Chorister at Holy Name Parish in Carlisle and St Mary’s Cathedral, Stacee Parkinson, 27, was thrown into the spotlight of the secular press after an alleged drug lab exploded in her next door neighbour’s unit on 20 March. Days after the event, Stacee opened up in an exclusive interview to The Record’s Bridget Spinks to tell her side of the story.
STACEE Parkinson was singing for the 5pm Sunday Mass at St Mary’s Cathedral – unaware of the fuss happening at home – when police allege a drug lab exploded in the Homeswest unit next door to hers in Carlisle.
Her first thought was to find out if her own unit was ok when she found four missed calls and an SMS on her phone after Mass.
Her brother took her home that night to investigate for herself.
The unit next door was “blackened,” she said, “the roof, the walls, absolutely everything is black”.
But her own unit, which had been blessed as soon as she moved in four years ago, was unscathed.
Over the last three and a half years, Stacee, who suffers from mild cerebral palsy and blindness in her left eye, has complained on at least 20 occasions to the Department of Housing about the tenant next door.
“I just got told they were investigating it … They couldn’t tell me what was going on but they were investigating it, which I found quite hard to believe at the time,” she said.
Her complaints seemed to fall on deaf ears as the weeks turned into months. After three years with the same tenant still living next door, Stacee was losing sleep.
“I didn’t go ahead and contact Department of Housing in the first three to six months; I let him off the hook to give him a chance,” she said.
But when the loud music – “everything from really hard, heavy metal to the boom boom bassy stuff” – kept her awake and started to become a regular occurrence, she decided to take action. It was “absolutely pulsating” through her adjoining wall, she said.
There were times, Stacee said, when he would “be good and turn it down” and times when he would just turn it back up again.
“But it’s not only him, it’s his associates as well. And his associates would actually be physically abusive and would abuse me for coming over and asking them.”
The weekend of the explosion, Stacee was about to start a campaign to have the tenant evicted.
She had gathered four signatures from surrounding neighbours for a petition to have the tenant evicted.
She was planning on getting more signatures from relatives and friends to support her before the incident occurred.
“’You might not have to work, but I do,’” she said. Stacee said she suspected something was going to happen because on the Monday before the blast, they had an “all night bender”. But on the day of the incident, Stacee was out and there were no signs of imminent danger.
“I couldn’t actually smell anything before it went up. I suspected, but I couldn’t smell anything,” she said.
Five people were injured in the incident including the son of WA Police Commissioner, Karl O’Callaghan.
Stacee, the daughter of a retired police superintendent, came home that night and fell headlong into a media frenzy. The next day, she was answering questions from journalists in front of clicking cameras and hardly had any time to think.
Stacee said she is overwhelmed by the support that she has received since the incident threw her into the spotlight.
She was given a hairdresser voucher for a trim and blow dry, juices, been shouted lunch and even given concert tickets at St Mary’s Cathedral from friends and neighbours.
“Everyone’s just been so loving and supportive; it’s been overwhelming,” she said.
Frustration, anger, sadness, some happiness, stress and forgetfulness are all emotions that Stacee has experienced since the blast.
She’s been doing a lot of thinking too. Her faith in God is even stronger now and growing every day.
“I live for God; I work for God. As soon as I set foot into that Cathedral, I’m working for God,” she said, referring to singing in the Cathedral choir.
But it doesn’t stop there; Stacee said she lives for God all through the week too. “I see people on the street reaching out, asking. I notice I’m trying to help people a lot more, just reaching out. That’s what I’m for. I try and put others before myself. We can all be selfish but I’m trying my best to put others before myself,” she said.
For the last few years, Stacee said she would often stay out of the house to avoid the situation and lost motivation to keep the place clean.
“I feel that I can’t have visitors because of the stuff going on,” she said.
To cope, she put her faith in God and soldiered on.“I turned to my Church friends; I turned to all the good I can do for everyone; I have a very supportive family and of course I turned to God,” she said.
Stacee works three days a week for LandCorp as an administration assistant and fills in the rest of her time volunteering. She sings at two parishes and at Catholic Youth Ministry’s Wednesday night holy hour when she can. She also volunteers with other Christian groups. Her singing, she said, keeps her going. “I believe that what God takes away, he gives back tenfold. He gave back a heart for God, a heart for others and a musical ability. That’s what He gave back to me.
“He can take away sight in my left eye, He can take away my coordination but He gives back tenfold.”
Stacee said she can now go home without fear. She doesn’t have to sleep with the fan on any more to block out the noise.
She has also entered herself into the Carousel Face of Fashion competition being run through Westfield shopping centre. She said she’s “finally out there”.
“Nothing stops me, not even a little bump in the road like this. I try my best. I like to encourage others with disabilities to not just sit there, because if I can do it, they can do it,” Stacee said.
“My words to everyone else are ‘I’ve got my life back now’.”