A man was attacked with bear spray after opening the door of his Winnipeg home to a stranger on Sunday night.

Emergency crews were called just after 9:30 p.m. to the home on Sheppard Street, near Mannerley Way, in The Maples area of the city.

A neighbour told CBC News that someone rang the doorbell of the home several times and when the man answered it, he was sprayed in the eyes.

The man started screaming and crying, according to neighbour Kirandeep Brar, who said she went outside when she saw the emergency vehicles.

Other members of the man's family told her what happened, she said, adding the attacker ran off.

A man helps the victim of a spray attack walk out of a home in The Maples on Sunday night. (Cliff Simpson/CBC)

There were a number of other people in the house at the time, several of them children, police said, adding many of the others also suffered some effects from the spray.

The younger ones were sent to hospital as a precaution, where they were treated and released, police said.

The house had to be evacuated for the spray to be cleared out so the city's major incident response vehicle (MIRV), a converted transit bus used for emergencies involving large numbers of people, was brought in to shelter everyone.

That same night, somewhere between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., another man was attacked just a few blocks away.

Police said the man was walking to an apartment building from his car when someone sprayed him. It happened in the 1200 block of Jefferson Avenue.

Police said they don't know why either man was targeted or whether the incidents are connected.

"I'm just so scared," Brar said, noting she often comes home from work at night and the idea that someone is randomly attacking people is frightening.