Milwaukee -- Darius Jones, 19, is accused of more than 24 home burglaries in Riverwest. Eighteen of those incidents occurred within 21 days.

Area residents are surprised to hear the news, telling CBS58's Laura Rodriguez that the neighborhood is safe.

"I didn't know that was going on, I'm pretty surprised," said Travis Utke.

Many homes in Riverwest have open doors and open windows, especially during summer months, but police say this is the most common form of entry for a burglar.

"Lock your doors and windows," Milwaukee Police Officer Brain Matte said. "That's a huge problem, that's probably half of the cases that we get here."

"It's summer time, people are going to leave windows open, I do it all the time," said Utke.

On July 17th a couple saw a suspicious man looking into the windows of a house and reported it to police. Thanks to the "Safe Street Initiative" officers were patrolling the area and arrested Jones within minutes.

"This is one of those particular crime trends that we noticed popping up, so our lieutenant decided to initiate this," said Milwaukee Police Officer Kevin Matte.

Police say Jones has cooperated with the investigation. He primarily stole electronics.

Darius Jones is charged with 2 counts of burglary and bail jumping.