The blue-and-white house had been a problem for years. Shifty characters and weird noises were the least of it; a 2012 drive-by shooting unnerved the neighbourhood, although no one was hurt.
“A lot of people were coming and going at all kinds of strange hours,” said Margaret Larsen, who lived near the bungalow for more than a decade.
The Edmonton home received more than 100 police calls since 2007, and had been under investigation for several years. Then, last week, authorities showed up with a metal fence and sheets of plywood. They evicted all tenants and shut the house for 90 days.
“Oh we’re very relieved. Very relieved. You never know what kind of serious incidents might happen,” Ms. Larsen said, noting that a suspected meth lab across the street burned to the ground several years ago. “When you have a house with those kinds of neighbours, any terrible thing could happen.”
It wasn’t the Criminal Code that shut the problem house: Ms. Larsen, instead, praises the Safer Communities and Neighbourhood Act, the Alberta version of a popular kind of legislation that has been adopted in jurisdictions across the country over the past decade. SCAN laws allow neighbours to anonymously report on “problem” residences and businesses — properties that abet drug dealers, prostitutes, gangs and even people who are habitually intoxicated. Activity that routinely harms the health and well-being of the neighbourhood can be reported.
