ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A local NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) has been lauded by the community after making himself useful over the weekend by glueing shut a number of key lockboxes in the French Quarter.
Hundreds of lockboxes adorn private and public property in the French Quarter. Some are left illegally on the Jardin du Branlette fence and in the park itself, while some are screwed into the doorways and alcoves of apartment blocks in violation of strata laws.
The practice has attracted the ire of local citizens, some of whom do not enjoy the fact that they have new neighbors most nights of the week. So far, the Betoota Shire Council has done nothing to rectify the situation. Mostly because Mayor Keith Carton has a number of properties which he short-term leases around town.
While the town waits for our own Sirhan Sirhan to remove the unsinkable Keith Carton from power, a local youth has taken up his own crusade against short-term renting in his area.
Eighteen-year-old Noah Friesian told The Advocate that he saw a tube of UHU super glue in his parents’ odds and sods drawer and thought he’d just go glue a bunch of lockboxes shut.
“My parents are always complaining about strangers coming into our apartment complex,” he said.
“Sometimes, they have parties. Once, they had strippers come up. That was pretty cool. Dad said there’s a perfectly good Meriton down the road, that they should go there and carry on. Then we have people coming here to meet people, they press the wrong button downstairs. Call us in the middle of the night. That’s pretty shit. Mum said she feels like going down there with a hammer or something,”
“Being a good son, I couldn’t let her do something mildly illegal. So I thought I’d do something.”
Noah said he told his father yesterday evening what he’d been up to. His father wasn’t pleased and relieved he didn’t get caught.
“But we did spend the afternoon standing by the window looking down into the park, watching people try to open the lockbox but they couldn’t. We were both laughing. The owner came down and had a look himself. He came back a bit later with a new lockbox and key,”
“So I went down there and glued that one shut, too. I think people should just do it when they see them. Everyone should carry super glue. It’s really the only thing you can do to stop this bullshit.”
More to come.
