It started with an evicted housemate in Clyde North hurling eggs at a garage door, but ended with fire being set to a home with two children and a grandmother inside.
The woman dubbed “the housemate from hell” by her victims has faced court where footage of her three-month long tirade was aired.
Tsai-Wei Hung, 33, on Monday pleaded guilty at Melbourne’s County Court to more than a dozen charges including extortion, four counts of arson and two of conduct endangering persons.
She yelled “go to hell” as she set fire to her landlord’s front door in June 2024 while 11 people including young children and a grandmother were sleeping inside, the court was told.
Landlord Lin Zhang had asked friends to come over for protection that night, along with his tenants, as Hung had been targeting them since she was evicted months earlier.
Police had to be called when Hung was evicted from Mr Zhang’s Clyde North property on March 10.
However, less than two hours later Hung returned to retrieve more belongings and police were called a second time, which caused her to become “angry and aggressive”, prosecutor David Gray said.
She got into her car and drove to the back garage, where she threw eggs at the roller door.
Hung then accelerated towards her former housemate Chung-Ting Tuan and Mr Zhang “at fast speed”, stopping sharply about one metre away from them, Mr Gray said.
She drove into the garage roller door, damaging it and three vehicles parked inside, fleeing before police arrived.
Hung returned the next day to further damage the vehicles inside the garage and went to Pakenham Police Station that afternoon where she claimed “she just wanted to scare them”.
On June 10 Hung returned to the Clyde North rental and set the front door on fire and then set two cars alight.
A former housemate who claimed to have had a friendly relationship with Hung, sent her a message the next day as she “felt there needed to be better communication about what Hung wanted”, Mr Gray said.
Hung responded by demanding $30,000 from Mr Zhang by that evening and if she did not receive the money she said “I cannot ensure I wouldn’t do something again”.
“Please tell him that he and his family have to be careful or they will have the same experience as me, or even lose more than that,” Hung said in the text.
Mr Zhang arranged for his tenants to stay with him in Berwick that evening and invited friends over for an added level of protection, as his children and their grandmother were sleeping inside.
About 4.45am Hung poured accelerant outside the front entrance of his home and used matches to set it alight, with Mr Zhang hearing her say “go to hell” before starting the fire.
The fire was put out easily, but Hung’s victims told the court on Monday how they continue to live with trauma from her offending.
“I was absolutely terrified,” a child said, in a statement read by Mr Gray.
“Ever since Hung came into our lives everything has become really intense. I keep worrying that I’ll be burnt to death.”
Mr Zhang said he lived in “constant fear” between March and June of 2024.
“This experience has permanently damaged my sense of safety,” he said, in a statement read to court.
“Even in my own home I don’t feel safe.”
Defence lawyer Courtney Hart said Hung was assaulted on March 10 by other tenants and had “allowed it to fester in her mind” leading her to commit the offences.
Hung, who remains in custody, will return to the court in January
Outside court, Mr Zhang said Hung was “the housemate from hell” but her behaviour was even worse than that.
“It’s been a disaster and a nightmare for us,” he said.
