Tolerance to crime

[eliot-ness]

Unless you're thinking of moving to White Island You'll just have to get used to it. I'm living in a small village, population about 150, no exit road, 7ks from Snell's Beach. Should be safe enough there you'd think. No chance. The local s##t heads are willing to walk that distance in the early hours of the morning for no other reason than to trash mail boxes, public toilets, cars and anything else they can get their grubby hands on. It's become an accepted part of life, we just have to live with it.

[Toaster]

Solution - having a garage up a long driveway with a good alarm system.

As for roadside parking - sucks... carparks... suck too.

Wilful or reckless damage is an offence and people should be done for it or at least own up and pay for it.

[Grahameeboy]

Solution - having a garage up a long driveway with a good alarm system.

As for roadside parking - sucks... carparks... suck too.

Wilful or reckless damage is an offence and people should be done for it or at least own up and pay for it.

Well I guess your bike can only handle straights so a looonggg driveway is ideal for you.

But you must be right cause Lake Road is a long driveway.......

[bobsmith]

Seems like it's expected in most parts of New Zealand..... Sad....

Strange. I lived in the Shore for 7 years and of that time I had my car parked on the road everyday for 3 years... Never got broken into there... I moved to palmerson north and within 1 year and a half, I've gotten broken into 4 times.... gotta get out of here....

[ManDownUnder]

AAAAAAAA you need a batch of scumbegone

Recipe (serves 5, approx 20 mins prep time)
Water (plenty)
Bucket (x1)
Flour
Handcuffs x 5
Friends x 5
Big bit of card or plywood
Paint
Brush
Pizza
Coke
Old rotten tomatoes - free from local grocer (aka Pig food)
Photographer
Balaclavas (1 per friend - optional but effective)
Friendly Journalist

1. Paint a sign "low ife theiving scum - and free tomatoes!"
2. Park target car down road, away from any easy association with you house. Leave windows slightly down
3. Eat pizza, drink coke with mates while quietly waiting
4. Don Balaclavas. They're optional but help with anonymity, and putting the shits up the little bastard
5. Outnumber said scum, and handcuff them a lamppost. They don't mind sharing at all. Try cuffing feet too if they get boistrous.
6. Take photos of their faces. Make sure you get nice clear shots identifying their faces, as well as full body shots. Take your time - they're not going anywhere.
7. Add water, by the bucket full. Pour it on the keenly waiting low life scums. Don't get it on yourself - makes the next step very messy.
8. Add flour.
9. More Photos
10. Put sign close, out of reach, next to tomatoes
11. Allow passers by to assist, ensuring tomatoes are "vigorously applied"
12. More photos (no inocent faces please)
13. Walk casually off.
14. Find PC, write a short note describing the incident. Save as "Readme.txt"
15. Burn note and photos to CDs.
16. Post CDs to Friendly Journos, TV3 and anyone else willing to discuss the incident (talkback radio perhaps - or the paper?)

That's it from memory... if you've done it right they'll be done in about an hour, the cops will show up and set them free while pissing themselves laughing.

[ManDownUnder]

Vigilante..!

There's no way I can condone that... (Tui?)

[Paul in NZ]

Thank goodness you don't live in levin...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4059394a11.html

Seriously - we got to DO something about this petty crime stuff. Its NOT petty and it seriously affects peoples health and well being.

Cheers

[vifferman]

So I’m now having to decide whether to move house so that I can get some sleep without listening out for punks on the street. Am I being too intolerant of crime? Is this kind of frequency normal? Any ideas?

Well, Mr Squeak, we live in a very nice area (there are multimillion dollar homes at the end of our street), and can do stuff like leave our house unlocked, or the gargre door wide open (both unintentionally), usually with no consequences. However, we are still subject to various crap anyway.
Examples:
Our house and my son's car (which lives on the road, as we have no driveway) get egged every so often.
My son's car was rear-ended by one of two cars racing around the neighbourhood. Luckily the handbrake is all but useless, and the car was pushed about 20m up the road, absorbing some of the impact. Still cost $2800 for repairs, and the dickhead responsible took off.
Son's car has been vandalised a couple of times: once it had something thrown at it, or was whacked with a piece of wood, as it now has a dent with white paint on the door.
Some dickhead kept putting the garden hose in the fishpond late at night and turning it on. A security light over the pond is apparently no deterrent. So, we took to disconnecting the hose. Last week, he/she/they chucked the whole hose reel in the pond, took the top part of the fountain off, and threw it in the neighbour's garden. Why? He/she/they also destroyed the neighbour's two-day-old letterbox. Presumably, it was a lot of fun doing this?
Some kindly person left their dead car battery next to our garage for us to dispose of.
A car down our street had the side window smashed. Others have had bottles thrown at them.

