Imagine looking out your window every day and seeing someone defecate in your backyard, use drugs, run around naked, fight, or scream endless profanities.
Residents living along the Abbott corridor near Lake Avenue have just about had enough of it.
Dayna Margetts says it started earlier than usual this year, flocks of transients, out of town visitors, or just those without much respect, began gathering at the park dubbed Mushroom Beach.
“I started taking my daughter down there in the early spring, and it was just getting out of control, I no longer feel comfortable taking her down there,” she says, after witnessing intravenous drug use, screeching profanities and aggressive behaviour by beach-goers.
Margetts has lived near Lake and Abbott for several years, choosing the spot to raise her family as it was close to the water and downtown.
“We have to walk down the beach now to find somewhere that is kid appropriate, and I don’t think that as a member of the neighbourhood we should have to walk out of our neighbourhood in order to use the beach.”
Margetts is joined by more than 100 other residents who are fed up.
“I fear it has become known as a place where people can go down and won’t be bothered so much, and (they) virtually take over that particular area, which is really not fair to the public and the property owners,” says one resident.
Each time an incident happens, residents call police or bylaw, but say response is slow or not at all.
“We’ve been told to call in when there is an issue, but with the delayed response we have already endured it for an hour or two and it invades our personal privacy, as far as our house is to the beach,” says another man.
Residents tell stories of watching drug deals take place right in front of their homes, or physical altercations breaking out at all hours. One woman says a man urinated on her bushes a few feet away from her patio table where she was having dinner, exposing himself to her family. Others complain of people camping overnight and littering.
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