‘They did this shamelessly’: Homeowners frustrated after robbery, property destruction

An Edmonton man says thieves who stole $10,000 worth of items from his garage were staying at a short-term rental a few houses away. Nav Sangha reports.

A homeowner in Forest Heights is frustrated after around $10,000 worth of property was stolen from his garage by people he said were staying in a short-term rental a few doors down.

On April 27, Jeffrey Hansen-Carlson woke up and found that someone had broken into his detached garage and stolen a number of items.

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Security footage shows a black SUV pulling up to the back of his home, two people getting out, breaking in and spending around 25 minutes stealing items.

Hansen-Carlson said a generator weighing around 45 kg, an electric bike and tools were stolen.

“An hour and a half or so after this happened, my wife was obviously frustrated as well, and walking up and down the alley to see if maybe she sees my drill or something like that, and she hears our neighbour, wonderful lady, very frustrated that her short-term rental suite had been trashed,” Hansen-Carlson said.

“It didn’t take them long to connect the dots.”

The neighbours compared videos and say it was the same people at both houses.

“They did this shamelessly and they helped themselves, and they didn’t take off, they were staying at an Airbnb three doors down,” Hansen-Carlson said.

The video showed one of the people walking out of the short-term rental with the stolen bike.

Around 6 a.m. that morning, Debra Couwenberg, who rents out her basement, said she was woken up by voices outside and saw people who weren’t part of the reservation.

She said she talked to the woman who was renting her basement unit and was told the people she saw were the woman’s husband’s brothers.

“They knew what they were doing, they started at a certain time, they ended in the morning before everybody got up,” Couwenberg said. “And whoever is taking the E-bike in a Lexus is not hurting for money.”

The people also took a few items from her property and broke a coffee table, she added.

This isn’t the first time her rental unit was robbed or damaged, which is why she says she won’t take local bookings.

“Why are they booking my place if they live here?” Couwenberg said. “No more local people for me ever. I don’t care. I’ll go, no and I’ll tell Booking to give them their money back.”

Couwenberg added that she doesn’t have insurance through Booking.com, the website she uses for the rental unit. On the site, the company recommends asking for a damage deposit from renters and to check if their home insurance covers short-term rental.

The company adds that guest misconduct should always be reported.

Edmonton police said an investigation into the theft is ongoing and that officers are going through the security video. No arrests have been made in connection to the incidents.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nav Sangha