Aussies HORRIFIED As Iconic Cloudstreet House Bulldozed And Replaced With Four Shitbox Duplexes

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

Will you look at us, in a duplex! Where Cloudstreet once stood in West Leederville, there are now four narrow homes behind matching garage doors. Two at the front, two at the back. A place that once held a dozen families now holds four mortgages and a handful of privacy hedges.

Of those four households, only two really tell the story. The Lambs, who worked for years to get a foothold. And the Pickles, who bought in to build a portfolio.

It’s a familiar parable of the modern Australian city. One family trying to live in the market, the other trying to live off it. The difference between shelter and strategy is now about six metres of plasterboard and a shared driveway.

For nearly a hundred years, the old Cloudstreet house sat crooked on its block, its verandah sagging like a politician's throat. It was built just after the war, or maybe before it, when Australia was trying to house a nation and people were glad of anything that kept the rain off. For decades it was a boarding house, full of men from the railways, nurses from the hospital, families between rentals and people who just needed a roof.