Mélissa Malo lives dangerously.

Early Monday morning, a minivan drove into her apartment, on the corner of St-Antoine and Lacasse streets. It smashed a hole right through the brick wall of her front room — and it's not the first time this has happened.

The Saint-Henri woman says her apartment has been driven into four times in six years, and she wants the borough to do something about it.

Malo says on Monday, she and her children left 20 minutes early for school — a decision she thinks could have saved their lives.

This is the hole the minivan made when it smashed into the building, ending up in Mélissa Malo's kitchen. (Mélissa Malo)

"Usually, my kids are sitting right there — in the kitchen — where it happened," Malo told CBC later in the day, back at home.

She got a call from her neighbours about the crash at around 7:40 a.m., returning home about 15 minutes later to find police and firefighters on the scene, no power in her kitchen and a gaping hole in the side of her apartment.

"There are kids living in these homes and old people. And it could have been my babies," Malo said.

The first two times vehicles drove into the corner building was before Malo moved in three years ago. She was told there wasn't much damage.

But the third time it happened, when she and her children were living there, the damage was as bad as this time, Malo said.

A city inspector came to evaluate the incident, and Malo said she asked him to make the borough take measures to prevent it from happening again: some kind of barrier like cement pillars in front of her home, warning signs or flashing lights to slow down traffic.

St-Antoine sidewalks also a danger zone

Even though her children are nine and 10 years old, Malo says she walks them to school every morning, taking a detour to avoid St-Antoine Street because it's so dangerous.

"Some people are driving on the sidewalks," Malo said. "Maybe someone is blocking one or two lanes, and they want to pass, so they drive with two wheels on the sidewalk."

The borough said in a statement its traffic department is going to study the area to see what can be done to make it safer.

"The result of our analysis will help us decide which measures could be implemented," it said.