NEIGHBOURHOOD UNDER SIEGE

Sam and Marion don't sleep in the master bedroom any more. Joan and
Dianne won't walk their dog around their residential neighbourhood at
night.

In an embattled area of Edmonds, many residents are forced to alter
their lives because they're under siege by prostitutes, pimps, johns,
drug pushers and users who have taken over the neighbourhood. It's
been going on for decades, say residents, but lately it's become much
worse.

Sam and Marion's bedroom in their $700,000 home looks out on an area
where hookers turn tricks throughout the night. The drug deals never
stop either.

"It just became too much. We couldn't sleep because it was right
outside our window. In the summer it's all night. We have to sleep in
another room," says Sam, whose home is guarded by high fences.

Joan and Dianne, like other women in the area, find they can't walk
more than a few blocks without a john cruising by and propositioning
them. Or sometimes it's a drunk or a drug user, say the middle-aged
women, who live in a well-kept older home.

"The streets aren't safe. It's so dark you never know who could be out
there. You don't see people go for walks at night," says Joan.

None of the residents the NewsLeader spoke to wanted their names used,
so they've been changed at their request. Most fear retaliation from
the pimps, who drive around in tricked-out imports, or the cell-phone
packing drug pushers on bikes.

"That's exactly what we are, a scared neighbourhood," says Dianne. "We
had some neighbours here who were part of the hooker patrol and the
(pimps) found out where they lived and their cars got vandalized and
everything. They got no support."

"Now people just keep their blinds closed," adds Sam.

Bound by Kingsway to 15th Street and 12th Avenue to Stride Avenue,
it's a tiny area with big problems. Prostitutes have been strolling
the area for at least two decades. The sex trade brought with it the
drug trade and violent crime and car and home robberies followed.

There's recently been more prostitutes in the area and it's likely due
to Surrey and Vancouver cracking down on them, say residents.

On Tuesday night this week, Sam and Marion gave a walking tour of what
they call a "neighbourhood under siege." In Ernie Winch Park they show
off the graffiti covering the playground equipment. They point to
street lights they had to fight the City of Burnaby for, adding there
were still too many pitch black areas in the park and on the streets.

Later in the tour, Marion explains how the johns pick up the hookers
in their cars and then drive to a secluded spots to conduct their
business. On those streets, the shoulder and sidewalk are littered
with used condoms.

"There's one. Here's another," Marion points out with a flashlight.
There's a condom every 10 feet here, she adds.

Tonight she can't find any syringes. "It's best to look in the
daytime."

That's what city workers do. Every two days they show up in the
mornings to pick up the needles, she says, "before the kids walk
through to go to school.

"They don't touch them. They use these tongs."

Ernie Winch Park is one of the worst areas for needles. Barbara, a
young mother, makes sure she scours the ground every time she takes
her children to play there.

"I've lived here a month and I've already seen a lot," she says. "We
have kids, there's kids all over the neighbourhood. It's tough, how do
you explain to the kids why these women hang around the same street
corner all the time?"

Residents either closed their blinds or move away as a result of the
escalating crime. "We have a neighbour who hasn't opened his blinds in
21 years," says Sam, pointing to a rancher with a manicured yard.

One time the neighbour did open his blinds and witnessed a neighbour -
"a druggy" - kill a cat with a hammer.

Residents call the neighbourhood the "Bronx" or the "Ghetto." No one
is surprised when there's a violent crime anymore. Earlier this month
a man was killed in a rented condominium on 13th Avenue. The murder
was drug related, say Burnaby RCMP. Sam points out the murder took
place next door to the home where seniors Mildred and Joseph Simpson
were killed four years ago.

The obvious question to residents fed up with the crime is why not
move.

It's true some people just get fed up and move, said Joan, but many
stay because they've gotten to know their neighbours and feel a sense
of community.

For Sam, the idea of moving would be like giving in to the hookers,
pimps and pushers. "Why should we move? When we bought this place it
was a dump. I put so much sweat and blood into it," he says.

Despite all of the crime, the heart of a community still beats here,
he adds.

"There's a lot of good people living here. The residents have all
tried over the years to do something about it. They get threatened and
stepped on and then they just close their blinds."