Renters at a downtown parking lot want to see more security guards, cameras and lighting at the facility after a string of car break-ins in recent weeks that they say have left them considering moving out of the city’s core.

“I’m always worried. Am I gonna get up in the morning … and is my car window gonna be smashed? Or anything going to be stolen?,” Joel McAuley told CBC News. 

The single father and his seven-year-old daughter moved to a building on St. Mary Avenue and Hargrave Street in early February. 

McAuley says he paid $150 for a monthly parking spot under his building at the Lakeview Square Parkade. Since he started leaving his vehicle overnight three weeks ago, he says it has been broken into four times.

“I don’t leave anything of value, I don’t leave sunglasses. I don’t leave money,” he said. “It is unfortunate that they went ahead and even broke [a] window.”

While there are other parking spaces close to McAuley’s building, he thought the covered parkade was the safest option.

But within the first days there, the car was riffled through. Days later it happened again but this time they left the doors open and the battery died. 

Over the February long weekend McAuley found his car’s back seat covered with glass after a window was smashed. On Monday he found his car was searched through again while dirt and footprints were seen on his car seat, he said. 

Up to this point the car’s registration with his personal information and his daughter’s car seat are some of the belongings that have been stolen. He said the car’s antenna and the back windshield wiper were also ripped off. 

“It’s disheartening to say the least,” he said. 

McAuley said the break-ins have also left his daughter fearful of sleeping in their unit at night with her bedroom door open. 

“She thinks that people can come to our building. She doesn’t understand, right? So she thinks, what if somebody’s in our apartment?,” McAuley said. 

The single father said he has been in touch several times with Impark. 

The company rents parking spots at a number of lots in Winnipeg, including the Lakeview Square Parkade at 350 St. Mary Ave. where there are more than 500 spaces, according to their website. 

McAuley said Impark has been dismissive of his complaints and requests for beefed up security after the break-ins. 

“They [have] basically told me that there is not much they can do, that this is Winnipeg and it happens,” he said. 

CBC News initially reached out to Impark for comment but the company has not yet responded.

Plans of moving out 

Angie Kwon parks her car in the same downtown parkade as McAuley. She and her family have been using the facility for about three years, but she said security has worsened in recent months. 

The windows of her car were smashed two times in less than a week last month.

“It was devastating. We all feel very insecure about the whole situation,” she said. 

Since the break-ins, Kwon said she has also seen more people roaming around in the parkade at night and sleeping in the back seats of cars. 

Kwon said she has reached her concerns to her building’s security who have referred her to Impark, but the company hasn’t been responsive.

She opted to leave her car on the side of the parkade closest to the Delta Hotel where there’s more lighting, but she’s still concerned about the safety of her parents who use the parking lot. 

She would like to see more security cameras and lighting in the facility to improve safety, but if changes don’t come, she is considering whether to move her parents out the building. 

“I want them to be in a safer environment,” Kwon said.

“They can go home to suburbia or somewhere a little more secure so they don’t have to worry.” 

McAuley would like to see security beefed up at the parkade, with more guards patrolling the establishment, and to have a line where they can call Impark for reports of suspicious activity. 

But if the situation doesn’t improve, McAuley is considering moving out too.

“I don’t know if I can continue living down there if I have to keep paying for my deductibles. I also have to fear for the safety of my child when we are walking down there.”