My Life In Scarfieville

Hey Blog-readers!

I haven't written a blog in what seems like forever.
I keep meaning to. And then I don't.

Wow cool story.



I said I would write about my time living in the Slums of Dunedin, so here it is.


Ever since I moved to Dunedin back in '09 I have lived in North Dunedin.
My first year Hall of Residence (Carrington College) was in North Dunedin, and I never moved out of the area (apart from my brief stint in Mornington) UNTIL THIS YEAR.

But more on that later.


North Dunedin is the place of students. During my first few years in Dunedin I never left my North Dunedin bubble. I had my flat / University / Town. I never went outside of this area. IN FACT I never ventured into the other suburbs until I was in the end of my 3rd year.

I have talked to people about this and its actually very common for students to not know anything aside from North Dunedin.


I'm not really sure where I'm going with this blog..

I think I've forgotten how to effectively write blog posts... WHOOPS!

That's what happens when you stop doing something for ages, YOU LOSE YOUR ABILITIES!


Oh dear.



I don't really know where to go from here.

Okay, I have an idea. I will quickly summarise all the different flats I had during my time in Scarfieville, what I learned etc. and we can call it a day.



FLAT ONE: My first year ever flatting was in an 100+ year old house on Dundas Street.
Your quintessential Scarfie flat. 5 bedroom. 1 bathroom. 1 toilet (oh dear). Complete with grassy backyard and EXTEMELY LOUD NEIGHBOURS WHO ARE BREAKING THAT LAW ABOUT HOUSES BEING A CERTAIN DISTANCE AWAY FROM EACH OTHER.

This flat was definitely a learning experience. It was freezing cold. No insulation whatsoever. Extremely high ceilings so you couldn't heat them up. OH MY GOSH. I remember running up and down the hallway screaming because I was so cold.

Good times.

We even had a token stray cat who hung around our house and we eventually started feeding. We named him Mow (my flatmate studied Chinese and named it).
Anyway, Mow was really scared but I hung out at the flat a lot studying and what not. I fed Mow everyday and eventually he let me stroke him.
He was eventually run over or killed in some other way. We never saw him again.

Pretty gutting.

Everyone should experience the horror of cheap un-insulated, blistering cold Dunedin flats at least once. My first year flat was just that.

The neighbours were very rowdy, constantly having parties, couch fires etc.
I somehow managed to get the numbers of the guys who lived next door and always played their instruments late at night. I sent many a passive-aggressive text asking them to please stop playing music after midnight.
They were always nice about it and would in fact stop.

What good guys.


I should have invested in earplugs but I never did.






FLAT TWO: A bit of an upgrade from the first flat, my second flat was just up the road on Dundas Street. I got my cousin Emil and friend Tim to physically carry all my stuff to my new flat from the old one. What good friends!!!!
This flat was also 5 bedroom, two bathrooms and two toilets (YAY AN UPGRADE INDEED!)

This flat, known as 'The Gables' was at this time the hotspot for all the Elim crew. We had people like Mark Procter and Jaimee Northcott as neighbours so there were always tons of people around.

It was in this flat that I discovered sometimes, as an introvert, you have to remove yourself from social situations even if people kinda think you are rude for doing it.

I would spend many an afternoon alone in my room. I watched the entire first, second and third seasons of The OC when I lived at The Gables.

It was nice having a two story house, my room was significantly warmer.
It was also handy having two bathrooms.

I never once used the downstairs shower.

I should have done it, just to prove a point. Dang it.

No backyard or grass, there was a tree right outside but they cut down most of it. Oh, there was a deck! The deck was cool.


This flat was much quieter but there were still couch burnings happening on Dundas Street and you would walk past vomit and broken glass on a regular basis.




FLAT THREE: Before we get to my 3rd flat, which I moved into halfway through my 4th year, I'd like to indicate that after two years flatting, I was SICK OF IT. So I managed to get myself a room boarding with a family in Mornington (who are now known as my surrogate parents).
My time in Mornington was very idyllic and I really really loved it. I would never have chosen to leave, but sadly the house was put up for sale so my surrogate parents moved into a much smaller house and I couldn't go with them.

Thankfully I managed to find another flat with my good friends Joella and Katie on Mackenzie Street, just outside of Fatty Lane on Great King street. A famous Scarfie street. You would have to walk past a number of fast food outlets on your way to and from Uni/Town.

There was many a Yilmahz pizza/kebab purhcased by me during that time. For Katie and Joella it was more like KFC. I don't like fast food.


Mackenzie Street was pretty cool. Off street parking, 6 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1 toilet (I'M SORRY, WHAAAAT?!?!?!). I was so thankful it was just the three of us living in a 6 person flat. We had a guest bedroom which was fun, the other two bedrooms were locked and full of the landlord's stuff.

It was a reasonably warm flat.

No backyard or grass.

OH MY GOODNESS THOUGH. CAN MACKENZIE STREET PARTY OR WHAT?!?!! Its a complex of flats so EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE AND EVERYONE LIKES TO PARTY.

No couch fires though, good job guys.

Should have invested in earplugs, but still didn't.






FLAT FOUR: Agnew Street. What can even be said about Agnew Street?
Its such a special place, in the heart of Scarfieville. So many sounds. There's Arana across the street, you can hear all of Clyde Street and St. David's Street. Ah. Such a wonderful place.


I finally invested in earplugs and BOY did I need them!!!

Wish I had done it sooner.

And don't even get me started on the couch burnings.
Almost everyone's cars down the street got flat tyres from the couch tacs scattered everywhere after an especially vigorous couch torching.
My car didn't have any flat tyres. And then, one day, it did. And after I replaced the tyre (aka- Lyndon replaced the tyre) and he took it in for a WOF, the car people discovered there were three more tacs in the tyre not causing any problems but just chilling in the tyre nonetheless.

Oh Agnew Street.

My friends all laughed when I told them I was living there. It is well known as a "Party Street". And "Everyone knows everyone and becomes really close".
I met a few guys during O-Week and then never again after that.

I think the street saw my flat as "The Nana's"
We never went out partying, and clearly didn't appreciate the lunatics who at one point thought it was a good idea to climb on our roof.

*Sigh*

Agnew Street.


The flat itself was hilarious.
Warm, though not insulated. Walls like paper mache from the layers and layers of wallpaper.
Walls, ceilings, shelves, windowsills and doors that didn't seem to line up.
So much character!!!!!

After two years I finally had a nice grassy backyard again AND a porch. Oooooh porch!
I like porches.

You can sit on your porch and people can't say nothing about it. My first flat had a porch as well, I never mentioned that.

This flat had 5 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 2 toilets (technically 1, the other 1 was outside in the "Shed" aka Wash-house).

Not as bad as first year flatting, having only 1 toilet between 5 people is horrific.

ps- Halfway through the year some hooligans stole our street sign, so for the rest of the year our street was unmarked. That is just an example of the kind of people who live around that area..

I think I'm done.
I only have a few pictures which are all from Agnew Street. I have other pictures of the other flats obviously but I can't be bothered finding them right now.



What a random blog. I hope it was somewhat entertaining.

This year I am living OUT OF SCARFIEVILLE! YAAAAAAY!!!!
And hopefully next year I will move out to the 'burbs again.

North Dunedin does not count as the 'burbs. It counts as the Ghetto.

That is all :)



xx