‘Everybody’s paranoid’: Toronto tenants demand more security after 6 cars stolen in 6 months

Tenants of a Scarborough apartment that has been targeted multiple times by car thieves in recent months are demanding immediate action to address “pressing security challenges that threaten the safety and well-being” of their community.

They signed a petition calling on property management company Canlight to put in place a number of urgent security measures.

“Despite our monthly payments for parking, the current security measures utterly fail to adequately protect our vehicles and possessions,” tenants wrote in the petition.

Toronto police confirmed to Global News that there have been six stolen vehicles since September 2023 at 40 Parkcrest Dr.

“I wake up every night, every two to three hours, looking on my phone to see if my truck is there. How does that make you feel? How does that make anybody feel?” asked Rui Ismail, a resident of the building.

“Everybody’s looking out the windows…. People are paranoid. You know, they see trucks or cars that come in and out. I mean, they might be innocent people, but everybody’s paranoid,” he said.

Ismail was heading to work one Saturday morning when he arrived at his parking spot and found that his own vehicle had been stolen.

“I came out at 7 in the morning. I looked on my spot and I thought, ‘OK, what’s going on here?’ That I maybe misplaced the truck, probably put it on the street or something. No, it was stolen. I was devastated, I called the police,” he recalled.

Ismail had put a tracker on his truck and was able to retrieve it.

Rui Curic also had a truck stolen from the parking garage. It happened the very same night his brother’s truck was taken.

“I was woken up by  one of my neighbours saying, ‘Are you guys home?’ We’re like, ‘Yeah, we’re home,’ ‘But your trucks aren’t.’ So then I look at my app and I see no alarm triggered, but I guess it wasn’t loud enough. It didn’t ping me and they disabled it right away. So it’s game over,” he said.

“Mine was stolen around three or so in the morning. My brother’s at 4 o’clock in the morning.”

In their petition, tenants referred to a notice by property management advising them “to lock our vehicle doors and basic statistics from Google highlighting the increasing car thefts in Toronto, which does not contribute to our safety and security issues.”

They listed a number of safety measures they would like implemented at the building, including a gated system for the open-concept parking spaces, a key or fob access in and out of the garage, an upgrade to the current camera system, and enhanced lighting throughout the premises “to deter potential intruders and enhance overall security.”

“It’s been pretty catastrophic…. It’s been kind of an epidemic,” Curic said.

David Barkin, senior vice-president of Canlight, acknowledged receipt of the petition and told Global News the suggestions are “certainly worth exploring.”

“The site has 22 cameras, 12 of which capture the outside, including the garage….  The police have advised us that one arrest has been made, one car returned and that our video footage is invaluable. In addition, we have contracted with a security company to perform random patrols of the lot; subsequent to the most recent incident we increased those patrols,” Barkin said in an emailed statement.

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