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

Tenants of a Scarborough apartment are demanding immediate action to address 'pressing security challenges that threaten the safety and well-being' of their community.

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.