r/interesting • u/Wonderfulhumanss • 4d ago

SOCIETY The Zammit family refused to sell their five acre property as an entire Sydney suburb was built around them

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285

u/phairphair 4d ago

Why do Australians hate trees?

204

u/scuac 4d ago

They are afraid of attracting drop bears

9

u/crappenheimers 4d ago

The Australian Museum page on them is terrifying. What monsters

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/mammals/drop-bear/

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u/FyodorsLostArm 1d ago

“There are some suggested folk remedies that are said to act as a repellent to Drop Bears, these include having forks in the hair or Vegemite or toothpaste spread behind the ears. There is no evidence to suggest that any such repellents work.”

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u/WaffleHouseGladiator 4d ago

A perfectly reasonable concern.

2

u/According-Path5158 4d ago

Just a dose of Cute Chlamydia 

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u/LyndonElJohnson 4d ago

My nan got taken by a big bastard drop bear down the park on her 63rd birthday. God rest her. She bloody hated Vegemite behind the ears, used to laugh at grandad about it. Now who’s laughing Nan?

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u/CocoMilhonez 4d ago

https://australian.museum/learn/animals/mammals/drop-bear/

Danger to humans

The urban legend focuses on bush walkers being 'dropped on' by Drop Bears, resulting in injury including mainly lacerations and occasionally bites. Most attacks are considered accidental and there are no stories of incidents being fatal.

You might have to take it up with the Australian Museum because you just told a story of a fatal gravity-fueled encounter with a drop bear.

Museums these days are full of lies, I tell ya.

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u/LyndonElJohnson 4d ago

URBAN LEGEND!?! This is the sort of bunkum nan used to spout off about. Bloody lab coats. Get a real job, like dirt farming, or eucalyptus sniffing.

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u/LargeHossBoss 3d ago

I have to google “drop bear” every time these stories pile in just to remind myself my delicate American brain is being f*cked with

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u/Aggressive-Error-88 3d ago

Tf is a Drop Bear?. I honestly feel like Australia just be making shit up and there’s a fairy in the sky that’s just like, “Yeah, that checks out. Let’s build it and let it lose there.” 😂😂😂

2

u/Very_Itchy_Bandicoot 3d ago

You can continue to think that way if you want. Don't go calling for help when the DBs get ya, and they will. They hold grudges like you wouldn't believe.

1

u/Aggressive-Error-88 3d ago

Unlike the people that live in Australia, I’ve seen enough to know to stay away so jokes on those god damn Drop Bears, I’m way out of reach. 😎…… hopefully 😅…….👀

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u/Cosmic_MicrowaveOven 4d ago

We don’t, our neighbourhoods are generally leafy af. 

My suburb is so full of trees every time we get a decent storm, emergency services can be clearing the roads of fallen limbs for days. 

1

u/anfornum 4d ago

See now, I have concerns. If I lived in a place where the spiders could double as face-huggers, and snakes just randomly let themselves in the back door, I don't think I would necessarily want MORE trees or grass. A nice, flat, LARGE, inhospitable concrete slab would do just fine for me! i wonder if those newfangled running robots could be taught to give the boot to spiders and snakes? I'm alright with drop bears, though, as I don't think they could hide behind any pictures on the wall.

1

u/CapoGelado 4d ago

Hornsby?

1

u/Teefdreams 17h ago

The whole North Shore is extremely green except for places like St Leonards/Chatties and the North Syd CBD. Even then the areas away from the train station are full of trees and gardens.

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u/babyybones 4d ago

It's mind boggling. They'll come in the comments and talk about how much bush land we have which is true. But where people actually live? At least in my corner of Queensland all the developments wiped out all the trees which is standard... but no one re-planted. Some of these developments are over a decade old and still look like this.

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u/Brocolinator 4d ago

People do this and then go: "wow it wasn't this hot before..." I knew of a lady who nagged for years of having to pick leaves from a mango tree (like 5m tall and I'm wide), well she finally convinced to cut down the tree by the poor husband who never wanted to do it only to start nagging from the heat after it was cut. The mechanic living in front was fuming at the situation as he told me, I can only imagine the husband.

3

u/External-Let-8210 3d ago

All the new developments are horrendous, all over the country. Small, cramped, grey on grey, depressing as crap. This is where the gov should really step in, but as usual it is profits over people.

