Be it a prank or something more sinister, the sound of paintballs smashing against houses and cars in Charlo on Sunday night left residents in a frenzy.For some, the incident put a damper on the Easter longweekend.As a suspicious vehicle caught on a security camera in Justin Road sped away, a final shot – this time from a pellet gun – was fired through a lounge window.Atlas Security operations manager Monty Montgomery said visibility in the Port Elizabeth suburb would be increased to deter further vandalism.Stan Swart and his wife, Lorraine, spent much of Monday morning cleaning up fine shards of glass.The couple said they were annoyed that they would now have to foot the bill to replace their lounge window.A case of malicious damage to property was reported to the Walmer police station.Swart said he had been sleeping at about 11.15pm when he heard a noise.“I listened and when I heard nothing further, I went back to sleep,” he said.The next morning, Lorraine discovered the damage.“Our blinds were closed and so [the person who shot] would not have been able to see if one of us had been sitting in the lounge,” Swart said.“If the pellet had hit one of us in the head, we could have been seriously injured, or possibly even killed.”A few houses away, Amanda du Plessis said she and her two children were petrified when they were woken up by a loud banging at about 11.30pm.“It was so loud we thought someone was violently knocking at our front door,” Du Plessis said.“I started screaming and told the children to remain in the house.“I then sent a message to our neighbourhood WhatsApp group.”She said within five minutes, three response vehicles were on the scene.Du Plessis later discovered that five paintballs had been fired against her living room window.Another neighbour, Levi Barnard, said he heard a shot and a car revving as it sped away.“I was worried that the [perpetrators] were checking movement inside the house so I immediately cleaned the paint off,” he said. Barnard said it was the first time something like this had happened in his neighbourhood and that he found it most upsetting.Several other houses in the area were also targeted during the course of the night.On the neighbourhood WhatsApp group, a resident in Leslie Road said his van in his yard had been peppered with paint.A photograph sent to the group shows at least seven orange shots to the back of the van.The window of a BMW in Bayly Street was also smashed when a paintball was fired at the car.Montgomery said houses had been similarly targeted in Mount Pleasant towards the end of 2018.“My personal guess is that youngsters living in the area are responsible but we will continue to monitor the situation.“We do appeal to parents to step up so that we can gather information,” Montgomery said.Video footage taken from a security camera outside one resident’s house shows a white car, seemingly a Polo, speeding in Justin Road at 11.25pm.No other vehicles are in sight.