Nokomis:  What can be done about the meth house on my street and the occupants that stole my van?

Today was one for the books! Normally I have my Walmart groceries delivered. Well with the baseball tournament I forgot. So I decided I would head out around 10:30 to Walmart. I opened the garage door and as I walked outside I noticed my van was not there. Of course now I’m thinking this must be a joke. Did my husband move it before he left? No van in sight. I call him who said he wasn’t sure if he saw it when he left at 8:30. I called the cops and while I was waiting I asked my neighbor if she saw it leave. She said that when my husband left it wasn’t there and she wondered where I was off to so early on my day off. When the cop arrived, I told him the story.

I realized that I put my key in my baseball bag for the tournament and it was in the van(along with my sons ginormous bat bag with his new bat and glove along with all his other baseball things). I also told him that I believed it was the people down our road who are known meth heads. If you know our road you know the house. Anyways, he didn’t think it was them.

Then my husband calls and says he thinks he saw our van earlier when he was at the gas station. However the female driving wasn’t me but it looked just like it and even had similar looking stickers on the window but he was too far to know. I explained to the cop that I have two allstar stickers on my back window with my kids names on them.

As we are still finishing up, I glance down my road and see my van pulling out of the meth house. The cop takes off down the road and when he gets behind him them I see his lights go on. I call my husband and he is right there and follows. They don’t stop and take the cop and my husband all the way down Colonia almost to 41 and finally stop. Meanwhile, I jumped in my neighbors car with her and we head to the scene. I watch them handcuff the passenger(who they ended up letting go). They already had the female in custody.

After a little while I had to say what was mine. They clearly smoked cigarettes and pot in my van. The female peed in on of the tupperwares my mom just returned to me. There were two pocket knives, a watch, glasses and another weapon looking thing in there and a ton of snacks from dollar general. Thank goodness everything was still in there of ours.

The thought of these to meth heads in my family minivan disgusts me. The cops gave me disinfecting wipes and gloves. When I went to drive away, I notice that my full tank of gas was now at a quarter tank. She must have had it all night driving around.

I thank the Sarasota County Sheriffs Office for their help, but am disappointed that the passenger was let go. As I was leaving to get my van washed about an hour later, the passenger who was in my van was walking down my road and back to the meth house. Here are the pictures of the two joyriders. According to the arrest report she lives at the meth house with him xxx Pine Street in Nokomis. Her name is Haley xxxxx and I do not know his yet. After some investigating,, I learned she had a record and was just in jail for almost the same charges.

This is NOT OK! How do we get these people out if our neighborhoods? We moved here so our children could enjoy a nice neighborhood and because of this house they cant go outside alone!