The front door is open at 216 Avonside Dr. But walk up the path, through a garden of white roses, and there is a faded "red sticker" on the door, saying: "Unsafe. Do not Enter or Occupy."
No-one is home.
Like most houses in Avonside Dr, 216 is empty, damaged, overgrown.
Whether it was the first big one in September, the second big one in February or any of the thousands of others - earthquakes have driven away most of the residents of Avonside Dr.
On Wednesday, the country will observe the first anniversary of the most deadly of those quakes, the 6.3-magnitude quake at 12.51pm on February 22, 2011, in which 184 people died, most beneath collapsed buildings in the CBD.
But, for a first-time visitor to post-quake Christchurch, the damage beyond the CBD is astounding.
Avonside Dr was at the heart of the garden city's well-tended, leafy world of middle-class suburbia.
The Avon still flows gently by - though somehow it seems fuller than it used to be.
Weeping willows still line its banks, although a row of cabbage trees lean unnaturally.
Bitumen paths and roads lie broken and concrete kerbs have been snapped.
There is an absence of truly vertical or horizontal lines.
Brick walls lean, light and power poles lean, house walls lean and everywhere, Portaloos lean.
But, the neglected gardens are the most noticeable, setting apart the empty houses from the few in which residents remain.
Weeds have forced their way through patio floors, and paths.
Roses spill across gates and fences.
Honeysuckle sprawls unchecked.
Nature is reclaiming the houses.
Inside one house, Amy Slaughter (89) watches afternoon television, and waits.
She has lived on Avonside Dr for "quite a long time" but must be out by June.
Her lounge floor slopes towards a corner and there are cracks in the walls.
When the second big earthquake came she was sitting at her computer writing a letter.
"It threw me off my chair on to the floor. And I remember sitting there and crying."
She laughs as she remembers.
"It is such a shock, you know."
She came to New Zealand from "Northern Rhodesia" with her husband, son and daughter when things "got tough" there.
Of all the places they looked at in New Zealand, they liked Christchurch and Avonside Dr the best.
"It was lovely to live here. Very nice."
Now her husband has died, her son has died, and her neighbours leave for Melbourne today.
Eventually, her house will be bulldozed.
Her daughter will be along soon, she says, to help find her somewhere new to live.
