Newsletter chitchat - May 28, 2024

[Cassel]

Have you ever encountered serious vandalism in your neighbourhood?

Have you ever been afraid for your property?

Let's chat.

[Susan Ewart]

We moved into a brand new house on the wrong side of town (unknown to us at the time).  Very quickly we found out across the street and two houses down was a drug house (rental).  One weekend we saw over 100 people come and go and even had drug deals going down right outside our front door.  It was getting worse and worse and we figured it was only time before we would be broken into.  So we put the house up for sale and bought one in a better part of town.  People were coming to look at the other house right when the police came to bust the house and the utility company came to shut off the gas and electricity.  The potential buyers took one look at what was going down and didn't even get out of the car.  

Worse was my friend here in Edmonton (who've now just moved to Scotland), lived in a high end townhouse (2 level) condo complex.  The city decided to buy a unit and house a homeless person in it (for free, or rather on the tax payers money).  This homeless person quickly turned the unit into a chop shop for stolen bicycles, stolen goods as well as being a  drug supplier to the street people that flocked to the unit.  The tenant would freely past his key fob out to any street person and there was no end of people coming and going from the unit often over 20 people in the unit.  All the residents had something stolen from the underground parking and storage lockers.  the residents feared taking their garbage to the dumpster as there was often very sketchy, scary people coming there to buy drugs.   Many complaints and letters to the city later, and a smashed bottle over someone's head,  the city is finally taking it to court, as it's very hard to evict someone, even if they are engaging in criminal activity.  The residents were told to take pictures for the court case.  It's been very stressful and scary for the residents as these street people are very unpredictable.  

It's sad for the original owners who are the victims.  I sure hope they are able to bring charges to the people that did this.  

Edited May 29 by Susan Ewart

[fiona cook]

It makes you so angry but then you can hear of good neighbourly things that go on that restore your faith in human nature. Some of the refugees for example help in the communities giving back a little of what they have received. I greatly admire that.

[Corrie Kinkel]

I live in a fairly large village and there are incidents happing throughout the village. Like houses set to fire to settle an argument, criminal related of course, drug problems, problems with addicted persons, shootings once in a while. Luckily we never had such serious things going on in the street were live. However circa 15 years ago, in our old house, we had a neighbor  who had a nephew that was a drugaddict, convicted for petty crimes and homeless, so he took him in. That started the problems because that nephew had friends that were the same as he was and they gathered in the front yard where they openly used drugs, fighting amongst each other, lots of yelling and they started selling drugs to schoolboys. Of course I spoke to my neighbor but he was unable to stop it. At one point, in the backyard under the covering they made a fire on the barbecue and put grass and old clothes on it and left it unattended. My husband was seriously ill and just home after 3 weeks in hospital, unable to do anything; every time I came home I had to pass those guys and had to ask, or command them to remove their bikes that were blocking our garagedoor. I had spoken to the police before and they talked with my neighbor, which didn't help. So now I called the police again because I was really scared they would set fire to the whole block of houses and this time they came to investigate and interview us about the situation. That helped, my neighbor had to come to the police station to get his nephew out. That guy was put in a closed institution for a while, but later when he was out again and visited his uncle I was frightened that the whole story would start all over. Since 7 years we live in another house in a very quiet street and until now. nothing has happened

[Ann Seeber]

When we moved here to our newish (less than 10 years old) condo 6 years ago, my family was concerned because it was situated next door to city low-income housing which is a sprawling, low rise apartment complex. Beyond that is another fairly new condo development. So, the population is fairly dense, even though there are horse farms just across the main road. Everything is lit up like daylight all night long and behind is an active rail line and industrial workings. Meanwhile, the county constructed what they dubbed the Rail Trail for walkers that stretches for miles and part of which is just the other side of our parking lot. We were getting too many casual visitors from it, so the Association put up a high fence behind our dumpsters which blocked the hikers access to us.

But, meanwhile, though you could describe our population as truly eclectic from retirees to college students and all colors of the rainbow there had never been any serious police action here until recently. My unit is far in the back and the activity was way out towards the road and I came to find out that 3 young men, living together, had a dispute and two were shot, one killed and one escaped, though injured but he was later caught. He died later in the hospital. I was rather shocked that this happened in MY complex, not next door! 

