The Tokkie family, consisting of Hanna Tokkie, her ex-husband Gerrie Ruijmgaat and her three children, lived on Burgemeester van Leeuwenlaan in Slotermeer. The neighborhood had a bad image at the time.
The Ruijmgaart-Tokkie family became nationally known in 2003 due to a dispute between neighbors that got out of hand, which AT5 reported on. Windows were smashed and the upstairs neighbors’ house burned down completely. Then they got a reality series on national TV.
The family was not shy about the media, so after the dispute between neighbors a documentary was made about them. Later they also got their own reality series on SBS6. In 2024, Prime Video made a new documentary in which the family looked back on everything that happened over the past 20 years. They also hoped to clear the negative charge from their name.
‘Tokkie’
Because the name Tokkie, and its associated meaning, haunted them for years. It had become a synonym for ‘antisocial people’, an image with which the family was not happy. For example, in 2009 they demanded compensation of 50,000 euros from the dictionary publisher Van Dale, because a connection was also made with ‘antisocial behavior’.
In 2004, AT5 made an item about what happened during the neighbor dispute:
