Home alone.

[Goblin]

Yestarday I found a small child, about 2 years old, climbing onto my trampoline. He was wearing a grey scivy and a black t-shirt and was accompanied by a small light coloured puppy wearing a pink collar with a love heart buckle. I asked him where his mummy is. I couldnt understand his reply. I asked him where he lives and started walking towards the carport. I told him to show me where he lives. He took me part way down my driveway & onto my mum's lawn & over her property, down her drive to the next house. He then took me over broken glass and dogshit & up the stairs to find a pigs trotter, a colouring in book & some felts, a pushbike, a ball and a bouncey bear kind of a toy.

I knocked on the ranch slider quite hard and yelled "Anyone home". No reply. I then asked the boy where his mummy is. He said "bath". I tried knocking on the wooden door. No reply. I tried opening the doors. All locked.

I then left the boy while I went home and phoned the police. The boy didn't want to come with me while I did this. On reporting this kid home alone I was told a unit would be sent out and she gave me a job number incase this was resolved before they arrived.

I went back to the boy and tried knocking again. I waited for the unit to arrive and played ball with the boy and listened as he chatted about his bike and his mum's car in the garage. He took me to the shed and said that was his mum's car. We went back upstairs and waited some more.

About 45 minutes had passed since I had phoned police and I wandered over to the other side of the property where the other neighbours were sitting out the back so I asked if they knew who lived in the house. The lady of the house had just gone inside to answer the phone. About 5 minutes later she came out so I asked again if she knew the people who lived there. She said she knows the landlords but not the tenants.

I told her that the kid had turned up at my place and I couldnt find anyone at the house. She rushed over and banged on the downstairs door then ran to the side of the house and scooped up the boy. The banging on the downstairs door had arroused the mother who had been fast asleep in the upstairs bedroom. She came to the door in a dazed state and said "Naughty BOY!" when we told her that her boy had been wandering the neighbourhood all alone.

I then went back home and phoned the police back to tell them we had located the mother. I quoted the number. As I got off the phone 2 police women were walking up my stairs. I told them I had located the mother and had phoned police back. They asked me my full name, address, phone no & DOB. They said they would go talk to the mother and they may need to contact CYFS.

I left it at that but I wanted to go and talk to the mother while the police were there. As I got to the bottom of my driveway I saw the 2 police officers had pulled a car over and appeared to be issuing a ticket. I went over and talked to the mother and explained that I had no choice but to phone the police as I was worried about her wee boy. I went home again and the police were still stopped down the road with a car pulled over. I dont know if they went and spoke to the mother or not.

I just need to get this off my chest. I am NOT cop bashing here but I do wonder if traffic fines are more important than a home alone case.

[yungatart]

Unbelievable!
Who could leave a 2y/o unattended for that length of time?
Lucky he wandered to your place and not off down the road...
You did the right thing!
I guess there is more revenue to be had in traffic tickets than unattended kids.

[Disco Dan]

I would you were quite lucky. In my experience, the mother usually gives you a right earful for interfering.

Some people should not be allowed to have children. I have always believed very strongly that if a person wishes to have a child that they have to be screened first in order to make sure they have sufficiant income and a stable household before being granted permission.

Too many children are born into poverty and unstable households full of P-addicts and drunks. The children then go on to cost the system even more when they hit school and cause problems... then again when they leave and start breaking the law... before finally costing the system even more when they get put in jail.

Start as you mean to go on. Make everyone get permission to have children. Those that dont.. fine them with a big hefty fine.

[Goblin]

Unbelievable!
Who could leave a 2y/o unattended for that length of time?
Lucky he wandered to your place and not off down the road...
You did the right thing!
I guess there is more revenue to be had in traffic tickets than unattended kids.

These neighbours have all night "rapping" parties, they smash beer bottles all over the road, they walk up and down the road at all hours yelling "Zeik Fuckin Hail" and are nothing but trouble. I didnt want to be involved! I now fear they will be calling me a nark and could cause a heap of trouble for me and my mum who lives next door to them.
This neighbourhood is so depressing!

[Sidewinder]

These neighbours have all night "rapping" parties, they smash beer bottles all over the road, they walk up and down the road at all hours yelling "Zeik Fuckin Hail" and are nothing but trouble. I didnt want to be involved! I now fear they will be calling me a nark and could cause a heap of trouble for me and my mum who lives next door to them.
This neighbourhood is so depressing!

shut up and leave me alone

[u4ea]

Good on you Goblin.You were only doing what any other decent person would do.It is only going to draw more negative attention to these mungrels if they start to harrass you and yours as CYF arent aware of problems until they are reported.The cops involved didnt show any concern by the sounds of it but Im sure they still have to document the visit somewhere and it went through coms. as well.

[caesius]

Good on you. Indifference seems prevalent nowadays, it must've been tough to actually "investigate" that matter in that neighborhood.