These are all trivial things, but they're still of the "why the fark would anyone do things like this when there's no way in hell I'd do this to them!" variety, and are blardy annoying.

I don't think it would matter where you lived, as the tards are now so mobile. If they don't live in your neighbourhood, they'll visit it.

[Dilligaf]

Reminds me of something I read not too long ago about a family who had a working fridge but they had upgraded. They wanted to give it away so put it on front lawn with sign, "Free to good home" No takers... a week later put on a different sign "Fridge for sale $50" It was stolen the next day.......

[Squeak the Rat]

Should've sent in Sue Bradford,she can handle them with cuddles

Yeah, I do wonder whether the kids had too much or too little discipline at home....

Reminds me of something I read not too long ago about a family who had a working fridge but they had upgraded. They wanted to give it away so put it on front lawn with sign, "Free to good home" No takers... a week later put on a different sign "Fridge for sale $50" It was stolen the next day.......

Might be something in that.... I used to leave my car unlocked outside a flat in Mt Eden after some one broke the lock. For 6 months it never got touched.

[Grahameeboy]

Reminds me of something I read not too long ago about a family who had a working fridge but they had upgraded. They wanted to give it away so put it on front lawn with sign, "Free to good home" No takers... a week later put on a different sign "Fridge for sale $50" It was stolen the next day.......

I am sure that was a coincidence but funny all the same........guess theives don't live in good homes eh?

[buellbabe]

Well I live in 'da Bronx'...thats Manurewa to the rest of you. A few years back it was the official 'crime central' according to Insurance Companies. Dunno if that has changed but I 2nd what Toaster said.
I live in a nice cul-de-sac up a long shared-with-one-neighbour driveway. My property is alarmed, I have 2 big dogs that WILL have a piece of ya in the middle of the night. They do not like having their beauty sleep disturbed thankyou!
Never had ANY probs. Only one house in the street has ever been done and it was 'friends' (!!!) of the family...nice.
My alarm has gone off occasionlly when I am not home (cat shut accidentally shut in) and my neighbours have gone and checked things out...

Get to know your neighbours and get a garage... or a BIGGER garage.

[slimjim]

fuck it aren't just auckland................. watched -waited after phoning police!!!!!!!!!!! thirty minutes after my first call they turned up, young lad's gone by that stage, reported four youths , blocking up car and taking two mag wheels off a honda car! board daylight at 11oclock, o well one try's ............

[Grahameeboy]

fuck it aren't just auckland................. watched -waited after phoning police!!!!!!!!!!! thirty minutes after my first call they turned up, young lad's gone by that stage, reported four youths , blocking up car and taking two mag wheels off a honda car! board daylight at 11oclock, o well one try's ............

Why didn't you shout out at them....may have scared them off......they would soon run.............it works cause I tried it once and the look on the guys faces when I caught them.

[peasea]

We get damage to vehicles on the Shore, thefts too, it's an issue all over this god-foresaken greater Auckland region. If it's not the 'southern' low-life's coming over the bridge to pilfer coz they think we're all wealthy, it's the spoilt brats crapping in their own nest coz they're bored, drunk, drugged up or all three.

What do you do? There's no easy/quick fix.

I caught some vandals red-handed a couple of summers ago and we called the cops. They were onsite pretty quickly but I knew there would be lame penalties for the perp's. I gave one of them a few short, sharp shocks and maybe that's against the law but he and his mates haven't been back. I think the cops knew what I'd done and maybe the kid blabbed, I don't know but I was never charged with anything.

I'd do it again too. More quick justice is needed instead of soft-cock counselling, diversion and suchlike. You get harsher penalties for speeding than you do for wrecking public/private property. You can't balme the kids, they have no boundaries.