What are the important issues both good and bad in Kilburn area?

Lived in the area for 5 years and have sold it and moved on. Great for public transport and its close proximity to Adelaide CBD. The chemist warehouse and local asian grocery store is also handy to have nearby too.Apart from that, theres nothing much going on for it. The community is disgusting. Littering is a huge issue in the suburb. Id find a new surprise left on my front lawn every day and sometimes on my front door. Worse thing Ive had is a used sanitary pad thrown over the driveway gates. My neighbours are intrusive. They love trying to look into our house. Ive built a fence 2ms high to stop that. But now they love trying to put dents into the new fence. Theres always some sort of domestic happening around the place and they always manage to drag everyone around them to be involved. Lots of drug users and also drug houses around to fund the addiction too. Ive been followed on the streets in broad daylight on my way to get groceries and also walking my dogs and also almost dragged into a car full of men. I stayed for 5 years to make back the money i spent on the house but also to give it a go and see an improvement. It seems to get progressively worse as the years go on. Ive grown up in Mansfield Park where there was a high rate of crime and heroin addiction but I felt much safer there than at Kilburn. Definitely had to move on, I want my children to grow up and walk safely home from school. I dont want my kids growing up in such an aggressive rough area.

Lived here for 3 years. Never had an issue. No vandalism. Safe at night (never had a problem). Live just off of Northcote. It's been ear marked as an upcoming area and lots of new builds are going in as SA Housing sell off their old properties. Good public transport. Great playgrounds and the Kilburn Community Centre has a Kindergym! Blair Atho North B-7 School is excellent. Costco, Coles, Kmart, Bunnings and an Aldi coming soon. More young families are movinf into Kilbrun and Kilburn North is slowly improving also.

Hi Cheryl I'm female. The medical waste incinerator does have good air filters but I'm sure the places next door to it would cop more ash than they would like. Nothing happened to me in Kilburn, but I went there a lot when house hunting and saw a lot of cars with smashed windows, a few cars that had been set fire to, heard lots of loud domestic arguments and saw lots of old tvs dumped in the streets. We lived right next to Kilburn at the northern end of Prospect. Our fence got graffitied 3 times and all our neighbours got broken into in the first 6 months we were renting there. There also seemed to be a lot of drive by shootings. It was very noisy from living near Regency and Main North Roads and people doing burn outs nearby one or two nights a week. We bought our first house in Modbury North last year. It is a lot further out from the city but it is much safer than Prospect, greener and close to the hills. It just takes us longer to visit people. House prices are still manageable here, overall.

Hi pmax. I am really thankful you replied to my comments, especially considering it was over two years ago that you had written your comment. I suppose you are still interested in what people think about Kilburn as you use to live here. I just stumbled across this site when I got distracted on the internet, but I am glad I did.
It is interesting what you said about the medical waste incinerator as I had no idea what it was. Just after I paid a deposit on my place there were a couple of houses for sale in Garland Avenue so I had a look on the outside. One of them was quite close to the factory. I didn't like the idea of being so close to the factory, mainly because I didn't know what it was and it wasn't very attractive to look at. My boyfriend had preferred I had bought that rather than the one I did as the back of the Garland Avenue property had a big high wire fence there, so he thought the security would be better. So you assume there would be toxins in the air from the burning of the waste? I don't know about that. It may be filtered. It should be anyway. I get a lot of dust coming from the trains near me, so that wouldn't be healthy either. I am curious as to what job you had when you toured the medical waste incinerator.
When I was looking at the house near the incinerator there was a large empty block of land across the road. I had wondered what that was going to be used for. Since that time a building has been erected on it with big security fences and security cameras that follow you around. Last year I stood on the footpath looking at it then a security man came over to me and asked if he could help me. I asked him what the building was for. He told me he couldn't tell me then walked away. I didn't like the secrecy. Later on a neighbour who lives near there told me that place is a detention centre! So that's why it was so high security! I had a feeling it might be as I had read in the paper that there was going to be a detention centre facility at Kilburn.
So you just didn't feel safe because of the look of the area, not because anything bad had happened to you pmax? I had walked home from the northern end of Tobruk Avenue after visiting a friend there and stopped to look at a barking dog on the corner. A man in a four wheel drive just arrived in the driveway and he said quite rudely to me "are you right?". I said yes then kept walking. I met him a few weeks later at my neighbour's place up the road from me went I went there for a barbecue she invited me to. Lol. I told him about what he had said to me earlier. He said he was concerned as someone had tried to bait his dog previously, so that was understandable. I don't hear any big, barking dogs from my place luckily.
pmax are you are male or female, if you don't mind?

