339 Eureka Ave Pickaxe Gang Strikes Again–Did Boris And Natasha Send Them?

339 Eureka Avenues' Boris and Natash

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Stephen Ames Berry

12/22/21 Last week, Amir Covic, aka Boris, listed both 339 and 330 Eureka Avenue for sale. 

Herkimer’s 339 Eureka Ave Pickaxe Gang struck again on D-Day, invading vacant vandalized 337 Eureka, their leader wielding his signature pickaxe as he further ravaged a portion of the rear border fence we share with 337. We’re wondering if Boris and Natasha sent them.

The shaggy-haired blond middle schooler first attacked the old wooden fence on 5/12, kicking out a few panels, then watched from next door at 339 Eureka as Linda Kaidan mended the damage with materials on hand, sharing a few fence repair tips with him as she worked. He said nothing, but judging from his method of attack on 6/6, he listened well, carefully deconstructing her repair by first removing the key vertical iron fence posts before ripping and bashing the weakened horizontal sticks. 

Job well done, he gave our surveillance camera a defiant two-handed finger salute and turned away with a scowl. He and his three cohorts, one his younger clone, hung out in 337’s thoroughly vandalized backyard for a while. Here’s the video:

Video Timeline

0:01       5/11/21 Both boys at home at 339 Eureka. Younger one retrieves ball from our yard.
1:05        5/12/21 Both boys in yard of 337 Eureka.
1:52                        Older boy kicks out fence slats.
2:42                        Neighbor mends fence as older boy watches from 339 Eureka.
3:22        6/6/21   Both boys in yard of 339 with two others. Older boy knocks out more slats.
4:12                        Older boy begins demolishing mend to fence made on 5/12 by L. Kaidan.
6:49                        Older boy finishes job with pickaxe. Salutes our camera with two fingers.

First Sighting

5/11/21 First sighting of Pickaxe Gang member, here seen trespassing in your battle-scarred yard
5/11/21 First sighting of Pickaxe Gang member, here seen trespassing in your battle-scarred yard, ostensibly chasing a stray ball. The desperados operate out of 339 Eureka Ave.

We first sighted a Pickaxe Gang boy on 5/11, when their youngest member came chasing a ball into our yard. Slipping through our gang-ravaged fence from the  child trafficking lot side, the kid reclaimed the ball and skillfully kicked it over both fences and back into the yard of 339 Eureka, giving our closest camera a glance. 

339 Eureka Avenue Long A Suspect Property

We’ve long marked 339 Eureka as associated with local gang chief Stanley Sykes and associate Carrie Ann Bass, the most recent gang to have trafficked kids and drugs out of adjacent 341 Eureka. Sykes, Bass’ putative father-in-law, had access to 339 during his years at 341 Eureka. Bass still may—she has but to walk next down Eureka Avenue to be off of our cameras. (I suspect Bass serves as the gang Airbnb host for 339 Eureka.)

The only times 339 Eureka has shown any signs of life is when kids, fleetingly seen, quickly come and go from there.

We’re in the midst of a national housing shortage–Herkimer properties are becoming gold, yet 339 Eureka is still vacant most of the time.

Amir and Selma Covic – Owners of 339 Eureka Avenue

339 Eureka has been owned by Amir and Selma Covic since 2014. They also own 330 Eureka Avenue. We overlook the backyard and deck of 339 and have for almost eight years, but we’ve never seen the Covics, either in the flesh or on our surveillance cameras. We’ve taken to keeping their photo, marked “Boris and Natasha,” on the wall beside our surveillance cameras’ monitor. Smart money says we’ll see Boris and Natasha at 339 long before we see Amir and Selma.

339 Eureka Avenue owners Amir and Selma Covic aka Boris and Natasha
339 Eureka Avenue owners Amir and Selma Covic, aka Boris and Natasha

339 Eureka Avenue – A Child Trafficking Hold House?

We’ve been including 339 Eureka Ave on our Child Trafficking Hub maps for years –we call it a  Hold House: a house kept empty and held for use at need by traffickers, but not occupied by them. We’ve also been suspicious of equally vacant 337 Eureka, its owners concealed through ownership by a New York corporation.

