Houses on Chert St and Burnham School Rd in Rolleston were hit on Thursday night by graffiti taggers using green spray paint.
Nelly and Tim Bremner woke on Friday morning to find the n-word scrawled in big letters on their driveway.
The word left the couple feeling “mortified”, particularly Nelly who, as a Fijian Indian, felt personally affronted by the word. Her house was the only one on their street targeted.
“I don’t know what to say. It’s horrible,” she told the Herald.
“We have a little boy with brown skin, we’re so angry. We just moved here from Wellington and we got warned about a racist culture down here, I guess they’ve been proved right.”
Tim called the police and alerted them to the tagging. They learned other houses across the district had also been targeted by similar graffiti on the same night.
One property on a separate street also had the n-word sprayed on it.
“They wrote words like homo and pedo [at other houses],” said Nelly.
“The person might know the person in the community, but what they’re doing with their writing, it’s things that will upset and offend the community.”
Tim also spoke with the council.
The incident has since been lodged with the graffiti removal programme.
The couple were offered support from an empathetic local.
“We spoke with a Scottish man who lives nearby, he had penises spray-painted on his fence and he’s offered to waterblast our driveway,” he said.
“So we’ll see how that goes.”
Daniel Fechney spotted his bins had been targeted, before walking down the road to see if any other properties on his street were targeted - again, it had been a targeted incident.
“I got home at 11pm last night, I didn’t hear anything then and I suppose spray painting is a quiet activity,” said Fechney.
While cleaning his bins, a lady stopped and told Fechney about the n-word on the Bremner’s driveway. He said the news of this was upsetting.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re black, brown or orange - you should be accepted,” he told the Herald.
“I wouldn’t care if it was a bunch of teens bored at home during the holidays or an actual person who thinks the words mean something, either way, it’s disrespectful and unneeded.”
Police said they understood the distress incidents such as these cause.
“We will do all we can to hold these people to account,” said area commander Inspector Peter Cooper.
“Incidents of this nature are not common in Selwyn and are certainly not reflective of the overall community.”
Rolleston has been rapidly expanding in recent years due to new subdivisions being built. Fechney said the area has experienced “more stupid stuff” in recent weeks.
He noted an increase in car thefts, people suspiciously knocking on doors to see if anybody’s home - as well as mentioning the incident where an attempted kidnapping occurred at a Rolleston Guy Fawkes event in November.
“I don’t think we should have to, but it’s coming to the point where the community as a whole should chip in some coins and get a community patrol running,” he said.
“[The offenders] think they can get away with it, all this stuff doesn’t need to happen.”
-By Nathan Morton
