You go on vacation, park your car at a city of Houston operated lot, Ecopark, because you believe it’s secure.
When you return, you find out that your catalytic converter was stolen, resulting in $8,000 in damages. And worse, because of rampant theft of the part, it will take months for a replacement.
Well that’s reality for one Houston woman.
“Jolie Fletcher told KPRC she parked her Toyota Land Cruiser at the Ecopark lot on JFK Boulevard for about two weeks while she was away on vacation and returned to find her SUV was targeted by thieves.
“When we got to the vehicle and started the car, I knew immediately that something was wrong,” said Fletcher.
Fletcher filed a report with HPD and said she discovered several other vehicles had been hit also.
“It seems that has been an ongoing issue,” she said. “Four or five others within the hour joined us to make the same report of missing Catalytic converters.”
Fletcher said the damage to her SUV was estimated at $8,000.
She filed a report with the parking lot which claimed they would refund her parking money but said they were not responsible for the theft.”
In response, the city put out a flippant press release basically saying that your chances are very good that your catalytic converter won’t get stolen:
"From January 1, 2022, to June 30, 2022, more than 244,800 Ecopark users have experienced our efforts which have resulted in 99.97% of customers using our facilities without a security incident.”
This isn’t the first time that cars have been targeted at Bush Airport.
ABC13 did a story a few weeks back about a man who had his catalytic converter stolen from the city lot.