Our Family Home

The Big Man, The Pooper and I finally have our home to ourselves. It still feels special :) We wake up in the mornings, as a married couple, in our own home, on our own. I'm loving it!

It's not that I didn't love having my BFF stay with us, or that I didn't like having a steady stream of pre and post wedding visitors. But it does feel great to be married and living on our own. Kind of makes me feel like a grown up!

It's more about the fact that where we were living was such a horrible place for me. We went back to the shop/house a couple of afternoons ago to do a walk through with the landlord and hand over our keys and it was at that point that I realised how much negativity I associated with living there. It was just one of those places that slowly, but surely sucks the joy out of your life.

The negativity started on the first Sunday after we leased the place. I was there on my own whilst the Big Man was out and about (at the hardware store I think). There was a knock at the door and I assumed it was one of the neighbours coming to say hi. The man at the door was visibly angry and demanded to see 'the old bloke'. I (naively thinking that he would leave once I explained that he was mistaken) told him that we had just moved in and that my fiance was only young and not the man he was after. The guy got really angry and called my a 'lying b***h'. At that point I started to feel nervous. I explained again that the man he was after must have moved because we were the only people living there now. It was then that the man yelled 'I know that he is here you lying b***h, tell him to come out here and see me, or I will come in there and I will get you. Stop lying to me or I will kill you.' That got me moving..... I slammed the door in his face, sprinted to the back door and locked it and then broke down on the floor bawling my eyes out. I have seen irrational and angry people before and I have felt scared before, but that was a lifetime ago and I was completely caught off guard. I called The Big Man and tried to explain to him what was going on, it took a while because I was hysterical and he thought that I must have cut myself with his new circular saw (that he had banned me from using). When I finally explained to him what was going on he told me to hang on and then hung up the phone. I figured that he was driving straight over, but he called me back in 5 minutes to tell me that he had called emergency and that the police where on their way. Hearing that actually calmed me down and I had the presence of mind to sneak up to the window and write down his car registration and a description of him in case he did a runner.

When the police arrived they did so in a spectacular fashion, three cars pulled up with their sirens blarring and they pulled into the yard blocking the guys car in. Whilst two of the officers quickly worked out the guy didn't have a gun or knife another one came to the door to talk to me. Which set me off again, I couldn't stop crying and it took ages for me to get my story out. About ten minutes later The Big Man arrived and sat with me whilst I talked to the police officer.

The guy out the front was charged with something, I'm not sure what and eventually all of the police left.

A couple of hours later the guilt kicked in for me. I figured that the guy was probably all talk and that I had over-reacted, but I still think that I would take the same course of action if something like that happened again. I also felt bad because he didn't seem very switched on, it turned out the had his girlfriend and kid in the car (which was unregistered) and didn't even realise that if he sat in the yard long enough that the police would catch him.

The policeman came back several months later to go over my statement for the guy's court hearing and he filled me in about the tenant before us. Alan Smith was his name and he had ripped a lot of people off (including the angry guy at the door) before doing a disappearing act. So now I feel angry, frightened and sorry whenever I think about what happened.

The Big Man and I stuck it out at the house anyway because we didn't think it would be long before our house was finished. But our home was delayed so many times and we ended up living there for a year. I hated answering the door though, which was tough considering we were running a business from there and I flat out refused to answer the door after dark.

Now that we are into our beautiful new home I really feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. We have a safe neighbourhood, great neighbours and nothing to fear. Home sweet home.

Sorry if that was all a little bit dark, but I felt the need to get it off my chest. Regular, light hearted content will resume tomorrow!

Tamsyn xx