“Some lowlife took our home”: Retirees wake to devastating theft
Retirees Sue and Tony Hill have been living out of a campervan and driving it on the Big Lap around Australia. They returned home to North Adelaide recently to stop in and visit family when disaster struck.
Their home was stolen right from under their noses.
"I came out Monday morning around 7.30 ish and it was gone,” Sue Hill told NineNews. "Some lowlife took our home ... Our life has just been ripped out from under us.”
The grey nomad couple, who had spent their retirement savings to buy the camper trailer for their Big Lap around the country, were absolutely distraught – but now an incredible act of charity has given them new hope, and a brand new trailer to call home.
"We'd given up hope that we'd ever get back on the road again, which is what we love doing. We'd given up hope that we'd ever get our camper trailer back," Mrs Hill said.
But then the owner of local business Eagle Camper Trailers – Brent – heard about the plight of the Hills and just had to act.
"I heard it, I watched it and I thought 'I can't believe this'," Brent told NineNews.
"The fact that someone had taken their home, I needed to try and do something to sort it out."
The Hills also turned to social media to try and track down the stolen trailer or the thieves, with no luck.
"I've been on the truckie pages trying to get the truckies of Australia to help," Sue and Tony's daughter Janene Harper said.
"Through COVID and the rental crisis, they lived homeless for more than 12 months," she said, on the family’s Facebook fundraiser page.
"They decided to invest every last dollar they had to purchase a portable home, something they could call home. They were required to sell most of their belongings to be able to move in."
The Hills are now incredibly thankful to Brent at Eagle Camper Trailers for his generosity, and for helping to put them back on their feet and into a new home.
Images: NineNews