An Ottawa family in Barrhaven is traumatized after a bullet from the home next door went through their daughter's headboard and lodged in the wall of their son's room.

Tracy and Gary Hayball say if their seven-year-old daughter was sleeping in her room Saturday night, she could have been killed.

"If she were sleeping here, she'd be dead," Gary told CTV Ottawa.

"It either would have got her in the head or down her back," added Tracy.

Fortunately, Sydney was having a sleepover in her brother's room that night. The family discovered the hole in her headboard the next morning.

"When I moved her bed, I noticed the hole," said Gary.

There were more holes too. There was one in the wall that joins the home to the one next door; and another on the opposite wall that joins Sydney's room with her brother's. The bullet stopped just inches above her brother's bed.

"We found a bullet, just a small caliber bullet, lying on his bed," said Gary.

Ottawa police say the bullet came from the adjoining townhouse. A 21-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman have been charged with various firearms-related offences.

The Hayball's say the incident has left their children scared to be at home. They won't sleep in their own rooms and they need counseling.

"You make your house safe for your kids. Now, we have kids who don't even want to walk around their house," said Tracy.

Police say the seizure of firearms in Ottawa is up 60 per cent in the last three months over all of last year, and that statistic is worrisome.

According to police, some of the guns are being smuggled into the country and others are being stolen during residential break and enters.

With a report from CTV Ottawa's Joanne Schnurr