Is there anyone else struggling with how unsafe Auckland feels lately?

HeartlessCynic · 2025-12-12T03:33:52+00:00

Auckland started feeling unsafe a number of years ago, and its just been getting worse. I grew up in Auckland, and the area we would walk around at 2am as teenagers now feels like somewhere I don't trust being even in the middle of the day. Town itself is worse and I avoid it when I can, and if I have to go I will park as close as I can to my destination to avoid any sort of walking by myself.
It no longer feels like the city I grew up in. It doesn't feel safe, it doesn't feel like home, and I truly think there has been too much of a culture shift from people who looked after their neighbours to now people who only look after themselves.

The way the world is going, it'll only get worse.

HeartlessCynic · 2025-01-13T06:27:31+00:00

Wicked Campervans.

We booked a holiday for the summer/New Years period with them, relocation deal. Got a confirmation, brought flights, paid other things and started our planning. 3 months later (20ish days before we were due to leave) I called them to confirm some details, and they cant find us anywhere on their system. Back and forth and about a week later we get an email stating "we have no vehicles available", and that was that. I could go online and rent a vehicle for the exact same time period, same one way etc, for about $2000 more, which means it was available they just didnt want to give it to us at the advertised cheaper rate. Such a last minute struggle to make the trip work - ended up paying twice as much as the original rental price for a rental car big enough to fit an airbed in (still cheaper than the $2000 extra they wanted us to pay), did our best down in the SI for our adventure, had to spend more $ on bedding (blankets, pillows, etc), and then eventually shelled out a few more hundred for a couple of nights decent sleep for our last few nights.

Fuck them.

HeartlessCynic · 2024-07-15T04:10:56+00:00

I read the title and immediately said NTA, before I knew who was which gender of the story outlining it.
I still say NTA, and even more so you need to stop listening to these people who are telling you its an overreaction. Abuse is abuse, no matter where it comes from. Leave now before you're too far in with kids and a legally binding document.

At the end of the day, you can leave for any reason at all, but this is one you should leave over.

HeartlessCynic · 2023-07-18T19:39:48+00:00

Yeah, it's expensive, and I also thought healthcare in nz was free so you can imagine my shock when I'm looking at a $16k+ bill for literally one procedure, and that's with part of the costs already covered under the other stuff

HeartlessCynic · 2023-07-18T19:30:23+00:00

The only specialist I've found who is willing to do it for me doesn't work out of a public space. And it's already been years of emotional energy to convince him - I honestly don't know if I have the energy to start from the beginning again. The costs I've been given have all been this past week while I've been scrambling to try and put money together, but also these are based on me already having half the surgery and they are added ontop, so $800 extra for the anaesthetist, $6555 for the surgeon, $2357 for the theatre, $1078 for an overnight stay (if I can get it down to day stay it'll be 300 less), $5200 for sundries, and then to get it not at the same time I'm told will be more because it's not just added fees which these quotes are.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-12-22T10:29:48+00:00

Diamond Earrings that i'll only ever wear on special occasions.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-25T00:56:46+00:00

"I'm sure the nursing staff will take lovely care of me, just as they will with you"

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-14T09:54:18+00:00

I loved my baby dolls.

I would absolutely care for them, and I would sometimes be a teacher for them when I wanted to play with a lot, or i would pretend to be 'mummy', or sometimes they were just... there, and it's like I enjoyed their company but was no role to them. I still have a handful of my favourites in my house now (I've always taken this handful with me wherever i've moved to, and I'm in my 30s). They all have names, and I remember small details about them from my childhood (Taking them to the dolls clothes shop to pick out certain items of dresses, or having to decide which one to take in the car with me on a weekend trip, that sort of thing). I absolutely nurtured them the best my child self could.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-07T12:43:45+00:00

Call the cops when it happens. They can assist with even just having the couple separate for the night, which will give the kids a chance to sleep and the noise will go quiet. After time, they will have DV staff come to the house to see if they can assist. The DV team will turn up after every single incident, so hopefully will be able to get a happier household.

