HOUSTON -- A Houston couple fed up with crime has asked the Guardian Angels to help make the Bayou City a safer place, KPRC Local 2 reported Tuesday.

Jeff and Christine Schmidt, Sharpstown residents, called the grass-roots anti-crime group after they got fed up about hearing gunshots in their neighborhood.

"It's like a bad war zone. That's the only way I can describe it -- constant bullets," Christine Schmidt said.

"We were sitting around on Christmas Eve and it started early. And we said, 'What are we going to do? We can't take it any more,'" Jeff Schmidt said.

The Guardian Angels will answer the Schmidt's call by coming to Houston Jan. 17, after visiting its Dallas chapter.

"They're visible. They're right there in the public," Christine Schmidt said.

The group told the Schmidts to start a petition to get neighborhood support for the idea.

The Guardian Angels was formed 26 years ago by Curtis Sliwa to fight crime in the Bronx. The group has 41 chapters nationwide, as well as in Brazil, Canada and Japan. It has approximately 5,000 members, officials said.