There’s a street in Melbourne’s outer south-eastern suburbs where weapons have become a way of life.

“Residents ‘round here are arming up,” one local, identified only as ‘Joe’, told A Current Affair .

“Baseball bats, nail guns, compressed air homemade machine guns that shoot paintball pallets. On this stretch of road, people are petrified.”

Joe says crime is out of control in his neighbourhood and residents have to protect each other.

Joe and his neighbours patrol the streets at night, on the look out for burglars and suspicious activity.

They call themselves the “No Fear” gang.

“Yeah, I patrol with my bow and arrows. I’ve got a 70 pound compound bow with more than a dozen arrows with various types of tips, and blades that pop out of them to make as much damage and fatal wounding as they can.” Joe said.

He’s been stockpiling weapons in recent months and is proud of his terrifying arsenal.

Joe patrols his local area with his compound bow and arrows.

“I got my knuckle dusters, various steel pipes. I’ve got a pen gun, hollow tip bullets that have been hollowed out a little bit with mercury in them. That way if you only nick your target, you know they’re going to die five days later in an excruciating death.”

As little as five years ago, the area was considered rural, but now, its been swallowed up by suburbia. A slow but steady tsunami of urban sprawl is wiping out the hobby farms and paddocks, and replacing them with housing developments, traffic lights, a shopping centre, and a McDonald’s.

With the population explosion has come the crime, and for the first time, locals who’ve lived here their whole lives are dealing with home invasions and theft.

The alleged upswing in crime followed creeping urban development in the once-rural area.

There’s only one street in this suburb where the road is mostly still dirt, and that’s where we find a kind-of motley militia, disturbingly comfortable with taking the law into their own hands, even if it means putting innocent lives at risk.

James lives a few doors down from Joe. He recently had a puppy stolen from his property. He’s since armed himself with a pick-axe, and nunchucks.

“I’m not necessarily going to kill them (if they break in)” he told ACA, “I will break their legs or something. I guarantee it.”

He remembers, fondly, when the area was rural.

James's nunchuck skills are a warning to any nearby criminal.

“This was a country-type property. It was a dream come true. Unfortunately, nightmares come true too.”

Sean and his wife Maddie certainly aren’t patrolling the streets at night with Joe an d James, but they do have a weapon in every room.

“Knives, crossbows, armoury, baseball bats” Sean told me at the family’s kitchen table.

“Even picture frames. You can use the glass in them. We just don’t feel safe here. We just worry about being broken into. We just don’t feel safe.” Maddie added.

James has armed himself with a pick-axe handle after a puppy was stolen from his property.

Their neighbour Peter has electrified the fence surrounding his property to keep burglars out.

Three doors down, one young single mother has just purchased two pit bulls, and says she’s training them to attack any stranger on her property.

After being home invaded and robbed, George uses logs to barricade himself in his home, and sleeps in his lounge room so he can hear if anyone’s trying to break-in.

He’s just sold the place, and is moving to a rural area in Queensland.

“They stole my ute, smashed it” he told me, “They used my tap and go with my card. Spent $350, mainly on cigarettes and Maccas,”

Back at Joe’s property, he tells us his favourite movie is Wolf Creek, as he pulls one of his modified arrows from a mannequin he practices on.

“You can see what damage it's going to do to a human.” He says.

Joe appears to not care about the prospect of spending time in jail, if he seriously injured an intruder.

“I want to cause serious damage, to the point where they have to go to hospital or they’re going to die. It’s the only way they’re going to learn.”

Dig a little deeper and perhaps it isn’t just the crime Joe and his neighbours are so frightened of. Maybe, they’re all rebelling against something bigger. The city, and all its problems and unknowns.