09/10/2026
Who Does She Think She Is?
This was the bizarre mentality behind some of the hate my family had thrown at us when we decided to move back to my hometown of Ōamaru.
It's so hard for me to put into context, and into words, what happened to us there.
And I do keep revisiting it here because so many people tell me how grateful they are for my honesty, and for bringing to light this outdated and gross style of old-school bullying that, quite frankly, I didn't realise still existed.
So, briefly, for context...
Back in 2020, my husband and I, together with our darling daughter, who was five at the time, moved back to my hometown of Ōamaru to buy a poo business.
It was actually a portaloo and septic tank business, but we lovingly called it a poo business because, well...
we literally shovelled s**t.
And we loved it.
The irony wasn't lost on us,
Sean and I were responsible for disposing of the entire Waitaki District's poo. 💩
Every last turd. 🤸🏽♂️
And we were so excited for this adventure. ♥️
We threw ourselves into our new business, our new town (my hometown) and our new life with so much excitement.
But some people in this town were,
I guess you could say, stuck.
Stuck in ways of old.
Stuck in a particular kind of small-town mentality where certain people seemed to believe there was a very specific way things were supposed to be done, and, apparently, we weren't supposed to come along and change any of it.
A small group of older people in town absolutely hated Sean and I
moving into 'their' town.
And changing things.
“Who the hell do these kids think they are!”
Sean and I accidentally, and at a frankly ridiculous speed, turned our beloved new business into something pretty bloody amazing. 🥹❤️
We didn’t set out to do that 🫢 We just loved it, nurtured it, and gave it all the attention we could. Turns out, it loved us right back.
This business had been a part of the community for 25 years, but it was definitely ready for a massive reinvention.
We could see its potential.
So we set to work.
We modernised it.
We gave it love.
We edged it, into the 21st century.
And it worked.
The business became incredibly busy.
We were loving it.
We were proud of it.
And then...
some people really, REALLY didn't like that.
To this day, when we tell people that we were violently harassed and abused for five long years while living in Ōamaru and running our business, there is one question we are almost always asked:
“But why?”
Why did they do this to you?
That’s been the golden question everyone wants a shiny answer to.
Sean and I still can't really answer that.
We can guess. 🤷🏼♀️
Jealousy.
Small-town mentality.
A resistance to change.
Insanity.
Pure absurdity.
But ultimately, I don't know.
What I do know is that their hatred of our tiny little family and what we were doing in Ōamaru became relentless.
Our business was tampered with for months on end.
Equipment was smashed.
Security cameras we installed to protect ourselves were torn down.
Our staff were threatned.
We were threatened and abused.
Our power was tampered with for months.
My husband was rammed off the road while driving his work truck, approached in his cab where he stoped on the side of the road and spat on.
People threw rubbish into our workplace from the road while driving at speed.
I was targeted in my car on the roads almost daily.
Frankie was with me most of the time.
It was truly terrifying.
We filed police reports collectively,
only to be disbelieved and sent on our way.
And we moved.
Geez, did we move.
We moved house and business so many times during those five years that I honestly lost count.
We moved because we were trying to escape them - 8 times we moved in 5 years - home and business combined. Thats compeltely unstabling and absurd. 🌴 I challenge anyone - anyone! To try and move this much in 5 years AND do it with 140 freaking portaloos! 🤣💩Throw in some casual small town trauma!
You can’t make this s**t up!
Every time we moved into somewhere new, further away, we thought:
This has to be it.
This has to stop them.
Please.
Just leave us alone now.
But every time we moved, it seemed to make them angrier, these weird little people and their anger, followed us.
They would come at us from a different angle, or involve new people, or find another way to make our lives miserable.
They tried to physically abuse us a lot!
I remember thinking:
Sometimes I just wish they’d actually hit me. Gosh knows they tried.
Because that would have been so much easier to prove. An actual bruise.
So much easier to explain.
The problem was that so much of what happened to us was under the radar.
Slimy.
Dirty.
Calculated.
It was almost impossible to prove. We spent thousands on security, but we were also so very busy shovelling s**t and we were doing this all alone! We had no help. We felt like we’d been thrown into a septic tank and someone had pulled the ladder out, we couldn’t get back out!
And this was before New Zealand's newer stalking and harassment laws came into place.
Although, if I'm completely honest,
I'm not sure Ōamaru would have protected us even if we'd fast-forwarded to those laws.
Eventually, after four years of this hell, I had a small suspected stroke from the stress. I had such bad anxiety I did not leave our farmhouse for almost 2 years! I was so terrified to walk out the front door, I was unable to work - my beautiful husband took the reings and he somehow - ran that business all on his own.
We knew we couldn't keep going,
we were so unsafe.
So we left Ōamaru.
We found a crummy little flat in Dunedin, an hour and a half south, and commuted back to Ōamaru every single day for our work.
For a whole year.
Three hours a day.
Every day.
It cost us an enormous amount of money, time and energy.
But there was one very clear benefit.
We were safe.
Or at least, safer.
Because even then,
the harassment didn't completely stop.
Eventually it became obvious that commuting three hours a day wasn't a life.
So we made the hardest decision.
We sold our beloved farmhouse.
And eventually,
we sold our beautiful poo business too.
The business we had worked so incredibly hard to build.
Our business only sold ten months ago in December just gone.
We sold it to a beautiful family in town who loves it as much as we did. ♥️
And our haters got one final jab in.
During our last week in Ōamaru, a handwritten letter of hate arrived in our mailbox.
A physical letter.
Sent through the post.
With disguised childlike handwriting. 🤦🏻♂️
So calculated.
After everything.
After five years.
One last message.
One last reminder that,
apparently, they still hated us.
And I think that's the part that makes the question so difficult to answer.
Why?
Why did they do this to us?
Why did a tiny family moving back to their hometown, buying a poo business and being happy become such an offence?
Why was it:
“Who do these kids think they are?”
I don't know.
And maybe that's the hardest thing about dealing with behaviour that makes absolutely no sense.
You're looking for a rational explanation for something that wasn't rational.
You're trying to find the logic
in something that had none.
You're trying to understand people who, frankly, behaved in ways that you simply cannot understand.
Maybe there isn't an answer.
Maybe sometimes people see someone else changing, succeeding, doing things differently, setting boundaries or simply refusing to play by the old rules...
and they decide that person needs to be punished for it.
I don't know.
What I do know is this:
We didn't deserve it.
Our daughter didn't deserve it.
And nobody should have to spend five years of their life trying to make themselves small enough, quiet enough, invisible enough, or far enough away to make someone else stop hurting them.
We eventually chose to leave.
We lost an enormous amount by doing that and today Sean and I are trying to pick up the pieces.
But we also chose our family.
And that, ultimately, was the most important thing we could do.
I will always continue to advocate for this.
I’m not afraid to speak about what happened to us nearly as much anymore ❤️ and that is purely because of the support and love I get from you all here.
I know that so many other people have walked in our shoes, or are currently living in situations where they don't feel safe.
And if me speaking up and speaking out about this helps ONE person feel less alone, recognise what is happening to them, or find the courage to get themselves somewhere safe,
then I will never be silent.
Never.
* these photos are from that time.
