“Unfortunately, we didn’t hear this”
Resident wakes up to find garbage, blue boxes reduced to ash
Oshawa resident Alice Robinson, joined here by Council Nester Pidwerbecki, woke up to find the garbage and recycling she had left out the night before for collection had been set on fire.
By Graeme McNaughton/The Oshawa Express
Like many residents, Alice Robinson put her garbage and recycling out the night before collection. When she awoke the next morning, she saw not that the refuse had been collected, but that it had been set on fire.
“It was still there by 11 p.m., and we never heard anything,” Robinson tells The Oshawa Express.
“I got up at 6, looked out the window and wondered what was going on.”
In total, three bags of garbage and two blue boxes were reduced to charred remains in front of the Taylor Avenue residence that Robinson and her husband have called home for more than three decades.
Robinson says this is not the first time she has heard of destructive behaviour in her neighbourhood, saying that a bench at a nearby park was badly damaged and that a cat was found recently that was cut open from its neck down to its belly.
The long-time resident says that it is not unusual to hear young people making a commotion in the neighbourhood in the wee hours of the morning.
“Kids are out at 2, 3 in the morning and very noisy. We’re used to noise, but unfortunately, we didn’t hear this,” she says.
“We’re not saying young people did this. We’ve heard stories of people in their 50s doing dumb stuff.”
Councillor Nester Pidwerbecki, who was at the residence when The Oshawa Express arrived, says that he has asked the fire department to look into whether there have been similar incidents nearby.
“I’m getting concerned…that something is going on,” he says.
“We need to see people reporting (to police) when they see things like this.”