A double garage in Tarneit's Newhaven estate has, in the two years since the house was built, been used to store a treadmill, four flat-pack boxes yet to be assembled, an inflatable kayak used once, several generations of the kids' outgrown bikes, and a fridge purchased "for the garage" that has never been plugged in. It has not, at any point, been used to store a car.
The car, a mid-size SUV bought around the same time as the house, has instead lived on the driveway since settlement, weathering full exposure to sun, rain, and the occasional hailstorm the family insists "wasn't that bad, in the end."
"We always said we'd sort the garage out eventually," the homeowner said, surveying the space from the doorway. "Then the treadmill went in, and once the treadmill's in, everything else just sort of follows."
A rough inventory of the garage, conducted for the purposes of this article, revealed: a workbench with no visible surface remaining, three boxes labelled "misc," a golf bag belonging to someone who no longer lives in the house, and a single rollerblade.
"I know where the other rollerblade is, theoretically," the homeowner added, unprompted.
Attempts to reclaim the space have been made twice, both times stalling at the treadmill, which is, by the household's own admission, "too big to move without a proper plan" and "not really used enough to justify keeping, but also not not used enough to throw out."
The car, for its part, has developed a faint permanent layer of dust and one long-term bird-related stain the family has "made peace with." Asked whether the car would ever move back into the garage, the homeowner paused.
"Realistically? No," she said. "I think we're a driveway family now."