Camper caught with pants down
He filmed a camper defecating on the side of the road late at night. But less than 36 hours later, the tourist was back to his bad toilet ways, writes Skara Bohny.
Coming home from a night visiting friends, Pacey Grooby never expected to catch a public pooper with his pants down.
That’s exactly what he came across, though – an overseas camper going to the toilet on the side of the road near his home in Motueka.
‘‘It was about 9.40pm on Friday night . . . I saw this man bent over on the side of the road about a house or two away from mine, and I thought this is a bit weird. So I turned around and went over towards him and put my lights on him and there he was with his pants completely off taking a dump.’’
Grooby took out his phone and started recording, and asked the man what he was doing.
‘‘He said ‘I’m just s***ing’. I said ‘that’s disgusting’, and he said ‘yeah’ and that was it.’’
But the saga was far from over. Grooby left but after processing what he had witnessed, he decided he needed to do something about it, and returned to the scene.
‘‘He had disappeared, and a tourist van just absolutely shot through the intersection. So I chased him through town.’’
Eventually, the van pulled into a driveway but Grooby said he knew the owner of the property and they didn’t know the vehicle’s owners. However, he gave up the chase for the evening.
He kept an eye out on Saturday for the offending van and posted the video of the encounter on the Motueka Buy, Sell and Community page on Facebook.
But incredibly the tourist returned to Grooby’s street on Saturday night, this time right outside his house, which was an unwelcome surprise on Sunday morning.
‘‘Sure enough, him and his van was outside, he was freedom camping right outside my house . . . out of anywhere in Mot, he was right there.’’
Not only was he camping there but Grooby saw him urinating on the footpath. ‘‘I just thought, ‘nah, I’m not having that’.’’
Grooby called in Motueka Community Board chairman Brent Maru, who appeared in short order with a Tasman District Council enforcement officer to issue a $400 fine.
Grooby said he spoke to the tourist and found out he was from Germany.
Maru said New Zealand’s reputation as a place where people could stay without paying was ‘‘just a crazy message’’.
‘‘We’ve now got vehicles that aren’t self-contained, in streets sleeping, because that’s the message we’re sending internationally . . . it’s beyond fathoming,’’ he said.
‘‘We don’t see there’s a place for freedom camping in non-selfcontained vehicles in Motueka.’’
Maru said the tourist vehicle was not self-contained, it was just an ordinary van. The two tourists sleeping in it had ‘‘no plans’’ for when they needed to use facilities.
‘‘I suggested strongly that he go back down the street and pick up what he’d left on Friday, which he did.
‘‘The behaviour of that person, that I’ve seen is a minority; but the message we’re sending is that if you come to this beautiful part of the country, there has to be an expectation that you’re willing to pay something, and there are cheap options in camping grounds where there are toilets.’’
Maru said he was glad that Grooby took action.
‘‘Whether social media is the right or the wrong way, he did something about it. He then got in contact with the system, so when he phoned this morning we had control services there.
‘‘If people stand up, and ring and complain, then council can enforce. Too often, we get to the stage where people just complain and don’t take action, and Pacey took action, which was awesome.
‘‘Certainly, I’d encourage that for others: if you see something
. . . pick up the phone, call someone, and report it. Then something will get done about it.’’