INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Vandals are targeting a home meant to welcome out of town guests.
This is the third time in the past three months windows have been busted at an Airbnb near downtown.
“A jerk, to be as nice as I can be. I mean, it’s inconsiderate,” said Elizabeth Sickels, the property manager of the Airbnb.
The place is in the Kennedy-King neighborhood. It’s been up for rent since this past fall and almost immediately there were problems at this property.
“We had a glass broken out of our kitchen window first, then a living room window last week and now another living room window,” said Sickels.
Vandals started in October and now both living room windows are boarded up. This most recent vandalism happened early Thursday morning. Security cameras captured two people walking on the back deck around 3:30 a.m., which is around the time the alarms went off.
“It’s extremely frustrating to say the least,” said Sickels.
Elizabeth Sickels is the property manager and after each crime they added more cameras. There’s a sign posted in the front window, warning strangers that cameras are watching. Even though there’s only footage from the latest incident, Sickels is certain the same vandals are responsible for all three broken windows. Each time, the vandals used a cement block to bust the windows.
“I want them to know we need them to stop because it’s affecting everyone in the neighborhood, not only us but our neighbors also because now they’re on watch because we’ve told them. So overall it gives a lot of people a little bit of insecurity,” said Sickels.
The repair bill is already at more than $2,000 and even more money was lost when a guest backed out because a window was shattered around their check-in time.
“We’re welcoming guests from all over the world in here and we want to give them a really great impression of Indianapolis so broken glass in a beautiful house is not one of them,” said Sickels.
Thursday morning was the only time the vandals actually made it inside the home and they quickly took off out the backdoor. Sickels isn’t sure who they are or what they’re after, she just knows it’s time for this to stop.
“You’re going to get caught, I mean we’ve got them on camera,” said Sickels.
Police reports were filed in each of the three cases. If you know anything that can help detectives, call Crime Stoppers at 317-262-TIPS.