Nanaimo resident Jesse Lohr’s five-year-old son told her that he and a friend were going to play doctor – then he put a dirty needle on the table.
It’s one of the experiences shared by residents who live near unit No. 9, a townhome at 1637 Bowen Rd. slapped with a nuisance title by Nanaimo city council Monday.
Police have been called to the unit 106 times between January 2015 and Feb. 9 of this year for issues such as yelling, fighting, visitors or transients making physical or verbal threats toward other residents, dumping garbage, disposal of stolen items, drug dealing, drug use and discarding of associated paraphernalia, according to the City of Nanaimo.
Other residents in the complex fear for their safety and are upset with the devaluation of their property, a city report shows.
At a council meeting Monday, Lohr said she’s witnessed drug deals, has made calls about domestic violence and has had things thrown at the side of her residence at 5 a.m. in the morning, waking her family.
Crystal Shannon, a townhome owner, said, “the biggest thing is that they leave everything everywhere.” There are four mattresses in front of her car, one with blood on it, she said, and last week, a piece of what she believes was counter top was on fire outside No. 9.
“It makes for an unsettling and unsafe place to live as a single female and it just causes constant stress, so I don’t have people over to my house because of the way it looks, the comments that I get,” she said.
Council unanimously declared the unit a nuisance, which will see the owner billed for nuisance-related calls to emergency services.
”I just feel bad for these people that have to endure this,” said Coun. Jerry Hong, who also had concerns about safety and RCMP resources used there, referring to a comment by one of the residents who talked about domestic violence and a woman who had been thrown around.
Coun. Gord Fuller said it looks like it’s been two years and 106 calls.
“And nothing has been done? Was this even brought to our attention a year ago when it was at 50 calls?”
Brad McRae, city chief operations officer, said he received the file a month ago and was not aware of whether there was an attempt to bring it to council, but he was disturbed at the number of complaints and is going through a bylaw services review to figure out what a threshold number would be.
Rod Davidson, city manager of bylaw, regulation and security, told the News Bulletin there’s no hard number and it depends on consultation between the RCMP, city, social services and the fire department, which meet monthly to discuss different properties being monitored, if they are having success and whether a property should go to council for a decision on a nuisance designation.
In this case, he said they’ve tried to work with the owner, his family and outside agencies to correct the situation and determined this final step had to be taken. There were “mitigating circumstances” that meant the property wouldn’t be brought forward before now, “because we were trying to work with the person due to some of the limitations he has,” Davidson said.
The owner declined comment.
Shannon said she was glad about the nuisance designation. It’s like Step 1.
“I feel like it’s still going to probably be a long road from here unfortunately,” she said.
