"The Tron" in the late 70s......
The city of Hamilton is known affectionately as "The Tron". I was born and lived there for my first 13 years.
On the Eastside there were some wonderful old 'California Bungalows' and Victorian Villas with quarter-acre sections (work it out in metric yourself!) until the late 60s - early 70s, when the council changed the zoning and development regulations.

Within a year, many of the old houses down my street has units put up behind them, or in some cases were flattened for blocks of flats.
In 1973, such was the case of the property next to us, and the one directly across the road from that.

Now the initial tenants were normal people, and this continued until about 1975... when for some reason, the gangs moved in.
Mongrel Mob moved in next door, taking a few flats - within three weeks, everyone else had moved out and the other gang members had moved in. Same thing happened with Black Power across the road.
By now I think you can see where this is going......

We were pretty much left alone - the only disturbances being the fight every second week, with sounds of the gangs beating several shades of shit out of each other with the weirdest of weapons and the sirens announcing the imminent arrival of Plod. Whereupon all their weapons would be dumped into the neighbouring gardens in an attempt to look innocent.

Dad never had to buy a slasher for years, nor an axe; but we didn't have much use for the motorbike drive chains with the nails in them... and he wouldn't let me keep the softball bat with the 6-inch nails driven into it.

On a school visit to the Police Station, they showed us their trophy cabinet with examples weapons they had seized, and I had commented that I had seen most of them. When a cop asked me where I lived, I told him - he replied "Ah."

When one drunk/stoned dude banged on our door at 3am one night and wanted someone to get him a taxi, Dad told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off - no uncertain terms being pointed his double-barrel sawn-off at the guy's nads through our frosted glass front door. Luckily for the guy, he could take a hint. But we lost every rose-head down the driveway....

Eventually they moved out/got evicted/did a runner/got arrested.
And Eastside became a sleepy backwater suburb again.

Length - 5 years of nightly entertainment, and free tools.
(Sebulba continues to fight evil with evil....., Sat 3 Oct 2009, 9:09, Reply)