[janno]

Poor you having people like that next door. And poor baby boy being born in to that. I'm so lucky that I've got great neighbours where I am, and they own their houses.

Can you find out who owns the place, I wonder, and let them know what drop kick tennants they have? If they have property managers, they may have been given the impression that everything is rosy.

I bet people like that will be trashing the place . . .

[yungatart]

These neighbours have all night "rapping" parties, they smash beer bottles all over the road, they walk up and down the road at all hours yelling "Zeik Fuckin Hail" and are nothing but trouble. I didnt want to be involved! I now fear they will be calling me a nark and could cause a heap of trouble for me and my mum who lives next door to them.
This neighbourhood is so depressing!

Which makes your actions all the more commendable!
Good Luck!
Hopefully your neighbours have insufficient active braincells to remember who you are.....

[Riff Raff]

Unfortunately it's all too common these days for parents to do this. I once had two toddlers walk out into the road in front of my ambulance. They were both wearing nappies and one was barely walking. Neither could talk so I called the Police and then started banging on doors to try and find where they lived. An elderly lady was outside one house doing her gardening and said the children had been wandering around for over an hour, but she didn't do anything about it!!!

Eventually found the house and there was the father having a nap on the lounge floor. He grabbed the kids and then slammed the door in my face - charming. Fortunately the Police arrived shortly afterwards and dealt with it.

Another time had a kid walk out in front of ambulance again while going P1. No sign of adults anywhere. The house we were going to was about 200m up the road and the people there were shouting and waving at us to get there, but we were stuck with this kid. Fortunately there was another crew nearby who could respond.

[Goblin]

This used to be a real family neighbourhood, I grew up here and we used to know everyone in the street. I moved back here after my Grandmother couldn't cope living here alone and moved into a nursing home. My Oma's house and mums next door have been owned by my family for 40 years. There are only 2 other original families who still own their homes.

The house next to mums is looking really shabby, the lawns have never been mown, there's broken glass and dogshit everywhere and this poor kid was wandering around in bare feet with no nappy let alone pants. I've seen cleaner pig stys than that place!

I want to move down south!

[avgas]

This is one cycle that will never be broken.
Are people like that worth keeping alive? Im not saying "kill them all", more making a rhetorical question.
Kind like the whole if a tree falls and noone hears it etc

[Grub]

I am NOT cop bashing here but I do wonder if traffic fines are more important than a home alone case.

I think what you did was great but I wonder at the tone of your post. It is more indignant about the cops than about the mother who was not caring for her child!

If you're not cop-bashing, then you needed to determine if the cops did finally go and talk to the mother before berating their actions. Think about it, maybe they saw someone drive past that there's a Warrant out for. Even if it was just a traffic stop (unlikely unless they were doing something really bad) that offender would have disappeared - the mother was still there and not going anywhere.

Cops don't write tickets (if that's what they were doing) to people who are just lawfully driving down the road do they.

[Her_C4]

Goblin you rpost has taken me back nearly 30 years!! Some things in NZ have been this way for many years and obviously have not changed.

I used to live on Brougham Street in ChCh (very busy - even then), and I had come home from shopping one day leaving the back door open as I was putting the groceries away.

Imagine my shock when I turned around to see a very young (2 year old) sitting on the floor sucking her thumb and looking at me through very soulful eyes, set in a very grubby face with a runny nose. Her hair was unkempt and she was in a pair of pyjama's that had seen better days. Her feet were bare. It was about 2.45pm.

It took me over an hour to track down where she lived, and when I finally did I politely informed the mother (who wouldn't even come to the door) that her daughter had wandered down the street to my home and that I was concerned.

I won't go into details, but suffice to say that her response was decidedly less than polite and I had an overwhelming desire to take the child back to my own place and call the police - so I did.

The mother never followed.

The police took the child home.

End of story.

[Goblin]

I think what you did was great but I wonder at the tone of your post. It is more indignant about the cops than about the mother who was not caring for her child!

If you're not cop-bashing, then you needed to determine if the cops did finally go and talk to the mother before berating their actions. Think about it, maybe they saw someone drive past that there's a Warrant out for. Even if it was just a traffic stop (unlikely unless they were doing something really bad) that offender would have disappeared - the mother was still there and not going anywhere.

Cops don't write tickets (if that's what they were doing) to people who are just lawfully driving down the road do they.

I called the police thinking they would arrive in a timely manner to deal with a small child who'd been left unattented. Nearly an hour had passed but they seemed to think a traffic matter, or warrant or whatever was more important than dealing with this mother. I was in MY own home when this child came to MY place. I did not ask this kid to seek me out to find out where his mother was. I thought the police would have come and told ME if they had dealt with the matter or not. Why should it be up to me to go and find out? It's their JOB not mine! I look after my own kids....Im not some drop-in center for toddlers whose mothers are too tired to look after their children.