Kids kept awake by sex work

A Christchurch man has pleaded with the city council to stop prostitutes working in residential areas.

For six years, residents living close to the corner of Manchester and Purchas streets in St Albans have been subjected to prostitutes working outside, and sometimes even inside, their front gates.

Residents have had to clean up faeces, used condoms, needles and used wet wipes posted in their letterboxes. Their children have been woken up by prostitutes yelling and singing to each other and arguing with clients over prices. Matt Bonis has had enough. ‘‘This keeps our kids awake night after night. We used to call the police, and they were good, but now they don’t bother sending anybody,’’ he told the council at its meeting yesterday.

Women were even soliciting business in the morning, when children were being dropped off at a neighbouring preschool, Bonis said.

‘‘We have an unregulated commercial activity happening outside our home 24 hours a day, seven days a week.’’

He said residents were not bagging prostitution, they just did not believe it was appropriate in a residential area.

Some residents’ homes had been broken into and their vehicles had been damaged.

One of his neighbours refused a request by a prostitute to move his work van because it was impeding views for her potential clients and the next morning he found the vehicle had been vandalised.

A security camera was put up last year to try to deter the prostitutes but, Bonis said, it had not helped. If anything, it worked to the prostitutes’ advantage in terms of safety.

Bonis wanted the council to enforce its public places bylaw, which restricts commercial activity in a residential area, or make an amendment to the bylaw preventing prostitution in a residential area. The bylaw is under review and goes out for public consultation next year.

Council strategic policy head Helen Beaumont said there were difficulties with using the bylaw to control sex workers in residential areas and challenges around effective enforcement.

‘‘Prostitution is not illegal in New Zealand and there is little the council can do to reduce this activity.’’

Beaumont said staff were working on a report outlining potential solutions.