Residents in fear after tagger's political attack

A Grey Lynn resident has fallen victim to a political attack on her home. Photo: Supplied
A Grey Lynn resident has fallen victim to a political attack on her home. Photo: Supplied
An Auckland family has fallen victim to a vicious political attack after their house was vandalised with election hate speech.

On Sunday morning Grey Lynn resident Zoe Tietze was getting ready to take her dog for a walk when she stepped outside and saw her home had been tagged.

"We noticed it all over the street and on our house," she told the New Zealand Herald.

"We originally had a small hoarding on our house supporting the National Party. The vandals had clearly seen that. It was taken down on Friday afternoon but they still remembered our house and decided they wanted to tag us."

The attackers, who vandalised the property on Saturday night after the election, wrote "Blood on your hands" on Ms Tietze's front porch.

The tagging spilled over on to the road where messages "3 more years of poverty and misery" and "National government kills" were spray-painted outside Ms Tietze's home.

The attack has left the family and nearby residents frightened.

"It was really scary, she said. "My mum lives in the house and she was really upset by it.

She doesn't want her grandchild to come over because she doesn't know if the vandals will come back and doesn't want him to see it. She was freaked out by it all.

"We were shocked it happened after taking our hoarding down. The fact they tagged the street is a bit ridiculous.

"We love Grey Lynn - there's a lot of people here that support different parties and we're friends with most of them. They were affected by it too even though they had no involvement in it. It's really upsetting."

Ms Tietze doesn't want to assume who was behind the attacks but believes her and her family were specifically attacked for supporting National.

"We originally had a small hoarding on our house supporting the National party. They'd clearly seen that. It was taken down on Friday afternoon but they still remembered we had that they and decided they wanted to tag us.

"I think we were [specifically targeted]. Our neighbours' fence is white as well and it's connected to our fence. They specifically stopped tagging as soon as it got to the neighbours' part of the fence.

"It was just our house. Our neighbours' weren't targeted - they didn't have any signs on their house so it was definitely just a political attack.

The council has responded swiftly to Ms Tietze's call this morning, sending someone out to clean the graffiti off the property and road in under an hour.

Despite the attack, Ms Tietze is encouraging everyone to voice their opinion, no matter what side of the political spectrum they're on, she has a message for the vandals.

"Please don't do it again. You can voice your opinion but you don't need to vandalise other people's properties to get your message across."

 

 

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