This is the compelling story of how ordinary Australians come together to save a small historic town with the wonderful name of Trundle. The town is dying, its falling population threatening its existence. Abandoned farmhouses are part of the landscape, schools are struggling and younger locals flee to Sydney, six hours away.
The town is refusing to go down without a fight and some of its citizens hear of something called the Rent a Farmhouse scheme, which has successfully encouraged families with appropriate skills to move to disintegrating rural towns.
The Trundle Tree Change Committee is formed with the aim of renting out some of the area's derelict farmhouses for $1 a week. The body is soon inundated with over 400 applications.
The story was made into an ABC television documentary which went to air last Tuesday night. It showed five families moving into their new $1-a-week homes. All very touching and cute but I was absolutely gobsmacked when one new tenant, an Eqyptian, had barely set foot into his new house and already loudly complained that the house had no swimming-pool!!!
A house with swimming-pool for $1 a week in rent? Why not also your very own helipad, Mustafa?