I still feel pretty safe here though I still keep my car locked and door locked (most of the time) but I'm more aware this is a city environment, not rural as I was previously. I also just found out that if there is any trouble, it's at the other condo complex, far beyond the "projects" next door. There are always lots of dog walkers, baby-carriage pushers and roller skaters going past my unit. I do like all the activity, and it doesn't seem to deter the flock of Canada Geese and Black Vultures from visiting me and all my songbirds and squirrels coming for food I put out. Meanwhile, I've accumulated a crew of semi-feral cats who come twice a day for meals. Their number varies, though I count 6 or 7 now. My two indoor cats are rather appalled! 😉

Edited May 29 by Ann Seeber

[Susan Ewart]

1 hour ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

I live in a fairly large village and there are incidents happing throughout the village. Like houses set to fire to settle an argument, criminal related of course, drug problems, problems with addicted persons, shootings once in a while. Luckily we never had such serious things going on in the street were live. However circa 15 years ago, in our old house, we had a neighbor  who had a nephew that was a drugaddict, convicted for petty crimes and homeless, so he took him in. That started the problems because that nephew had friends that were the same as he was and they gathered in the front yard where they openly used drugs, fighting amongst each other, lots of yelling and they started selling drugs to schoolboys. Of course I spoke to my neighbor but he was unable to stop it. At one point, in the backyard under the covering they made a fire on the barbecue and put grass and old clothes on it and left it unattended. My husband was seriously ill and just home after 3 weeks in hospital, unable to do anything; every time I came home I had to pass those guys and had to ask, or command them to remove their bikes that were blocking our garagedoor. I had spoken to the police before and they talked with my neighbor, which didn't help. So now I called the police again because I was really scared they would set fire to the whole block of houses and this time they came to investigate and interview us about the situation. That helped, my neighbor had to come to the police station to get his nephew out. That guy was put in a closed institution for a while, but later when he was out again and visited his uncle I was frightened that the whole story would start all over. Since 7 years we live in another house in a very quiet street and until now. nothing has happened

It's sad that we cant even feel safe in our own homes.  When I lived in another province, there was a lot of home invasions happening, mostly to elderly and some elderly were beaten and some were beaten so badly they passed away from the injuries.  I was in my late 30's and even I felt scared to be alone in my own home, or to answer the door bell.  In some of the invasions, they just busted the door in and went in demanding money.  Does it seem that in current times it's somewhat worse because we have to be tolerant of so many things.  In British Columbia (where I lived before), they recently made all drugs legal (I think the federal govt did that there as a test to see if it would make fewer drug addicts and crime because of the addiction).  Now the BC govt is asking this new law to repealed because the situation got worse not better.  It's like adding fire to fire to put it out.  

Corrie, that's a scary situation to be in.  people on drugs are so unpredictable.  Just last week in Edmonton a young 16 yr boy was walking their dog with his mother and a homeless man they've seen many times, jumped out of the bush and stabbed the young boy in the neck, he passed away at the scene.  They think he had some kind of drug related "episode", thankfully he has been deemed fit for trial.  It makes you want to go live far away from people.  The older I get the more I am aware of situations like that and how helpless I probably am to do anything about it.  

[Anne Lamp]

I live in a good old neighborhood. A few years ago we are pretty sure a house a few doors down was being used to sell drugs but nothing bad ever happened.  There is no way anyone would have as many short time visitors as there was there.  I know it was reported to the police and the visits finally stopped so I guess they had a little "talk" with the owner.

[Susan Ewart]

1 hour ago, Anne Lamp said:

I live in a good old neighborhood. A few years ago we are pretty sure a house a few doors down was being used to sell drugs but nothing bad ever happened.  There is no way anyone would have as many short time visitors as there was there.  I know it was reported to the police and the visits finally stopped so I guess they had a little "talk" with the owner.

And it's so obvious, what they are doing.  You'd think drug dealers would want to be more inconspicuous.  and now having home-pick up service.  I had a manager once who, on her days off, worked at her friends "farm".  Then we hired someone and she recognized the manager as the "drug lady" in the area (where you could go buy drugs).  We never told her we knew, we let her go on telling us she worked at the "farm" on such and such day.  Was hard not to look at my co-worker and not laugh.