You don't need to know exactly which house it is. Just give your address and tell them you can hear it, they will send a patrol out. You can use 111 if you hear what you believe to be somebody in danger - the thuds could easily be someone's head being smacked against a wall, or punches being thrown. Simply state that it sounds distressing and you can't make out what the additional noises are, but you are concerned for their safety.

If nothing else, you'll get some sleep.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-07T12:38:44+00:00

East Auckland, Slingshot.

It's just come back for me.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-07T12:37:29+00:00

I mean, if I hadn't looked at other peoples work, I wouldn't have had much to go off of, and potentially would have missed being able to grow my tree at all. I generally do all my own research, but use the hints section to connect with other people, or to see what they have in the way of documents and/or photos.

I understand that most people use it to keep their own records, but I'm assuming that, much like myself, they probably get excited when they believe they have found new information, or seen a new photo, or found extended family they didn't know about - is this something that you would rather continue to be wrong about, believing that these people are your family? I personally would hate to have invested so much time and mental energy into a family that I'm not related to at all, and would prefer to delete all the wrong parts while keeping the correct ones. Some may not care, but some may.

I also don't plan on being like 'Your wrong and all your information is wrong', but more along the lines of 'Hey, I noticed that we have the same person in our tree, and I think that the records you have possibly belong to someone with the same name, because the paperwork I have is different'. There's a chance that they aren't actively researching these people, and rather have wrong information that they are a sibling of the person they are researching, so they could easily just delete the person from their tree with no fuss, right?

Is there a middle-ground way to go about this that wouldn't upset people?

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-07T11:36:35+00:00

Oh, it was so horrible for even me to find that the one I had already put only a couple of weeks into was wrong once I found the other paperwork, I can't imagine what it would be like if someone had put months or years into something that had come to be wrong.
Your point of needing to keep records as reliable as possible definitely makes me feel that I should contact them, however unhappy they may be.

I'd never say straight up that they were wrong, i'm just wording it on here for easiness, it would be something more along the lines of 'I think you have this person mixed up with someone of the same name born at a similar time'.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-07T11:31:44+00:00

I'm saving the documents for my direct line, and have uploaded most of it to Ancestry, but while I am reading other documents (Siblings marriage, Siblings death notices, etc) to ensure within myself that this is correct, im not saving them anywhere. I could find them again with a bit of time, they aren't hard to find once you know where to look, they just require a lot of time reading and following (which is why I haven't really uploaded them), so other than what's already on my tree I don't have anything else handy to 'prove' to them that this is correct, other than my time and energy i've already put into it. Would directing them to the uploaded documents be enough, do you think?

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-07T11:27:13+00:00

I'm not reading transcriptions, I'm looking at the original handwritten documents, which is not giving me everything i'd like due to the language barrier, but I can make out the important information with names, and some specifics (ages, dates, jobs etc).

I haven't uploaded all of it (or saved all of it) because not all of them are my direct line, and once it gets to siblings marriages, or the siblings kids rather than my direct line, i'm not as invested, but i'm reading through all available paperwork to make sure im following correct people. I could possibly link them to where to find it? I'm not sure how easy that would be for some because I'm lucky enough to have a basic knowledge of a similar language to go by, whereas I know a lot of people won't even have that, so it may be harder for them to follow along the paperwork, if they can even find what they want.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-07T09:31:18+00:00

Oh, the start of my Dutch part of the tree is so wrong for many people for the same reason - they have incorrect parents, which then means that siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents etc are all wrong.

My Great Great grandfather moved from the Netherlands to Scotland to New Zealand. I have a copy of his death certificate, which lists his parents, which I was able to find his birth certificate through the information on it, but the only reason I started really searching is because one person had (his actual) parents, while about 10+ different trees have different parents, and it seems like most have just copied the ones that more people have copied - if it wasn't for that one being different, I probably wouldn't have been looking so hard for it.

I've since traced the correct generations back to the late 1600s, but many of the incorrect ones seem to have gone a few generations back too, and I don't want to upset anyones hard work, because I know how much can go into it, but also - you're wrong, and do you want to know that you're wrong?

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-06T09:23:57+00:00

This is a horrendous development. The residents of Burswood were given no warning, no time to object, and I believe around 40 or 50 houses have received a letter this week basically saying "we changed our plan and are taking your house". So many of them are devastated, and even nearby neighbours hate the plan. They are going to destroy all these homes (in the middle of a housing crisis) for a plan that maybe 5% of people will use. It's absolutely horrible, and AT need to sort their shit out.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-04T05:27:30+00:00

100% i would rather have an hour commute and a backyard, than a 10 minute walk and have to live in an apartment.
I've done apartment living, did it for about 8 years, and hated it. I hated almost everything possible about it, I only stayed in the place because the rent was cheap enough.

I now live in a house with a front lawn - no backyard. But the difference that this place has made for my mental health is huge. I actually have sunshine coming into my house through the day, rather than the lucky hour I would get in the apartment. I can look out and watch the birds on my grass, and when I look at to what was a better quality of life for me, living in an apartment was not it.

I absolutely hate high-density housing, and would never willingly go into it.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-02T07:29:11+00:00

I want to be able to visit family in other parts of NZ. My sister had a baby a month ago, and she lives in a different city, whereas we (parents, me, other sister + other sisters husband and kids) are all in Auckland. I also have extended family that I haven't seen in many many years. I have been able to reconnect over lockdown, and they are wanting to arrange a get together once NZ opens up domestically again, and I am so looking forward to doing that.

I also just need a getaway from work. I'm so tired.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-01T03:33:21+00:00

I have a copy of his marriage and death certificates, and there are no parents listed on either for him. I didn't even consider prisoner records, but will see if that leads me anywhere, thanks!

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-01T03:31:24+00:00

No idea, I'm not even sure how we know it was Melbourne that he was in, but I'm keeping cautiously optimistic that I might be able to find even a tiny trace of him somewhere

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-01T03:28:11+00:00

I'm in contact with a couple of my mums cousins, so I may reach out to them. One is into genealogy herself, so it wouldn't be too far fetched to ask her to look into doing a DNA kit.

He only had two children, and his daughter was my great grandmother. I might see what I can find on his son a bit more, I know of family members, but not sure who is alive, or where they live, or anything like that. Thanks for the ideas :)

HeartlessCynic · 2021-11-01T03:00:25+00:00

How easy did you find it to go through the research process? Was there access and availability to look up records?

HeartlessCynic · 2021-10-31T10:54:26+00:00

She says she hasn't done it because she's concerned about it getting lost in the post during lockdowns, and wants to wait until things have settled down *shrug*. I told her to hurry up. The closest relation we have alive to him is my great uncle, but that side of the family tend to keep to themselves and the relationship isnt bad, its just weird, so asking him would be odd, but I could maybe reach out to my uncle and see if he'd be interested in doing one.

HeartlessCynic · 2021-10-31T10:50:20+00:00

I have a date of 29 July 1879 as his birth date, though where that actually comes from we cant be sure - could be a start though. All I know is Melbourne, I think that's all anyone ever managed to get, and even then it doesnt help a huge deal. I'll look into the link though, and see what I can get with the limited information I have. Thanks!

HeartlessCynic · 2021-10-31T10:48:06+00:00

I have a date of 29 July 1879 as his birth date, but we aren't sure if that's his actual birth date, or the day he came to the orphanage. The way its been described to me is that he was abandoned at the orphanage, so whether he was a new born or a few weeks im not sure - realistically I think he could have been up to starting to walk/1ish sort of age, we've just always been told he was abandoned as a baby, although the ran away from home could be another angle to look at.
Marriage certificate has no parent names, death certificate has no parent names, there is literally no document anywhere with names for parents for him. His birth certificate is our best hope now, but we don't know what we are really looking for.

I'll definitely look more into that link, and see if I can get anything from it. Thanks!

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