Nathan Stafford stands on the path outside a townhouse in Constitution Hill, just kilometres from Parramatta’s CBD. The grass is knee-high, the bins are full and flies abound. The front door is covered in mould, the window has no curtains.
He knocks – and discovers the worst state of public housing he has seen: a man with mental health issues is living amid stacked rubbish, apparently unaided by social workers.
Over the following 72 hours, Stafford’s videos of him cleaning the property for free garner millions of views, he issues direct pleas for help to NSW Housing Minister Rose Jackson and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and, after several failed attempts, he gets social workers to take the man into crisis accommodation.
Depending on who you ask – the average Sydneysider, or a beleaguered bureaucrat – Stafford is the city’s most popular or most irritating gardener. The 46-year-old behind Nathan’s Lawns and Gardens has 12 million followers on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok and is known for cleaning gardens and streets for no charge.
Last month, Stafford changed tune. He got angry, calling out councils, government agencies and individual politicians for failing to act and, resonating with millions more, asked: when things are bad, do our governments care enough to help?
He was first prompted to ask when he posted a video revealing the apparent lack of street maintenance in Bidwill in the city’s north-west, home to 4000 people. Two-thirds of its residents do not work, and the majority of homes are public housing.
Stafford spent hours there mowing public verges, cleaning drains and pruning trees that blocked footpaths. “This place needs a lot of help,” he said.
“Council, what are you doing?” he asked Blacktown City Council in the video, viewed more than a million times on Instagram alone. “Who is the person in charge of this council out in Bidwill in Sydney? Who is it? Who’s in charge of the parks, gardens, roads, whatnot out there? Who is it? I’d love to have a chat with them.”
Labor mayor Brad Bunting, whose ward covers the suburb, didn’t get in touch. Bunting didn’t respond to the Herald’s request for comment, but made reference to the videos in a council meeting last week, when a Liberal councillor from another ward said people in Bidwill “want the grass cut”. Bunting replied: “No, not the people in Bidwill … It was Bidwill, but the person [who made the video] doesn’t come from Bidwill,” he said. “I’m happy for him to take some of the [ward’s] load.”
A spokesperson said the council had been facing “maintenance challenges” as its population surged to 450,000 people, but it had won the public vote for its responsiveness to the Snap Send Solve app. “In the past three months alone, council crews have collected more than 14 tonnes of illegally dumped rubbish from parks and reserves in Bidwill and surrounding suburbs, in addition to regular mowing and maintenance at 38 public sites.”
The fight for Bidwill is a task Stafford takes personally, having spent years living on the streets in his late teens and early 20s. The Salvation Army found him. “They changed my life,” he said. “It took a bit, but we got there in the end. And my life’s been a lot better since.
“That’s why I do what I do, to try to make up for the wrongs that I’ve done. If there is a big man upstairs and the gates are up there, I hope I’m let in now, and my wrongs have been written right.”
He recalled his own situation as he stood in front of the Constitution Hill home last week. “I was like, ‘No, I’m not walking away today.’”
Stafford posted videos of the townhouse interior, as well as blurred footage of the resident, for which the gardener said he was given permission. Stafford cleaned up the home and urged followers to tag and call Albanese and Jackson.
It worked: the man was taken into crisis accommodation. But hoarding is a difficult mental health problem to address. Community housing providers cite cases of distressed tenants taking their own life after cleaners removed their rubbish.
Jackson said: “People in social housing deserve to be treated with dignity – especially when they are experiencing vulnerability or complex personal challenges. These are difficult situations. I do want to thank Nathan for his care for positive outcomes and dignity for our tenants – it’s a passion I share.”
Anthony Segaert is the Parramatta bureau chief at The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously an urban affairs reporter.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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