2

u/donfuan 4d ago

'stralia is just 'murica in disguise. You copy any bullshit they do.

2

u/rkiive 4d ago

I mean this is literally in an area of literal suburban hellscape created by developers and sold to people who essentially do not have a choice to live elsewhere because despite these shitty built houses in a barren hellscape being priced at a million bucks, elsewhere is 2-10 that.

1

u/missilefire 4d ago

I mean all the neighbouring houses are my personal idea of hell. Literal suburban hellscape. All those ridiculous black tin roofs on houses that cram right to the edge of the property line. They all look the same. Wooden frames, shitty insulation, making for freezing in winter despite it not actually being that cold outside. So just blast the aircon right? Ugh. It’s horrible.

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u/frontlineninja 4d ago

most of us love em, its just the rich bastards* who don't

*this was originally going to be a more colourful word but i got a warning about it

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u/Silly_Pizza7054 4d ago

These houses are not owned by rich people wtf

2

u/frontlineninja 4d ago

They bought a 20,000 sqm plot of land in the middle of prime farming real estate and used it for... a lawn.

They've built a 2 story 3 garage house on the property, and refused double-digit million dollar offers for the sale, they're clearly not hurting for cash. They're maybe not "super-duper billionaire" rich, but they're definitely sitting on more money than most people.

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u/Silly_Pizza7054 4d ago

OK and now do the absense of trees on literally every other house in this picture.

2

u/armintanzarian420 4d ago

Are you thick? One house has all the land and won’t plant a single tree. I’m sure if that lawn was divided between people in smaller houses there would be plenty of flora.

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[deleted]

1

u/armintanzarian420 4d ago

How is that relevant?

2

u/Commune-Potato8764 4d ago

Because these are mass produced homes with little to no yard?

1

u/Comfortable-Shake-37 4d ago

They just don't understand that word is a integral part of Aussie culture, such a shame.

1

u/Flipflopvlaflip 4d ago

Isn’t censorship fun?

1

u/fairyflosssss 4d ago

The area I live in is well off and there’s trees everywhere. Western Sydney isn’t a rich area.

1

u/PM_ME_UR_REPTILES1 3d ago

What when did censorship start on reddit while writing comments? Ive never seen it, im not saying i doubt you.

What was the word? Fucks? Bitches? Dicks? C.... oh lmao when did that become a thing, and why that word specifically but not the other "profane and offensive language" I used?

1

u/NeetyThor 3d ago

Hahahaha!!

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u/flying_fox86 4d ago

It's not just that plot either, the whole suburb could do with some trees. Together with the grey roofs, it looks kinda dystopian from above.

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u/phairphair 4d ago

This is mainly what caught my attention. There’s no accounting for the decisions of a single landowner, but some town near Sydney (or Sydney itself?) approved the surrounding development which appear to not only have no green space but no open recreational spaces at all. Dystopian indeed.

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u/VelvetFedoraSniffer 4d ago

Western Sydney is like the worst example to use of “Australia” in this regard

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/pain_amplifier 4d ago

Wind yer head in.

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist 4d ago

Haha wow, I'm a second generation Maltese it's good to know that I'm not Aussie.

My hardcore Pauline Hanson loving bogan Maltese Aussie relatives are in for a shock.

4

u/sasadoncic 4d ago

You don't understand. Unless you're a descendant of thieves and robbers, you're no true Australian.

1

u/pain_amplifier 4d ago

Just like Bob Katter.

2

u/Special_KC 4d ago

That explains it. I'm surprised they even have a lawn.

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u/interesting-ModTeam 4d ago

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1

u/Background_Hat_4785 4d ago

What does that mean?

7

u/grimeyduck 4d ago

Xenophobia perhaps but Malta is a place bro, islands in the Mediterranean.

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u/Background_Hat_4785 4d ago

Lmao I was thinking of the dog breed. Figured it was a knock on them for being high maintenance or some shit.

3

u/Fabulous_Hour_271 4d ago

Nah, iit's for sure xenophobia. That reads like nationalism.

2

u/monochromeorc 4d ago

if its not grass, it would be concrete slabs. IYKYK

1

u/Main-Inflation-5269 4d ago

You should probably come to the capital city, Canberra. The territory is 70% bushland (meaning trees, not bushes).

