mindboggled

Horrible place to live – it must be one of the worst roads in Melbourne, aside from major roads, for traffic. Massive trucks, freight trucks, cement mixers, incessant cars, using it as a north-south arterial. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve been woken up in the middle of the night (often 4–6 am) by truckies ramming their horns – and that’s with earplugs in. The stench from the truck fumes during the day also makes for a hellish road to walk along, so if you need to walk up to Kew it's much better to use the back streets: Morang Road, Elgin Street and Foley Street, which ends near Kew Junction.

Then there are the locals who ride their bicycles on the footpath. I don’t know what’s more dangerous – trying to cross Power Street at intersections without being hit by cars turning without an indicator, or trying to walk on the footpath without being mown down by a cyclist. If the police want to make money from fining these mongrels then they should sit at the pedestrian crossing at Power Avenue, photographing and fining cyclists whizzing down the footpath and using it as a laneway, jeopardising people’s safety even though there’s a bike lane in Power Street, for goodness’ sake. They should also fine the cars that turn out of Wattle Road into Power Street without using an indicator – usually 4WD owners who think that indicators are for plebs. And, no, they don’t only do this when turning left. I often see them turn right into Power Street without bothering to indicate.

PS – The person who wrote the other review is mistaken. Power Street does not have “two very popular trams routes 70 and 75” – that’s Riversdale Road. At the end of Riversdale Road the 70 tram continues along Wallan Rd/Swan Street and the 75 turns right into Power Street, but only for two stops, before turning left into Burwood Road. Given that this person has posted 135 reviews I’m guessing that he/she doesn’t even live here. Maybe the mistake stemmed from taking a wrong turn whilst viewing Power Street through Google Earth, the closest they've ever got to the place.

Hawthorn used to be the nicest place to live that you could possibly imagine. The sort of place where it wasn’t snobbish to think, “Why on earth would anyone want to live anywhere else? Or move out once they moved here?” A lovely little oasis in the inner east of Melbourne, nearly as close to the city as Richmond but without the grunginess, and with beautiful houses, affordable rentals, plenty of parks and not too much traffic.

As someone who has lived here for 15 years and thought they’d never want to leave, let me say something I thought I’d never say: I’m desperate to leave. The place has been ruined by overdevelopment, plus so much through-traffic that you’d have to stand by and watch it to believe it. Problems in brief:

1. Be very wary of Power Street. Since late 2009 it has turned into a trucking route. The tracks come off Burnley Street, Richmond, turn right into Swan Street, left into Power Street at Wallan Rd, then go up Power Street. Trucks, freight trucks, cement mixers, more freight trucks, more cement mixers, etc … it did NOT used to be like this. Power Street used to be a minor road. Now it’s a major road with cars and trucks whooshing by almost non-stop, where “peak hour” is all the time except Sunday morning until about 10.30 am.

2. Constructions site everywhere. Don’t rent until you’ve made sure the house next door hasn’t been bought by a developer and isn’t about to be knocked down and turned into apartments. Renovators are a selfish, maddening, noise-polluting nuisance too – sometimes even on Saturdays. What used to be a peaceful suburb is now one big fat construction site.

3. Noisy Swinburne students. I’ve rented in three parts of Hawthorn. The first was near Swinburne (in Auburn Road), the next two weren’t, but the current place (Power St) has nonetheless got really bad since 2009. Noisy students throwing parties late at night with loud thumping music, coming out on their balconies and yacking and laughing at 12.30 am or yacking at the top of their voices next to an open window at 4.45 am (no joke), oblivious to the dozens of flats around theirs or the effect that their behaviour might have on normal human beings who are trying to sleep. Two other horror stories: last November I was woken up at 4.43 am by one such student using a communal washing machine in my building at that time; when I got up and confronted her she said she didn’t think anyone could hear it, even though it sends sound waves throughout the whole building that everyone can hear. On another occasion when I got up at 6.40 am (not woken up by her, thankfully) I heard her using the vacuum cleaner (I checked in the hallway that it was indeed coming from her flat). What sort of freak vacuums at 6.40 am? These sort of students also enjoy driving into the carpark late at night with incredibly loud music blaring in their cars – again, oblivious to the fact that there might be people metres away trying to sleep. Maybe they come from countries were noise restrictions don’t exist. I’ll leave it at that, but if you encounter similar troubles don’t say you weren’t warned.

4. Skyrocketing rents. My landlord has put my rent up eight times in six years. I’m paying $255 a week – and, as they keep reminding me, the rent is still below the market rate. This much for a crummy little 1 bedroom flat that doesn’t even have a balcony, living cheek-by-jowl with people in other blocks of flats nearby, just isn’t worth it. How landlords persuade new residents to pay $290–350 a week for one bedroom flats I don’t know – I’ve seen decent looking one bedroom flats advertised from $290 a week in Brighton, one of the most expensive suburbs in Melbourne (plus they’ve got a beach, and probably very little through-traffic). Even West Hawthorn, the nicest part of Hawthorn – from Power Street over to the Yarra – has construction sites now, ruining the ambience there, which used to be lovely (I lived there 2000–2003, in Elm Street). The developers got ‘in on the secret’ of what a great place Hawthorn was, started building like mad and in the process wrecked what made it such a desirable place: it was peaceful and not over-developed.

Hawthorn is no longer the sort of suburb where you don’t have to be rich and live in a mansion in order to enjoy it. You do – or else be a heavy sleeper and/or hard of hearing, plus have no objection to ingesting several stomachs-full of truck fumes every time you walk to the shops (assuming you don’t travel there in your BMW 4WD, as so many do). If you can afford a huge house on a large block well away from a main road, with no renovators next door, then go for it. If you’re looking for a flat then unless you can find something that’s (a) nowhere near a main road and (b) in an area that’s too expensive for Swinburne students to afford (even with several packed into one flat – they tend to do that) then I recommend you don’t bother. If you want this locality maybe try Kew, East Kew or Balwyn (but not North Boring, which is horribly dull and suburban). And, as another reviewer put it, Glenferrie Road is getting ‘dirty’ these days. I used to go there about twice a week – now once or twice a month. Too many 4WDs barging their way into traffic (eg opposite Glenferrie Station, coming out of Grace Street) and engaging in driving that’s generally life-threatening (except to all the other people in tanks), crowds of students, noise blaring from speakers outside shops (eg over the footpath, not inside the shops), too much traffic in general, etc. Blame ‘Big Australia’. The whole of Beautiful Boroondara will probably be ruined eventually, although at least the revolting Camberwell Station redevelopment has been canned.

If you’re still considering moving to Hawthorn, particularly to a heavily built up part, then if you know someone who lives here already I recommend seeing if you can stay overnight to check whether the noise levels are bearable, particularly on Saturday nights, when the students are at their worst. One the plus side the public transport in Hawthorn is fantastic, particularly now that they’ve improved the trains on Saturday and Sunday mornings and made them run every 10 minutes (in the past they ran every 20–30 minutes, and even the 9.17 am from Hawthorn Station to the city on a Sunday morning could be ridiculously crowded). One tip: the No. 75 tram can be maddeningly slow along Bridge Road in peak hour, so if you’re going all the way to the city it’s best to get out at Hawthorn Station and get the train, which is only 10 minutes to Flinders Street.