Here we go again.

[randomness]

About 3:40AM I heard a thump and crunch outside, followed by what sounded like male teenage laughter. By the time I got out of the house and to the car, they were gone.

I took a look at the car. "I hope they haven't smashed the driver's side mirror," I thought. They hadn't.

What they had done is to take a baseball bat to the rear window, leaving a smashed rear window, a dented rear corner pillar, and probably damage to the rear door itself.

I called the police. About an hour later a cruiser came by with officer K. Thomas. He said that usually when kids went around playing mailbox baseball there would be a string of damaged cars and mailboxes, and while he hadn't seen any on his way around the neighborhood he figured there'd be some reports in the morning. We agreed that the damage was likely over $2000. He also agreed with the idea of waiting until morning before moving the car. If we move it the broken glass will just fall in, and we'd like to be able to take photos of it in daylight for the insurance company.

I guess I'll find out if the insurance adjusters work Saturdays.

Photos to follow after the sun comes up.

Comments

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Grr!

I saw a couple of teenagers over in Somerville knocking down construction sandwich boards--I watched to see if they did the one with a light and/or next to a car and since they didn't, I didn't call the cops. But this kind of stupid vandalism really pisses me off.

Are you on The Arlington List? I mention it specifically because a message alerting people that this happened is traditional there, but also because I think you might enjoy it. It's pretty high volume, but you have the option of setting it to "no mail" and checking it out on the web at your leisure, or you can shunt it into a separate gmail label and just delete all unread if you get behind (I read mine whenever it hits 50 conversations and usually find 3-4 that interest me). After a couple of decade of having my community defined largely electronically, I find that matching an electronic community to my geographical one has made me feel much more connected to where I live. And it's great for advice on service people, ways to buy/sell stuff cheaply, information about local news/issues/elections.

And, again, my sympathies on the current violation and its attendant hassle.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

This happened out in Holyoke, not in Arlington.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Aha! Well, good to know.

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Is it bad that my first thought, upon finding out this had happened in front of my house, was, "good thing I'm planning on buying one of those swing-arm mailboxes?"

I think this street is just a good place for mailbox baseball, which I sort of already knew. But now I'm looking out the window every time I hear a car. There have been some pretty bold burglaries on this block in the last 2 weeks, too. It's actually reassuring when r_ness happens to be around and is up for much of the night.

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

Is it bad that my first visualization of "swing-arm mailboxes" was "Ooh, a quintain! Perfect!"

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

So, the last time this happened it was my passenger side mirror being torn off on Willow St. in Somerville. That was clearly vandalism because it was on the side away from the street, by the sidewalk.

That may have been the same lot as the sandwich board people, or it may not.