Hence the place nearly being wiped out by two major bushfires in the last few years.

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u/DrunkOnRamen 4d ago

bushland

Everything truly is upside in Australia

1

u/grimeyduck 4d ago

Grasslands are what they call our bushlands and so on

1

u/solid-snake88 4d ago

That's an odd name. I'd have called them chazzwazzers!

1

u/corporatemumbojumbo 4d ago

I think newer suburbs try to squeeze as much out of the land as possible. I love in northern Sydney and the council's up here don't  mess around when it comes to trees. I was thinking of cutting down a tree as it was right above my kids trampoline and the pine cones kept falling in. I spoke to my neighbour who used to work in construction and still connected to the industry and he advised me against it. He reckons the council use all kinds of GPS image surveillance and drones to prevent trees from being knocked down. 

1

u/phairphair 4d ago

Clearly. It’s not just the trees. I don’t even see any recreational area at all, paved or turfed. There’s no open area. It’s literally all house and road. I thought the new subdivisions in the US were bad. This is much worse.

1

u/succulent_serenity 4d ago

I personally love trees and would plant up this land in a heart beat. I don't know if it's a generational thing, but I've noticed that the oldies hate trees. Eucalyptus trees drop a lot of litter and branches, and the sap basically explodes in a bush fire. Deciduous trees are messy in autumn (not something that bothers me, but some people liken fallen leaves to rubbish). Some trees have very invasive roots which become a big problem with pipes down the track. Baby trees need a heap of water to get established and they might not want to waste the water - a lot of Australia is in a drought.

1

u/DMalteseDude 4d ago

Some few decades ago a lot of maltese emigrated to Australia for better job opportunities. They have a maltese surname and considering that the government here just gave the authority to uproot 800 trees for the construction of a hotel, maybe it's in their maltese blood.

1

u/No-Resolution-7890 4d ago

I live in one of those so called “leafy” suburbs. As nice as it is there’s a lot of drawbacks as well.

Had to spend thousands getting my sewer pipes repaired due to tree root damage.

Had to get gutter guards because the previous owner didn’t for some reason.

Leaves sit everywhere. On top of gutter guards, on every path, patch of grass, garden beds, storm water drains.

Leaves fall into all the crevices around car boots, bonnets etc.

Bat droppings on car paint.

Solar panels are almost useless for 3 months due to the sun being too low in the sky.

A massive tree branch fell onto my deck last week due to the strong August winds

Someone several blocks from me had their entire house split in half from a gumtree falling. The rest of the house had to be demolished.

But apart from those few things, trees are great right near your house.

1

u/phairphair 4d ago

Interesting take. I live in a neighborhood that was established in the late 1800s. We have streets lined with big old trees that do all of the things you describe. It seems like everyone just adapts to it. We rake or blow the leaves into the street and during the season, our village has sweepers and trucks collect them. Fixing old sewer connections that have been invaded by tree roots is expensive and time consuming, but I’ve never heard anyone suggest getting rid of the trees as a remedy. Generally they’re loved by most folks and are a major factor in the character of our town. Even the poorest city neighborhoods are still tree-lined.

1

u/januarynewtype 4d ago

Australians love trees, the rich just hate our native plants and any shade on a sidewalk.

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u/phairphair 4d ago

This is a ‘rich’ neighborhood?

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u/fairyflosssss 4d ago

No. It’s a poorer area. Theres been rapid population growth recently via immigration and a lot of the new migrants move to western Sydney because it’s cheap and there’s been overdevelopment to accommodate that which has actually been really bad for koalas because their habitat is being destroyed.

1

u/phairphair 4d ago

What was in this area right before development?

Does Sydney have zoning laws that determine how much of a plot of land can be occupied by a structure?

There will always be people looking for inexpensive housing, immigrants or not. It’s the local government and builders that are culpable for this terrible urban planning and tract housing, not immigrants.

-1

u/januarynewtype 4d ago

A guy who owns that much property? For reference one of those houses to the side are over a million dollars and look how much bigger their house is to scale + the amount of land. I lived in one of those houses, not in that suburb but in an identical looking Sydney urban development. Look up the Zammit family, they are a rich family. Being rich is what gives them poor taste and a disinterest in cooling down the roads with trees or native plants.

imo, which isnt the opinion of most australians, lawns like that are made by neurotics who are subconsciously embarassed we dont live in beautiful french countryside, so theyll spend several hours a week trying to make their garden look flatt and evenly green with european style grass lawns instead of just allowing the native landscape to look how it looks. for most people who cant afford to put tons into garden maintenance even if theyre obsessing over it daily, this is an uphill battle that inevitably ends with their lawn becoming a dustbowl.