Herkimer child trafficking hub as of 4/18/18
Herkimer Child and Drug Trafficking Hub as of 4/1/18. 339 Eureka, to the left of 341 (white lettering) is noted “Sykes Controls.” Sykes has since been replaced by daughter-in-law Carrie Ann Bass.

Adults Seen at 339 Eureka

We’ve only ever seen three adults at 339 Eureka. Most recently, there was a brief glimpse of a blonde-haired woman on the deck with the two young vandals. In 2017, we saw Little Mama come and go from 339. She had open access to the house. Little Mama was Jay Smith’s child trafficking tenant at 341 Eureka before Stanley Sykes and his local gang moved in. We alleged elsewhere that Little Mama was a child trafficking conductor, working the regional territory of a transnational child trafficking cartel. Unlike the local gang, her management was organized, disciplined and perceptive, and pulled out once we mounted our first camera. 

The third adult seen at 339 was in 2017, a brief clip captured on an old ip camera of a tall blonde woman partying with Sykes and cavorting with kids in the backyard of 339. 

7/20/2017 Mystery Woman with Sykes Gang and at 339 Eureka
play-sharp-fill

7/20/2017 Mystery Woman with Sykes Gang and at 339 Eureka

…nighttime backyard poisonings grew to a frenzy the closer our trimming came to 337 and 339 Eureka.

Poison gas has been blasted into our front and backyards over the years. The backyard gassing, we now believe, was to keep us from looking too hard at 339 and equally empty 337 Eureka. It’s had the opposite effect–it attracted our attention. So, this year we finally had the time to do something about it. We blasted back with lights, trimmed the vegetation and plastered the yard with cameras. 

augmented backyard security lighting 328 Pleasant Ave Herkimer
Augmented backyard security lighting 330 Pleasant Ave Herkimer.

The nighttime backyard poisonings grew to a frenzy the closer our trimming came to 337 and 339 Eureka. We awoke some mornings to a yard saturated with a gaseous, flesh-searing caustic redolent of a meth bake. (It’s Herkimer–we know the smell.) Our backyard was a World War I battlefield. We broke out the gas masks again.

poison gas attack apparel
2017 – The author trimming a tree in front his house on Pleasant Avenue, wearing what every Herkimer activist blogger needs: Hazmat suit and P-100 gas mask.

Only when we cleared the last of the undergrowth and overhanging limbs obscuring the 337-339 border fence did the attacks slacken. Then came Pickaxe Boy.

Herkimer poison gas attack injuries
4.15.21 Contact rashes and blisters from toxic surfaces in our backyard

Did Boris and Natasha send him? Or did he and his co-vandals just slip off the reservation? The afternoon of 6/15/21 Carrie Ann Bass unwittingly told us.

Carrie Ann Bass – Herkimer Child Trafficking’s Airbnb Host?

Carrie Ann Bass, Herkimer NY child trafficker
Carrie Ann Bass, Stanley Sykes Gang drug and child trafficker

Early that afternoon, Carrie Ann was overheard on her cellphone being reamed out by someone for her failure to prevent the Pickaxe Gang from vandalizing 337 Eureka. And just as I was finishing this article.

Phone Call Proves Suppositions

      • Carrie Ann Bass is the gang’s short stays hostess for 339 Eureka. 
      • She let the lads of the Pickaxe Gang slip off the reservation.
      • Her client is very displeased.
  • Vandalism reported to the Herkimer Police, with videos. (Officer Carbone.)
  • We’re still watching for Boris and Natasha. 

Author: herkimerblog

This blog is my perspective on dwelling in our small village nestled among beautiful forests, farms and open landscapes. Educated in Israel and the US, I have an MS in Computer Science. My viewpoint has been shaped by world travel, friends and benefactors both strangers and people I know. Linda Kaidan