A Vancouver family says they've been targeted after weeks of harassment and property damage.
Shannon and Innis, who have not given their last names for safety reasons, have suffered 11 slashed tires within three months near their East Vancouver home.
The incidents began in October when both of the family's vehicles' tires had been punctured four times within three weeks.
"We then stopped parking at our house and would re-park our vehicles every night a block or few away," Shannon tells V.I.A. After seven weeks, on Dec. 18, someone slashed their tires again after they forgot to move the car for the night.
"This is someone checking our house or driveway every night. How else would this have happened?" says Shannon.
The most recent incident took place on Jan. 6 when the person had found one of the family's cars parked a block away.
Shannon tells V.I.A. that the situation is terrifying.
"We’ve lived here for 13 years, have no neighbour issues, no personal dramas. But it’s definitely targeted at us specifically, which is terrifying. No one else in our entire block and surrounding blocks. Every time [it's] just us," she says.
'Never heard back' from Vancouver police
The family had reported the first three incidents to the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) and says that they've received no response.
After the fourth incident, Shannon tells V.I.A. that several police officers came by to collect security footage. "We just never heard back from that," she says.
It wasn't until the fifth incident in December that they called VPD's non-emergency line and a police officer showed up at their doorstep that same morning. "We felt like we're on their radar now," says Shannon.
A VPD representative confirmed police are investigating a series of incidents in East Vancouver involving vehicle tires being slashed.
'Stop calling,' says ICBC
When it came to replacing the tires, the family says that ICBC can't do anything. "They, in fact, told me I should stop calling, as repeated calls could flag my car as problematic and have my rates raised."
As of Jan. 11, the family is still using spare and summer tires to drive around town; they replaced the slashed tire on Dec. 18 with a spare tire and the slashed tires on Jan. 6, which happened to be winter tires, with summer tires.
The family was able to replace one of the three slashed tires but two tires remain which they cannot afford to replace yet.
'People are wonderful'
Following the Jan. 6 incident, the family set up a fundraiser to help cover the cost of replacing existing - and future - tires.
The community response has been overwhelming, says Shannon.
The fundraiser had already surpassed its goal of $3,000, standing at just over $4,000 as of Jan. 11, and the family has received many messages from locals offering to help.
Several people have offered to replace the family’s tires free of charge, and a manager at Mazda dealership, which Shannon frequents, covered the cost of replacing one of the slashed tires, says Shannon.
Others have offered to assist the family in finding the culprit on their own.
“We're just really, really humbled by and grateful for the community response,” she tells V.I.A. “People are wonderful.”
Though the response has been positive, she adds that she isn’t surprised at all. “I’ve lived on The Drive for over 20 years and I’m like ‘Yes, this is totally my community,'” Shannon says.
Shannon adds they plan to use the GoFundMe donations to cover tire costs and set up a dashcam in each vehicle as well as some kind of alarm system.
