Sechelt

The numbers

Statistics Canada's Crime Severity Index for Sechelt was 149 in 2025. The figure for British Columbia as a whole was 92. For non-violent crime — theft, break-ins, mischief — Sechelt's index was 157. Five years earlier it was 93.

The RCMP's own count for the District of Sechelt in 2025: 652 property crime files, 27 residential break-and-enters (up from 20 in 2024), 58 business break-ins, 110 thefts from vehicles, 168 counts of mischief to property, and 16 arsons. Calls for service were 4,376. The detachment says most of it is the work of "a very small number of people who are out of custody at the time."

The Sechelt Fire Department's figures show the same trend. Suspicious or deliberately set fires went from 9 in 2021 to 39 in 2025 — up 300 per cent. Total fire calls have doubled in five years. The chief told council in 2025 that "we're running multiple calls at a time."

What happens to an empty house in Sechelt

In August 2024, residents of the Porpoise Bay neighbourhood told the Coast Reporter there had been ten break-ins and thefts in their neighbourhood in a two-week period that July. One woman's shed was entered "while they were out of town in July": a chainsaw and an e-bike were taken, and a generator and log splitter had been moved into bins ready to carry off. Another resident had been broken into three times, once for the contents of her freezer. A garage window had been broken.

Once you're in the garage, you're basically in the house.

A Porpoise Bay resident, Coast Reporter, August 2024

In February 2025 a house on Surf Circle was cleared out — an Acura SUV, four bicycles, camping and kayak gear, Stihl tools, a mower — while "the homeowners were on vacation." The police report notes that neighbours had seen the doors standing open. It was not reported until the family came home.

The clearest example on the Coast of what happens to houses nobody watches is Seawatch. Fourteen homes on Gale Avenue North, Seawatch Lane and Crowston Road were evacuated in February 2019 because of sinkholes and have stood empty since. By 2020 the RCMP was recording break-ins, thefts and vandalism there. In 2022 neighbours were finding stolen goods left in their driveways. On 5 September 2026 two of them were set on fire. The fire department could not enter the area and let them burn.

Seawatch is an extreme case: seven years, no owners, no fences that held. But the sequence — entry from the side the street cannot see, then salvage, then fire — is the same one that starts in any house that has been visibly empty for long enough.

The District can fine you for it

Sechelt's Property Maintenance Bylaw was amended in December 2022. It now says no owner shall "cause or permit a vacant property or vacant building to be unsecure to allow unauthorized access, occupation, use, vandalism, unlawful activity or fire hazard." The fine is $450. The District enforces it when a complaint is made — which means when a neighbour notices.

An owner in Vancouver does not find out that a back door has been forced until someone tells them.

Sandy Hook and Tuwanek

North of town along Sechelt Inlet Road are Sandy Hook and Tuwanek, with about 640 permanent and 200 seasonal residents. They began as water-access cabins. The District's own plan lists "vulnerability of the area for emergency services due to the single road access." The fire chief told council in 2025 that these two neighbourhoods are "of concern" because of "the travel time, topography and vegetation of the area (not to mention one road in and out)."

During the November 2024 windstorm, BC Hydro said outright that customers "north of Sechelt in the Sandy Hook and Sakinaw Woods area will be without power overnight" because of "extensive damage and access challenges." In the February 2025 snowstorm, the RCMP closed Sechelt Inlet Road north of the Porpoise Bay campsite for most of a day. A wildfire started near Sandy Hook in September 2025; it was small and it was held, and it was "suspected to have been caused by humans."

What the town does well

Sechelt has the only fire department on the Coast with career firefighters on duty — three on shift from six in the morning to six at night since January 2025, with a standby crew overnight. Response inside town is measured in minutes: six minutes from the call to the truck on Porpoise Bay Road in August 2026. The town has a piped water system with hydrants. The hospital is in town. The RCMP detachment is on Teredo Street.

The fire department's own rule for the parts of Sechelt that are hard to reach is to plan ahead. That is what a scheduled check is.

The census

The 2021 census counted 5,738 dwellings in Sechelt and 5,128 with usual residents — 610 with nobody in them on census day. Median age is 57.6; 37 per cent of residents are 65 or older. Since 2023, un-hosted short-term rental of a secondary residence has not been permitted in Sechelt, so the summer cottage that once had guests every weekend now has none.

What a check in Sechelt covers

Every visit follows the same list and produces the same photographed record:

• Every door and window, including the ones the street cannot see; garage, shed, gates
• Vehicles, boats, trailers, e-bikes, tools and anything a thief can carry
• Heat on and holding; no smell of gas, smoke or damp
• Water: under sinks, the hot-water tank, floors and ceilings
• Roof and gutters from the ground; trees on the house or the line
• Mail, flyers, and anything that says nobody is home
• After a storm, an extra visit; in Sandy Hook and Tuwanek, as soon as the road is open

Every visit is logged with the date, the time and photographs, and sent to you the same day. That log is what your insurer asks for, and it is the answer to a bylaw complaint.

Most home insurance policies require an empty house to be checked at set intervals during the heating season — often within four days — by a "competent person," or the water shut off and drained.

What it costs

A scheduled check is $55 a visit, plus $10 travel. The travel charge is the same everywhere between Gibsons and Egmont. There is no minimum term and no joining fee. See the full price list.

Where these facts come from

Every figure, date and quotation on this page was taken from one of these. They are listed so you can read them yourself.

1. Statistics Canada, table 35-10-0063-01 — Crime Severity Index for the Sechelt RCMP municipal police service and for British Columbia
2. Coast Reporter, 2026 — the District of Sechelt RCMP statistics for 2025
3. Coast Reporter, November 2025 — the Sechelt third-quarter RCMP report, and the detachment on repeat offenders
4. Coast Reporter, 2025 — suspicious fires in Sechelt up 300 per cent in four years
5. Coast Reporter, September 2025 — career firefighters, the rise in call volume, and the chief on Sandy Hook and Tuwanek
6. Coast Reporter, 6 August 2024 — the Porpoise Bay break-ins, the shed, and the garage window
7. Coast Reporter, February 2025 — the Surf Circle break and enter
8. Coast Reporter, February 2022 — the Seawatch evacuation, and the break-ins and vandalism that followed
9. Global News, September 2026 — two Seawatch houses burned, and the limits on the fire department in a closed neighbourhood
10. District of Sechelt — the bylaw library, where Property Maintenance Bylaw 522 and its 2022 amendment 522-2 are listed
11. Coast Reporter, November 2024 — the windstorm, and BC Hydro on Sandy Hook and Sakinaw Woods
12. Statistics Canada, 2021 Census — District of Sechelt, dwellings, occupancy and median age

Checked 11 September 2026. Newspaper and government pages do move. If a link no longer works, tell us and we will find where it went.