My neighbours threatened to KILL me if I painted my home rainbow colours – so I used my fence to get petty revenge

NEIGHBOURS from hell threatened to kill a hairdresser if he painted his house rainbow colours, but he hasn't let that stop him from trying to inject a bit of colour into his life.

Mykey O'Halloran had finally saved up enough to buy his dream beachside home, but that was when some people in his community started to make his life a living misery.



The proudly gay hairstylist from Melbourne, Australia bought the house on Phillip Island, just under 50 miles southeast of the city, in February last year.

His most requested hairstyle is rainbow colours to match his own technicolour 'do – so when he bought the beige house on Phillip Island, he thought rainbow paintwork would be the perfect decoration.

However, this was when the trouble started.

Mykey told The Sun Online: "About a month after I moved in, five men turned up in my back garden at around 10 o'clock at night.

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"They had heard that I was going to paint my house in rainbow colours and they didn't like it. They threatened to kill me and tried to beat me up."

Mykey had never met any of the men before and was stunned by the outburst.

He said one of the men, who he found out was his neighbour, was being held back from attacking him by the others.

"They got really aggressive and violent and homophobic," he went on. "They called me a 'gay c***' and said 'if you paint that house, see what happens because next time it won't be so nice'."

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His neighbour told him: "If you f***ing paint that house rainbow I will come back and kill you."

Following the sickening homophobic assault, Mykey said he went into a "full shock trauma response," breaking down crying and locking himself in the house before ringing the police.

Officers arrived around five minutes later and went to interview the neighbour.

Two days later, he was charged with unlawful assault and threats to kill.

In July 2021, he pled guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful assault and was convicted.

Mykey slammed the decision to hand his neighbour a fine of just $2,500 Australian (£1,418) as "just a slap on the wrist".

They threatened to kill me and tried to beat me up

However, thankfully, the community came together following the row in the best possible way.

"I wrote about the attack on social media a day after it happened and it went viral," he said.

"People saw what happened and they wanted to help me paint my house.

"A paint company reached out and donated 40 litres of paint to help me paint it rainbow.

"Around 100 people came to help me paint my house and we had a barbecue. A group of tradesmen volunteered a whole day of work to help."

The inside of his house is similarly decorated, with colour rainbow colours in the kitchen and bathroom walls and cupboards.

Mykey said he was proud that the community "took a stand against bullying and homophobia. It was good to have a positive come out of a really s*** situation as well".

However, his troubles with his neighbours were far from over.

"The neighbours on one side of my house at the time said they 'didn't want to live next door to a circus,' so I left one side of my house white for them out of respect," Mykey said.



Following the paint job, the neighbours put up a 'for sale' sign outside their house, claiming they were being forced out.

But two days later, they took the sign down, Mykey added.

"After I painted my house they stopped talking to me and have been really rude to me," he said. "It's been a year and I've been a little scared to paint the other side, and I just thought, why am I respecting these people when they don't respect me?

"Plus my house looked unfinished. So I got up on the ladder and painted the fence that I put in to block them out and I painted that rainbow as well and then painted the last wall of my house.

"It was on the one-year anniversary of the incident. It was quite sentimental to me."

Since painting the fence and the final wall of his house, Mykey says his neighbours haven't given him any trouble.

Although Mykey's house is the most colourful house in his neighbourhood, it is far from the only one to have any colour on it.

"There is a blue house on my street, and a teal and purple house around the corner," he said. "Another house has a bit of red on it."

And with regards to his snotty neighbours, he says: "It's not like I live in a private estate with rules. It's a beach town on an island, you would expect that houses would be a bit beach-shacky and coloured."

He added that he had checked with his local council, and they said that his rainbow paintwork was fine.

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"People drive by my house all the time and take photos and it makes people happy," he said. "I don't mind if they do that, it's good if it can spread joy and people want to come and see a happy place.

"Kids love it as well, and it just adds a bit of colour to the neighbourhood."

He has found fame through his amazingly inventive hairstyle designs, crafting emojis, food and even Christmas trees on people's heads.

Mykey frequently shares videos of his hairstyles with his 600k TikTok followers and 153k Instagram followers.

He works for hair colour company Manic Panic and is travelling to the US this week after being commissioned to colour wigs at Ru Paul's Drag Convention.

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