A 'NIGHTMARE' neighbour who stabbed a man's inflatable boat and drenched his unit with a garden hose through an open window says it is she who is being picked on.
Harriet Janet Uruba, 53, was placed on nine months’ probation in Cairns Magistrates’ Court yesterday after pleading guilty to common assault of Carlos Valenzuela, 60, who lives in the unit above hers at a Manunda complex.
She also pleaded guilty to two counts of willful damage for wrecking Mr Valenzuela’s boat and destroying his TV set after flooding his unit with the hose about noon on Wednesday.
The common assault charge arose from an incident about midday on Thursday when Uruba picked up a rock and chased Mr Valenzuela around the bottom of the Little St complex’s external stairs threatening to kill him.
Outside the court, Uruba said that as the only Aboriginal tenant she had to put up with racist slurs and abuse from her white neighbours, as well as loud noise.
"They call me a stupid black woman," claimed Uruba.
"They throw eggs on to my washing and then I have to go and wash all over again."
But Mr Valenzuela, and fellow neighbours Kevin Schneekloth and Alan Moore, say they are so fed up with Uruba’s violent attacks on them and their property as well as verbal abuse, they took up a petition to have her evicted from
her Housing Commission unit.
"She’s the nightmare neighbour from hell," said Mr Schneekloth, who alleged he had been punched in the face by Uruba and copped a black eye and smashed glasses when he asked her to repay a loan.
Mr Valenzuela said he had also tried to help Uruba, lending her money, letting her use his phone and sewing her curtains.
But the hobby painter said because he lived above her, he had to be so careful not to upset her with any noise or risk "setting her off" again.
"I have to tiptoe to the toilet. If I suddenly drop my glasses or my paintbrush I think, ‘now I’ve blown it’," he said.
In court, Uruba said she put the hose on Mr Valenzuela’s unit because she was angry about noise he was making, but yesterday he said he had not even been home at the time and came back to find his carpets, curtains, couch and TV drenched.
The court heard just three months ago Uruba pleaded guilty to another count of willful damage, this time involving an axe attack on the security screen door of a different neighbour.
Acting Magistrate Kerry McFadden ordered that a condition of Uruba’s probation be an anger management course.
