A former neighbour of the Bain family described murder accused David Bain's mother Margaret as a "flaky", self-opinionated person with some unusual ideas.
Billee Marsh yesterday told Justice Panckhurst and the David Bain murder retrial jury that Margaret Cullen-Bain told her she once went to bed for six weeks, and the family just had to "work around her".
Mrs Cullen-Bain said she was not depressed at the time but "just decided to do that".
"I found that unusual," Mrs Marsh said.
She and her husband had more contact with Robin Bain than Margaret, and found him easier to deal with.
Mr Bain appeared to be a sincere, gentle, polite and calm man, and very reasonable, whereas Mrs Cullen-Bain was "flaky".
During their conversations, Mrs Cullen-Bain would do all the talking and she would do the listening, Mrs Marsh said.
When she tried to talk to her about being bitten by one of the Bains' dogs, Mrs Cullen-Bain's viewpoint was "very different from mine. She was not sympathetic".
She believed the dog incident was probably more than a year before the murders.
The dog was put down some time after it bit her, but it had bitten the postie more than once before it bit her.
Mrs Marsh said she would often have brief conversations with David Bain over the garden fence.
He was always pleasant and polite.
But the last time she saw him and his mother in the garden where they were working on a big garden project, she had called out to him and he did not reply.
That made an impression on her because he was normally cheerful and would reply.
The Bain family member she dealt with the most was Arawa, who often babysat for her.
And she remembered Laniet babysitting for her once "near the end" and Mrs Cullen-Bain telling her Laniet was not suitable as a babysitter.
She did not know why that was.
She saw the girls only in the context of babysitting and could not recall anything out of the ordinary.
She remembered Arawa being very excited about plans for the building of a new house although she was aware there were financial problems.
Asked how she learned Mr Bain was not living at home, Mrs Marsh said she believed it was from neighbours, although she recalled Mrs Cullen-Bain telling her that, early on, she had moved out to the caravan beside the house "to make a point".
As to Mr Bain's dress sense, the witness said it was "very conservative", not fashionable.
He appeared to be a man who wanted comfort and who wore practical clothes in dull colours.
To defence counsel Michael Reed QC, Mrs Marsh said her husband had talked to Mrs Cullen-Bain about contacting the city council because of a drainage problem caused by water pouring on to their property through a gap in spouting on the Bain property.
She agreed there had been "chitter chatter" in the neighbourhood about the Bains but she never heard anything about incest.
Her husband, Wayne Marsh, said the family had lived next door to the Bain property since 1977 but did not meet the family until they returned from overseas in the late 1980s.
They did not socialise, but Arawa often babysat for them.
They would have had more contact with the father than with anyone else in the family, Mr Marsh said, and his first impression of Mr Bain was he was a serious and sincere sort of person.
He believed Mr Bain had spoken of concerns about removal of bush from around the properties but it was established they were tidying and restoring, not destroying.
And he once telephoned Mr Bain about people he believed were Bain and his younger brother Stephen shooting possums at the back of the property.
It was very close to his daughter's bedroom window.
When he expressed his concerns to Mr Bain, the matter was taken seriously and Mr Bain promised to speak to the boys and ensure it did not happen again.
Mr Marsh also spoke to Mr Bain about the drainage issue, which was causing a bank to erode.
When he asked if the Bains could repair the spouting that was causing the problem, Mr Bain said he would talk to the family and see.
A statement of evidence from the Geraldine Marsh, the daughter of the previous witnesses, spoke of hearing the Bain's dog barking continuously about 7am on June 20.
Although she had often previously heard the dog barking, she had not heard it barking continuously as it was that morning.