I started buying an ex housing trust maisonette about four years ago, because it was the cheapest housing available that wasn't too far from the city. I am near the railway line and the blocks are smaller here, being less than 400 square metres. I don't like that much but it was all that was available at the time I was looking.
I don't have a reason to say Kilburn isn't safe at night as I haven't experienced anything bad here at night. I have walked at night by myself and with a friend and had no trouble. My female neighbour up the road from me often walks her little dog at night alone and she isn't scared.
I did experience vandalism here before I moved here and for maybe six months afterwards. I thought it was because my place had been vacant for about 18 months before I moved here. A window in my driveway had been broken the first day I moved here. Before that the copper piping for the hot water system and back tap had been stolen. Later on holes had been kicked in my back wall. I think it is made of plasterboard or something like that. Then I had raw eggs and dirt thrown at my house. I found out later this was caused by my neighbour's delinquent teenage son. Thankfully he eventually stopped.
I wouldn't go so far to say Kilburn is very safe that we don't need fencing, but I don't think that about any area.
There was a severed sheep dumped on the verge near the railway line near my place last year in September. That disturbed me for two reasons due to the welfare of the sheep before it was killed and hygiene reasons. I am just assuming the sheep may have been killed by a Muslim in their backyard then they dumped it as they were too lazy to dispose of it properly. I say this as there are foreigners from Middle Eastern countries living near here as there are Afghan supermarkets and Halal butchers. Back in the country they came from it would have been common for people to kill their own sheep.
I don't think the people here are very friendly to each other. I was friendly with the mother of the boy who vandalised my place but we are not friends any more due to a petty reason. I had been to her place for a barbecue and met other neighbours and went to another one nearby who were friends with her. I am not friendly with my immediate neighbours due to an argument with one of them about his garden, and the one on the other side were inconsiderate with their noise from domestics. Thankfully that noise has reduced but I get the odd disturbance after midnight due to his inconsideration to be quieter with general noise and visitors with their voices and cars.
There are a lot of people on welfare (mostly for mental health reasons) renting cheap government housing. I know many are drug addicts (legal and illegal) but they mostly don't bother me, thankfully.
There were aboriginals living in government housing not far from me and their yard was very untidy and I would often see them outside. One time I walked past them with my friend on the way to the train station, when my friend fell down on the ground. To my surprise, the aboriginal man who had been watching us walk past rushed to my friend's aid and helped him walk to the station. That was very kind of him, and especially nice considering that he had admitted he was an alcoholic.
Apart from not liking the train noise (I can't hear the tv or someone's voice when I am on the phone when a train goes past when I am in the lounge room), I like the convenience of knowing the train station is a short walk up the road and there is a bus stop not too far away on Churchill Road. My mother lives in a nicer area at Lower Mitcham, but she has a long walk up a hill to the train station and even further to the bus. That's obviously not good when you are an old woman and you do not drive a car. She actually would be more suited to where I live as a community bus will take you to the North Park shops from the corner of Hawkesbury Avenue and Churchill Road and a further walk up the road a bus will take you to the Arndale Shopping Centre. There was a Post Office on Churchill Road which was an easy walk for me but now it has moved to the Churchill Centre, unfortunately, as I won't be walking there.
It is good we have Bunnings on the corner of Churchill Road and Regency Road and the new Churchill Centre is opening with many shops. I didn't like seeing another McDonald's and KFC though as fast food like that is linked to obesity and bad health. It is also bad for animal welfare as they don't use animal products from a free range source. I was excited that a Coles Express was opening there also, but shocked to find there is no LPG! As I have a vehicle on LPG I am disgusted at that and don't understand Coles Express reasoning for selling no LPG. I know other people whose vehicles run on LPG also. As I have been unemployed for a long time now due to a redundancy I was hoping to get a job at the Churchill Centre but have had no luck, as all the jobs require experience and there is so much competition for every job. It's a shame as it would have been very convenient for me.
I don't have big barking dogs near me , luckily. Three of my neighbours on one side have little dogs but they are not noisy and there are no dogs on the other side. I had more of a problem with stray cats, especially when they were killing tame doves that use to visit me. I don't see these lovely birds anymore so it must be because of the cats. Shame!
There is a good park up the road which had been rehabilitated from asbestos from the former rail yards. There are two free barbecues with a shelter and gym equipment and toilets nearby. There is even two well fenced enclosures for dogs to play in with a plastic bag dispenser and water trough. One of the enclosures has obstacles for the dog. If I had a dog I would love to use that.
Kilburn isn't a pretty area but it could be much worse.

I dont feel safe walking around Kilburn during the day or night !!

Kilburn is on excellent public transport routes down Churchill and Prospect Roads. Other services are not good there. Vandalism does occur, but some areas of Kilburn are worse than others. The northern end of Kilburn has a lot of housing trust houses, and the western end (West of Churchill Road) is very industrial with a medical waste incinerator and other factories. There are problems with noisy neighbours as Kilburn has a lot of semi-detached houses and blocks of flats so there is less privacy than living in a detached house. A lot of residents have big, barking dogs. The south-eastern end of Kilburn (on or near Prospect Road) is quieter and safer than the northern and western ends. If you are looking for a cheap rental close to the city, it could be a good place to start out. Having said that, I do not feel safe walking around Kilburn at night.