Security officers monitoring McDougald Terrace after alleged break-ins

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- Overcast skies at Durham's McDougald Terrace community reflect the mood of some people returning to their homes, after extended stays in hotels during the recent carbon monoxide crisis.

"We have several apartments where residents are gonna be coming home to where their windows are busted out," said tenant council president Ashley Cannady on Monday after speaking at a city council meeting.

Break-ins rampant at McDougald Terrace amid carbon monoxide threat, residents say

On Wednesday, ABC11 saw the damage she described but we also saw uniformed security workers out of their cars, walking in teams through the affected neighborhood. Cannady said the change started after she complained at City Hall.

"They wasn't walking around when the person came along and did this," gesturing toward two boarded up windows, "to this young lady's apartment," said Michelle Jenkins, who's lived for seven years at McDougald Terrace.

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Jenkins knows how it feels to discover someone's forced a window or door open for a robbery, "Because I have had my apartment broken into and they have stolen some things. So you do feel violated. You do! You don't feel the same when you come back."

The man who did that to her sits inside the county jail now, she said. And while she appreciates the adjustment in the way security workers present themselves now, "They need to do the walking around at night, not in the daytime. But just keep doing what they're doing, I guess. Walking and riding!"

ABC11 checked with the company providing security for McDougald Terrace and heard that the foot patrols will continue after dark as the company covers that community 24/7.

"You know, it's tragic that it came to this," said Jenkins. "Before they started paying us any attention at all."