1

u/phairphair 4d ago

I’m mostly commenting on the surrounding neighborhood. There no accounting for the decisions of one rich asshole.

This image makes it seem like Sydney has no zoning laws that address lot usage and required green space.

1

u/januarynewtype 4d ago

i dont know much abt the particulars, our urban areas have more green space and stuff but yeah ive lived in one of these developments so I can tell u abt that. for me and my mum a few years back, we were tryna move out from my dad's. as far as houses go, these were the best we could do without leaving my school's catchment; they were about 10 maybe 12 rows of streets with 50 or so identical houses. interior and exterior *identical*. black roof that absorbs tons of heat and makes the whole thing hell. dishwasher came broken, ports on the walls but no actual wiring for ethernet or phone lines. they seem mildly varied because they paint the walls different colours in non-looping patterns.

the area we were in was farmland and a school gott built there, so some developer bought the farmland and flipped it into these cheap houses to sell at a huge markup when the land became super desired because of the school zone. the worse part was that there were only two ways out of the entire block of land to get back on a nearby main road, bc we were in the middle of a field. no buses into the development, no footpath next to the main road either. and these are unfortunately still massively over expensive bc of the sydney housing crisis

similar things probably exist in america too. i would love better zoning, maybe like some shops here? but I moved out and into an urban centre with tons of trees and shade this year so im doing way better. its great living on a street with trees.

1

u/Independent-Bear2180 4d ago

people get freaked out about having to clean up after a fallen tree so much that they would rather pay a higher energy bill now that their house is in direct sunlight 12hrs a day.

1

u/HetElfdeGebod 3d ago

I'm gonna take a punt and say this used to be a "market garden", a small agricultural plot on what was back then the urban fringe. I lived in the area in the late 70s/early 80s, and there were loads of these, side by side, with Maltese families growing vegetables for the wholesale market.

1

u/NeetyThor 3d ago

They don’t, these people are dead inside.

1

u/Pewtiog 2d ago

My surburb in Melbourne is all natural gardens, native flora and bio diversity. This image makes my skin crawl

1

u/Icantdrivemanuel 15h ago

Have you seen the wild life?

1

u/Bluedemonfox 8h ago

Zammit is a Maltese name and I can confirm many Maltese hate trees.

•

u/preemo 34m ago

Because scary giant insects/reptiles/animals live in those trees.

1

u/Important-Factor-552 4d ago

Do you realize what lives in Australian trees? Australian things, which are basically monsters according to the Internet. 

Do you really wanna have a tree full of colony spiders fall on your house someday? like bro, Australia has a lot of space put the trees somewhere else 

2

u/januarynewtype 4d ago

This is a myth designed during the colonial era to make Australia seem like an unpopulated and savage land in need of European taming, it is not true or useful. Australian trees are beautiful, our plant life is diverse, no monsters live here besides the settlers and the bourgeois.

Europe and America have bears, which are scarier than anything in Australia, yet nobody goes "Don't go to New York, they have black bears everywhere!" because that would be ridiculous.

1

u/Marcus4436 4d ago

trust me this is an exception. our suburbs generally have lots of trees

0

u/No_Category_9888 4d ago

Eucalyptus trees drop branches regularly. They burn well. They have shallow roots and fall over easily

Just need one storm to go through and its trees disk everywhere. Power goes out for a week just about every year due to this (leafy area in Melb)

Plus native trees aren’t allowed to be removed without a council permit and $$$$ aborist reports.

New developments have bugger all trees. Older areas have heaps of trees. Go 50km out of the cbd and it’s trees everywhere (bushland)

0

u/Scary-Perspective-57 4d ago

He's a Zammit, Maltese hate trees.

0

u/AppointmentOne1111 4d ago

Well if you grow trees upside down, their fruits would fall to the sky and create hazards for planes.

0

u/_blip_ 4d ago

Do yourself a favour and jump on google maps satellite view - zoom in and out of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and tell me if you still think that.