Back in 2015, thefts, threats and gangs made Christchurch's Jollie St an undesirable place to live, according to its residents.

Out-of-control youth, menacing dogs, Mongrel Mob, Black Power. Myles Hume finds there is never a dull moment for residents living in Christchurch's troubled Jollie St.

It's 10am on a Tuesday and it isn't long before the peace is broken in Jollie St.

"Put the f***** dog away, I'm sick of it, I'm scared of it. It's tried to attack me twice. The police are just there put your dog away before I ring the pound."

DEAN KOZANIC/Stuff.co.nz Jollie St resident Walton Briggs says he struggles to control is son, 17, who is in prison on remand.

The shouting woman holds her school-aged daughter's hand as the mongrel dog confronts them on the footpath. It has been locked outside by its apparent owners who deny any link. A man on a bike tries to shoo the dog away, before two police officers emerge from a house across the street and call animal control.

The woman's expletives ring out through the neighbourhood. For many living here, such encounters form part of an ordinary day.

Residents in Jollie St, on the eastern border of Linwood, chuckle at the irony in the name. Each has a story to tell. Burglaries, threats, BB gun pellet holes in windows, fear of leaving the house, teenagers leaping into their property to evade police.

DEAN KOZANIC/FAIRFAX NZ There have been 50 complaints to the Christchurch City Council about dogs in Jollie St in the last year.

Almost $6000 in surveillance cameras and security alarms protect one wary homeowner.

There have been 50 dog-related complaints to the Christchurch City Council from Jollie St in the past year, along with 12 excessive noise complaints. Housing New Zealand (HNZ) has had five complaints of threats and harassment in recent months. Misbehaving tenants have been evicted, it says.

Above all, it is youth crime that has earned Jollie St a reputation as one of the most troubled streets in Christchurch.

GOOGLE Jollie St sits on the eastern border of Linwood, just a few hundred metres from Eastgate Mall.

The problem has caught the attention of the same police team that stemmed crime in Phillipstown, including in the once notorious Olliviers Rd. It has been tasked with improving the neighbourhood.

A house down Jollie St could set you back between $240,000 to $280,000, according to council valuations.

A mix of state housing and homeowners, the street's 74 homes are not all bad.

DEAN KOZANIC/FAIRFAX NZ Jackie Galvin visits a friend on Jollie St. She moved away, believing it was no place to raise her 2-year-old son.

Groomed properties with neat hedges and daffodil gardens are nestled among homes with overgrown lawns and unpulled weeds. A supermarket worker gathers trollies discarded on grass berms.

Mongrel Mob and Black Power. Tenants and hard-working homeowners. Residents insist only a handful of households are sources of conflict, crime and chaos.

It is the recent headline-grabbing incidents that crop up in conversation.

Stories like the youth from the street who took a front-end loader on a joyride and was chased by police for 90-minutes

He allegedly caused thousands of dollars of damage, including in Jollie St, before armed police shot a tear gas canister through the cab window to stop him.

Or that of Tamatea Lorenzo Briggs , who allegedly stole a car and robbed the Woolston Super Liquor with two co-offenders, aged 15 and 16. Several bottles of alcohol were smashed over the store worker's head in the alleged incident.

Jollie St was never this bad, residents say, until people displaced from the quakes moved into their street three years ago.

"My anxiety is up here, I'm stressed ... I've had a gutsful, it's the intimidation, things getting stolen, I woke up the Sunday before to the armed offenders on my fence fully armed," a resident said.

The woman closed the curtains, fearful of retribution if anyone discovered she was speaking out.

She has lived in the house for 10 years but has asked HNZ to move.

Her wishes were supported by a doctor's letter: "[She] feels intimidated and harassed by her neighbour at [address withheld] and this is directly affecting her health. Her anxiety is getting worse and she feels unsafe in her home."

Nearby, a mother who would only go by the name Tina, stands outside an unkempt state house with friend Jackie Galvin and her 2-year-old son.

Galvin used to live in Jollie St, but the crime and disorder became too much.

"You don't want to sit here and try to raise your children amongst this, it's not good, straight up. You live down here for a week and you wouldn't even last a week. You leave your bike out and it's gone, even a kid's bike, it's gone, and even their shoes," Galvin said.

Stuff met with a group of residents who form the core of a new neighbourhood support group in Jollie St.

They count six houses as the main cause of trouble. They blame bad parenting and poor HNZ tenancy selection.

Some members own their own homes, take pride in their property and love their neighbours. They worry bad residents will drag down the re-sale value of their homes.

"I'm 12 minutes to work, I'm five minutes to the beach, why do I need to move due to these people who they [HNZ] have brought into the street?" a homeowner asked.

Walton Briggs is worried about what the future holds for his 17-year-old son, Tamatea, who has relatives in Black Power.

Standing at the front gate of his red brick, graffitied state house, Walton Briggs blamed Linwood's problems on youth having nothing to do.

He is waiting on paperwork to visit his son, who is in prison on remand.

"He's a bloody good-hearted soul, he just does some stupid bloody things," he said.

"As he's gotten older, we've got no control, I mean what are you going to do, you're not allowed to bash them anymore. I think as some of these police officers say, sometimes these kids need a good boot up the bloody arse, but if you do that, you end up in court for doing it.

"I am worried about his future, but I can't do anything about it, it's up to him now, he's got to either pull his tit in or handle the jandal.

"Some of these arseholes need to look in their own backyards before they start talking about other people, I mean there are a lot of these kids around here that are in jail."

Several agencies, including police, Housing New Zealand and Child Youth and Family have worked together to deal with Jollie St's troubles.

The neighbourhood support group and police believe it is time to stop the street's snowballing problems.

"These kids have got no parental control. You just know with the teenagers we are dealing with now, we will finally get them off to big boys' jail and then we will be dealing with their younger brothers and sisters," a neighbourhood support member said.

Sergeant Todd Webley has had huge success in reducing crime in Phillipstown during the past three years with his neighbourhood policing team. It is a blueprint they are beginning to apply to Jollie St and the surrounding neighbourhood.

"Rather than go in there and flood an area with cops, we will be doing a bit of that, but we are also doing the long term initiatives, getting the community to a level where it's sustainable and looks after itself."

Webley said the problems in Jollie St centred around disengaged youth who were either truant from school and courses, jobless or did not receive a benefit.

They have been known to raise money through crime and window washing at traffic lights, and brought their mates into the street where they caused trouble. Many parents lacked control over the teens because they were intimidated by them.

Otherwise well-behaved teenagers joined the group for fear of being targeted.

Webley said police would start by establishing a neighbourhood support panel and try to break down inter-generational distrust in police in some households.

"A staff member and I went to deal with a burglary, caught the offender, who was a 15-year-old boy from Jollie St, and he was still holding his window washing brush," Webley said.

"The conversation went along the lines of: 'Go to school?' 'No.' 'What course are you doing?' 'I don't do any courses.' 'Employed?' 'No.' 'What's your income?' 'No.' He was one I started jacking up to get into a trade ... we started that process but he didn't engage. That's something we need to keep working on. We need to get them engaged in something – and something meaningful."

JOLLIE ST - BY THE NUMBERS

* 74 homes in Jollie St.

* 50 dog-related council complaints for barking dogs, welfare, wandering dogs, dog attack on domestic animal and registration matters.

* 12 excessive noise complaints to council for music and stereo noise. One complaint the noise was deemed excessive and a noise direction was served.

* 5 complaints to Housing New Zealand in three months for harassment and threats.

* 6 houses blamed by residents for trouble on the street.

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