Chavs, youths, neds, whatever. They seriously need to be sent to an island to be used as bombing practice by the RAF, or set loose in a Bolivian prison or SOMETHING to sort them the fuck out.
It was twenty to eight this evening, and I was just about to take my homemade jerk chicken out of the oven for dinner. Kate was finishing up washing the dishes. I heard shouty voices through the open kitchen window (not uncommon, everyone from chavs to little kids to adults to families walk down the lanes here, no good reason why mind you, they don't save you any time) and then incredibly loud metal banging. We both looked out the window (which faces the back garden and the garage) and through the garage window I caught a quick glimpse of a sliver of sunlight.
I ran upstairs, grabbed some keys, put on sandals, and went out into the garage to investigate. Sure enough, there was a large dent in the bottom right hand side. Closer inspection revealed that the little wheel mount (these wheels guide the door up a track mounted on the frame) was bent at about a 45 degree angle - still attached to the door by some distressed screw holes, and also still sitting in the track. In each bottom corner are metal plates that the bottom of the door comes to rest against - the door had been kicked with such force it's been knocked PAST the plate and now rests against it on the wrong side.
We ate dinner without even noticing due to anxiety and I immediately called the new non-emergency police number, 101, and gave my details. Ten minutes later as I was trying to work out if I could fix the damage, a proper copper called back and took the whole story down. I pointed out there's a small workshop (he must have been using Google Earth or something as he seemed to know every location I was describing) at the far end of the lane with a CCTV camera. It almost certainly isn't angled high enough to see my garage, but it certainly will see people walking down the lane. This, the cop conceded, was probably the only thing they had to go on, and 'this is the age we live in I'm afraid'. I got my crime reference number and that was that.
I can't really fix it. To get it back in the right position would need the righthand corner of the door popping back around this metal plate. Given the amount of force needed to get it where it is now, I can't very well kick it back into place. A crowbar or something might be able to lever it around, but I'm not Gordon Freeman. And removing the plate altogether is impossible as, while I have a socket that fits, it only fits into a crappy plastic screwdriver head that I can't get anywhere near enough leverage on to actually loosen the three bolts that hold it in place. So it'll have to stay like that until I can get a garage guy out to have a look at it. Ironically, the door is now impossible to open, which means while I can't get out, nobody can get in either.
Nevertheless, I'm sitting here feeling really, really anxious, especially as I was more or less witness to it. I don't know if I'll sleep well at all and I just can't understand what the point of going around kicking someone's garage door off one of its hinges is. The worst case is they want in to either break into the house or steal my bike or something. The more likely case is that it's the last friday of half term week and, drunk and frustrated, 'youths' saw the door as something to vent on. It's covered in graffiti anyway (and has been more or less since it was installed a year ago) but this is too far.
Not happy.