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Break-ins a problem for residents

A Burnaby man wants to see an end to break-ins at his Metrotown area apartment building. Dennis Lou-Hing lives in a building on Jersey Avenue across from Central Park and in the last five months, the building’s garage has been broken into twice.
Police car

A Burnaby man wants to see an end to break-ins at his Metrotown area apartment building.

Dennis Lou-Hing lives in a building on Jersey Avenue across from Central Park and in the last five months, the building’s garage has been broken into twice. During the first incident, which happened in May, the suspect broke into the car garage and smashed five car windows, Lou-Hing told the NOW.

“The only stuff he got was some change but the damage of having to repair each window is quite annoying,” he said.

The second incident happened around 4:30 a.m. on Thursday. The suspect pried open the lobby door and made his way through the building and into the garage, Lou-Hing said.

“We noticed him going up into the garage, then he had a little flashlight and he checks each of the vehicles and apparently he couldn’t find anything worth stealing,” he said.

Some of the tenants store personal items in their stalls instead of cars, and Lou-Hing said the suspect ransacked those items before leaving the building through the garage door.

“This seems to be rampant in the Burnaby area,” he said.

There have been about 1,265 incidents of theft in the southwest district (where Jersey Avenue in located), including theft from vehicles, break and enters and auto thefts, according to the most recent monthly report by Burnaby RCMP.

Between January and December 2013, about 1,559 similar incidents were reported to local Mounties, according to the November/December report by Burnaby RCMP.

Lou-Hing has lived in the building for more than two decades and said break-and-enters continue to be a problem in the area. His fellow tenants were so fed up a few years back they invested some of their strata fees into installing surveillance cameras at key points around the building, among other precautions.

“Because no one goes out at night, we’ve put it (the garage door) on a timer so the power goes off,” he said.

Lou-Hing and his neighbours are hoping to circulate the images of the recent suspects as soon as possible.

Stay tuned for updates on this story by checking www.burnabynow.com.