It?s tucked away and self-contained but it?s no Tucker?s Town.

The sounds of children playing football come from the last, small open space in the area near a cliff. They can?t play in the real ?playground? (rusty monkey bars) where jagged edges abound.

Dampness seeps through the cold, wide porches built in the colonial style into the walls.

All the Virgil children have asthma.

Richelle Virgil, 42, and her eight children moved from St. David?s into a three bedroom $1,650 a month home on Mary Victoria Road about a year ago. Hers is the kind of family that used to make Prospect homeowners very nervous, but neighbours have come to embrace them as part of the community. And now her problem is their problem.

?Where are we going to go? They have to fix the problems that are already here. There are lots of problems. But we love this house, and don?t want to go. If they build more modern houses, they?re going to raise the rent.?

Her full time job is raising her offspring ? she has two sets of twins aged three and 11 and the rest are 13, 17, 20 and 23.

The family pays for their own paint to cover the stains but three weeks later it comes through again.

Declan Harris, 34, credits the Prospect housing development for the fact that his parents, who were among the first homeowners in 1972, were able to afford to pay for his university education.

?The education that I received and my professional growth has only been the result of my parents investing in that neighbourhood because they were able to save a substantial amount of money that they could put toward the education of myself and my sister ? a registered nurse.?

Neighbourhood children in those days included Larry Mussenden, who would grow up to be Attorney General, and his brother Francis Mussenden, now CEO of BTC.

Today, Mr. Harris has two master?s degrees and is Director of the Educational Center at Devon Lane. The family lives in a two and a half bedroom prefab on 37 Greenwich Lane.

?It?s changed in that the houses were meant to be for families. So a prerequisite to own the houses was that you had to have a family. And they were prefabricated units ? no additions, no building in the neighbourhood at all and from the get go people started applying for permission to add to the houses.?

Jamal Hawker, 31, occupation unknown, walks a rust coloured Pomeranian past old, blue buildings.

?I?ve lived here for 31 years,? he says. ?My whole life ... The biggest change round here was when police moved out ... I?ve travelled.?

Mr. Hawker has been to Cuba. He has a large tattoo of Che Guevara on his forearm.

?Some of the houses are cheap and substandard. Bermuda is the third richest country in the world. But people are living in better conditions all over the world. In Cuba it?s better.?

The smell of cooking wafts through open doors where three generations live.

Palmer Wade, 86, works security at Bulls Head. A plaque on the wall of 58 Mary Victoria Road celebrates his family being the first residents to move into the area.

He?s an owner, not a renter.

?I have enjoyed living here since 1971,? Mr. Wade says.

?It?s peaceful. The people in this environment have been very good to us. No one in our family regrets living here ... I remember when the English regiment lived up here, when I was a little boy over 80 years ago.?

Barbara Bean, age 41, is an administrator at the bank of Bermuda and has been living at her house on Mary Victoria Road since May 6, 1998. She has seven children, six of whom are living in her rented house. They are her two sons aged two and four and her four daughters, aged six, eight, 12 and 18.

Ms Bean is going to be moved from her apartment where she has to buy a new stove every two years, and where dampness shows through the walls in her kitchen. She enjoys spending time with her children and having fun with them and says her children are her life.

?Without them I?d be totally bored. I?m a single parent. I work and then I go home. I?m a Mom and Dad for my kids. I have a simple life. We like to rent a movie, and everyone goes into my king-size bed. We like going for walks, and drives. In winter we hibernate, like cubs. We love the summer.?

Charlotte Powell and her husband felt lucky to be able to buy their three-bedroom some eight years ago for around $200,000. The neighbourhood was nice, reasonably quiet and the view was ?wonderful?, she said.

?What also made it attractive was the fact that when we bought it there was a representative from the Housing Corporation who promised us that over the next two to three years we would be freeholders ... It never happened.?

Ms Powell works as an office manager for an exempted company, while her husband is a part time farmer and works for Works and Engineering.

?Eight years ago there were less cars. I can only speak for my row of neighbours ? it?s a very close neighbourhood. We share dishes and evenings we could be found on our yards talking to each other across the fence. Especially in the summer time ? we have a good view that kind of stimulates it.?

Around 1999 the neighbourhood began changing ? more traffic and more children playing in the streets. ?What I found was that the children that were born up here and grew up had their play areas. But we find now there is more playing in the streets ? with the moving out of the policemen and the influx of tenants.?

Helen Seepersad, 60, doesn?t have her hands quite so full. Having bought her three-bedroom prefab in the late 1970s, she and her husband were among the second wave of Prospect homeowners.

They paid about $30,000 in total, the down-payment was $2,000. ?It was marketed as affordable, low cost housing,? the retired prison officer said.

?I came here at seven that morning and knocked on those people?s door ... I always wanted my own place and I worked hard for a place of my own.?

Mrs. Seepersad has sunk tens of thousands extra into her home and is one of the few people eager to leave the neighbourhood ? her house is on the market and she has been offered more than $300,000 but she?s holding out for a little more.

Besides the prospect of more housing, she said, the house is now too big for her and her husband. But her own assessment of the complex makes a sale far from certain.

?It?s the pits round here,? she said. ?The water texture is very bad and if they put any more people here, it?s a health hazard.?