless drill and bits, cordless blower, corded blower, cordless whipper-snipper, chargers for the batteries for the cordless tools—along with a large bag full of trade-level powerboards and extension cables. There were LOTS of powerboards and extension cables in that bag. The upstairs lounging area. Part of Mitch’s bedroom. What can only be described as paint. My shoe bottom right for comparison of size. I am guessing I will have to totally recarpet the entire floor and steps up to the landing, because it looks like it’s all one piece. More of Mitch’s bedroom. That long white object at the rear of the photo is actually a door from the wardrobe. Mitch obviously was annoyed by two of the slats on my blinds, so he removed them. At least he didn’t throw them out. I will have to contact the woman who installed them to ask her to come and reinstall them. Sigh. The entrance into the bathroom. The bathroom sink. Note the can of dog food to the right of it. Can is empty, but the smell is still there. In the sink, there are remnants of ashes, perhaps from drug use. Also, note on the right hand side of this photo there’s an open dog food container. It was certainly aromatic, and since there was another on the left, out of shot, it strongly suggests Mitch was feeding his dog in the bathroom. Okay, then. The young boy’s bedroom. Like father like son when it comes to tidiness. Some of you may wish to know that we found excrement-filled nappies and underpants in amongst the detritus. Lucky us, hey? More of the young boy’s bedroom. The bunk bed is still there, but the slats for the bottom bunk had been taken off and hidden in the wardrobe. The linen closet, minus all of my expensive sheets, towels and duvets. Mitch obviously decided he needed them more than me. The landing was almost clear (after months of repeatedly asking) but there was still a large ‘6’ balloon from the young boy’s birthday party. Mitch left all of his crockery, except for one plastic bowl that his son ate his breakfast cereal from. Obviously it was too hard to clean the kitchen of his mess. Closest to us in the picture is a sponge sort of thing that was definitely now the worse for wear. Thrown away. What you can’t see on this small table is a lovely spider plant in a terracotta pot. That’s because Mitch took it. This is what the stolen spider plant looks like. I had two in my lounge, this and the one stolen by Mitch. Why he only took the one and not both is a mystery. This is where a box of dishwasher tablets, a bottle of rinse aid, and some bottles of cleaning products used to reside. Now they reside with Mitch. We have no idea what this is, but it is very decomposed and smells godawful. Something that had gone off and leaked into one of the cupboards that Mitch used to store foodstuffs in. Didn’t wipe up with normal cleaner and Chux, so we have put some heavy-duty cleaner on it and left it overnight. It was explained to Mitch at the interview that drugs and smoking were definitely not allowed anywhere on the premises. The same conditions were also in the Rental Agreement that he signed. This is a bowl has what I would guess is marijuana in it, a mulling bowl, perhaps. I am keeping it for the police to have a look at it, and also the sink in the bathroom upstairs. Another view of the possible mull bowl. A closer look at the bathroom sink, with the drug detritus. This glob of something is on one of my armchairs in the lounge, and the place where Mitch’s young son used to sit and watch the Netflix kids movies that I was paying for even though I’d never been asked to. What the hell this glob is, and how we treat it, is a mystery at the moment. I’m betting it is excrement from the traumatised son, he who gets shouted at every morning by his father. My maternal Grandfather’s rocking chair, shipped out from England at my mother’s expense because she wanted something to remember her much-loved father by. He was also much-loved by me, and I spent many happy years in conversation with him, discussing the brilliant Sherlock Holmes. The chair never needed cleaning. Now, thanks to Mitch’s son, it does. Mitch abandoned his dog for nearly a week here, and so the dog slept and rested in my recliner chair. Which I will now have to have cleaned.
What Mitch stole
Mitch helped himself to many of my things on his way out. $amounts are the replacement cost as of 18 June 2023.
Dyson HP00 Pure hot+cool Fan Heater White/Silv x 2 ($749 each) [https://www.thegoodguys.com.au/dyson-hp00-pure-hot-pluscool-fan-heater-whitesilver-385276-01]
2 X QS sheet sets ($150 X 2 = $300)
6 X Sheridan bath towels ($50 X 6 = $300)
6 X Sheridan hand towels ($30 X 6 = $180)
Knife set (stored in a knife block) ($500)
20 x small hedging plants ($30 each; $600 in total)
Ozito cordless blower ($85)
Ozito cordless drill and bits ($80)
Ozito Cordless whipper-snipper ($260)
Bag full of pro-spec extension powerboards with circuit breakers (I estimate eight powerboards at $30 each [https://www.mitre10.com.au/hpm-plug-boss-6-outlet-powerboard]
Many extension cords of varying length, from 2m ($3) to 20m ($60)—possible replacement cost: $100 [https://rebrand.ly/zn9eufr]
Green wheelie bin with the number 18 on the front ($65) [https://www.bunnings.com.au/handy-100l-green-wheelie-bin_p4520172]
Dell Precision Tower PC, 64GB RAM, 2 x top-spec video cards ($7,600) and a number of portable hard drives of various capacity, including 8TB
Logitech Webcam ($144)
Alesis Sample Pad 4 Electronic Drum Trigger Module ($320) [https://derringers.com.au/alesis-sample-pad-4-electronic-drum-trigger-module]
M-Audio Oxygen Pro 49 49 Note USB Controller Keyboard ($379)
Steinberg Cubase Elements 12 – upgrade version ($44)
Steinberg expansions, instruments and sounds – a great many (see attached screen grabs)
Swiss Army Men Watch Date 24hr Black Leather Stainless Gray Battery 166ft Quartz, second hand from eBay ($90)
Weber Family Q Premium bbq and gas bottle ($950 plus probably $36 for a new gas bottle)
Cordless dust buster ($90)
Large outdoor umbrella and base ($300)
Pentax K-3 dslr camera, serial no. 4860965 ($2,700) [https://pentax.com.au/products/1052/pentax-k-3-iii-dslr-camera–body-only—-black]
And, bizarrely, from the laundry, Mitch took my washing basket full of my soiled clothes that certainly wouldn’t fit him.
My beloved Weber Family Q Premium bbq, gone along with the large gas bottle.
I can only be grateful that I hadn’t unboxed some Le Creuset I’d had delivered; I took receipt of the boxes from the courier, and sat them on my bed, but it seems that Mitch, for some bizarre reason, didn’t go into my bedroom to see what he could steal. Phew! I escaped that potential nightmare.
It’s going to cost to have an ‘exit clean’ to make the upstairs area habitable, especially since I also need to have a specialist carpet cleaner in to clean the carpet upstairs (including removing the blood stains from Mitch’s dog when she was in heat).
All of this means that it might be a little while before I can help someone in need to my upstairs rooms again.
