Residents in a developing west Lubbock neighborhood say that they have seen an unsettling spike in property crime in the recent weeks.
Lynn Hicks and her husband had recently bought a home in the area at the 7000 block of 34th street, with hopes of renting it out. Although it is mostly vacant, she checks on the home periodically, especially after the back door was broken down a couple of weeks back. She went to the garage to find more damage.
“They came in and cut our air conditioning wires and I don’t know if they were trying to get an air conditioner and wanted an electric and found out ours was gas,” said Hicks, who says she also came to find the intruders had gotten into the attic. “It was 500 dollars worth of damage.”
Hicks say she and neighbors in the Milwaukee Ridge feel as though they’ve seen an increase in attempted auto break-ins. While mostly unsuccessful, some residents haven’t been as lucky.
“We thought, we’re going to move in here and we thought Lubbock and we thought that would be nice, but i think Lubbock is great, i think houses are being built like crazy and the police can’t keep up with it.”
Residents however say they are taking a stand against the recent break-ins. Many of them have already installed security cameras and have now created a new neighborhood watch program that will patrol the neighborhood in the early morning hours, sometimes as early as 2 a.m.
“It’s unbelievable, I’ve never seen anything like this, they’re helping each other!” said Hicks. “They said we’ll just ‘we’ll just come and help you.”
The new neighborhood watch patrol program is in its early stages, but residents say they are communicating with Lubbock Police, and feel optimistic that they will begin to see a change in the troubling trend soon.
