Be Excellent To Each Other

Yes! More problems with this house! Our road is a shortcut to scumsville and our house is right on the street - literally two metres from my front door to the footpath.

Pretty much every night for the past month or so, a gang of scrotes wanders past around 10pm. They throw stones at our front room window and usually bend the wing mirror back on our car. I've adgetated the problem by having the gall to look out of my window a few weeks ago when a stone hit it. This seems to have spurred them on. Now they do it every night.

Now I'm not adverse to taking a baseball bat or a fist or two to some chav heads, but there's a lot of them! Plus that'd only result in more trouble.

Tonight I heard them walking last again bouncing a football. Wouldn't you know it, the football hits our window. Hard. So I rang the police and explained the situation and the direction they were heading, but I'm not holding out much hope.

What the hell can I do? These are the sort of people who can't be reasoned with and likely couldn't give a shit about the police either. My current plan is to ring the local station tomorrow and explain the full story. But what can they even do? They can't exactly stake out my street, can they?

I've thought about going out there and taking photos of them and threatening them with the police, but I'd probably just get pummelled, right?

Christ!

They might go away if you ignore it, although it may take a while. It sounds cowardly, but there seems little point in getting biffed up and making yourself even more of a target in future.

Ignoring it is an option, but it's only a matter of time before the wing mirror is ripped off the car or the window is smashed.

In!

on a serious note, is there any discrete way you can record

Call the Police back and say that you want to talk with an Inspector, tell him you want some police presence down there or you will go to the press.

A Police car there for a couple of nights we sort it out, (well it will no doubt mean they go and do this elsewhere)

Also contact the council and your MP.

There is a drive to change the law on this sort of behaviour, so it’s worth pushing it

Don’t go out there even if you kick the shit out of them, they will be back with more or you will get arrested whilst they all get new Xbox’s to mend their hurt feelings

... blinking tapatalk...

is there any way you can record, perhaps from an upstairs window and very discretely, what is happening, especially if they come by each night?

Also, is it only your house they do this to, or your neighbours as well? Can you get your neighbours to also talk to the police? Start a petition, maybe?

I'm not sure! I think they were doing it to everyone until they saw me looking out through the blinds. Now they've focused their fire!

Keep a (subtle) ear out for any other neighbours being targeted. Park your car on the other side of the road and look to see if they cross over specifically to your car. And keep records to present to the police.

Very sorry to hear that, WTB. All I can think of is to talk to the neighbours in the street and contact the local police rather than the emergency number.

As a last resort, buy a big bag of balaclavas and round up a mob of BeeX heavies (I’m sure there are plenty who would be willing to help out for the price of two pints and a bag of chips….I think Mimi has already volunteered…).

Me? Haha, nope! I'm the least confrontational person in the world, sadly But I've always found local police to be very helpful and understanding, so pursue that line. Also, it might be worth going to the police station and asking to speak to someone face-to-face. Get a crime number.

Also, look up local Neighbourhood watch schemes run with police support. It is what they are there for.

Police probably can't do anything, even if wing mirror is bust. If you can get a webcam & get some faces then it may help slightly. Problem is, even if the police build a file on harassment, it is unlikely the CPS would charge unless you had incontrovertible evidence. Even then, it is unlikely the offenders would face any punishment. However, if you had pics it would be likely the police would recognise them instantly, and if you are lucky the officer may try to help you phrase your complaint in such a way as to get more attention (i.e. if you hear a scrote calling you gay then it means it gets counted as a hate crime so you get more attention)
I recommend reading 'Wasting Police Time by David Copperfield' if you want an insight into how screwed the police are. They would love to help in your situation but will probably know they can't do much.
I had the same situation (end house by an alley) and had stones, footballs, even eggs chucked at the windows. We just ignored them, and they never actually caused any real damage.

Yeah I think my best bet is to chat to the police and maybe see about setting the video camera up tonight and leaving it to record for a couple of hours.

I imagine they're known to the police because these people usually know the officers by name in my experience. If I can just get a clear shot of one of them that'll be it surely? Any trouble and the police know where to go, right?

I'm not arsed about getting them charged or anything - I'm not that naive! But at the very least if I find out who one or two of them are, they're not going to do it anymore because the police will be knocking on their door.

At the very least, I've learned a hell of a lot about choosing where to live!

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I hope it resolves itself soon.

There is some advice here from the goverment

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/CrimeJustic ... /DG_181715

My previous house was at the bottom of a long cull de sac, despite large signs at the top end of it a regularly stream of idiots would walk all the way down to the end to be presented by a wall which they would climb over.

After some bricks came off the wall some of us complained to the council who repaired the wall, put anti climb paint and also planted some prickly shrubs.

After a year these measures worked so well the local chavs started jumping over my fence instead, breaking my plants. I had those pretend Police come around who told me that if I was to paint my own fence with anti-climb paint I would to put signs up everywhere to tell the chavs there was paint on the fence!

In the end we moved house, this was a big part of it

Bloody hell! Thanks for all the help anyway folks. But keep the stories coming, this is interesting regardless!

Well, you have my sympathy. When we lived in The Hood our street was a short cut from the pubs and fast food joints on the main road back to one of the more 'lively' areas of Cardiff. As it was in an area with traditional victorian terraces our front door opened directly on to the street so we knew about anything that was happening.

We had our fair share of shit from the scrotes, cars damaged mainly along with some pretty violent fights. To be fair though, the street did have some student houses on it so a lot of the shit came from them. The difference being of course that generally you can speak to the students and tell them to pack it in or fuck off. The scrotes - not a chance. As soon as you stick your head above that parapet, you mark yourself as their next target.

My advice is to be sensible. Resist the urge to escalate it in to scrote smashing rampage. You're the reasonable one, you will get in to far more trouble for assaulting one/all of them. It is incredibly difficult to resist this urge but once you've had the gratification of burying a a nine iron in one of them it's incredibly difficult to deal with the shit afterwards.

Make sure to keep a log of all of the incidents, times, approximate number of people, descriptions, heights, builds, clothes they were wearing. There's a strong chance that if they're pissing about on your street they're doing it somewhere else too.

Speak to the PCSO/desk sergeant at your local police station tell them the situation. You are being harassed, your property is being damaged. We used to have a 101 service (999 for non emergencies) and they were very good. More often than not we would get a police car out who would sweep the area and make sure that these scrotes were sent on their way home.

Also, just make sure that neither you nor Mrs WTB are out in the street when you're expecting the scrotes to be around. Sounds cowardly but stay away from them.

Sorry to hear about this WTB.

As everyone else has said, don't wade in.

Best of luck with it WTB. It really depresses me to read about stuff like this. Some people are just cunts.

"'Us' and 'them'" said someone at work the other week.

You have my complete sympathy, WTB. I had never, ever been a victim of crime until I moved into my current house, and I now have been more times than I'd care to remember. Short recount:

-garage wall half-pulled down
-parked car smashed into and then left (twice)
-garage door kicked and ruined
-Mrs Metal and I set upon by chavs and beaten up

Those are just the ones where the police got involved. Like you, we live on a decent street that unfortunately is along a route for feral scum to get back to their nesting grounds. Someone down the road was murdered by one of these mindless chavs.

On every occasion the police have been sympathetic but without pictures of the perpetrators there's no evidence for them to go on. They've also admitted they've had stuff happen to them or their families, and that they're understaffed.

You have to resist the temptation to peek out at them as that's good enough to count as a reaction, might be too late for you. Perhaps if you don't react again, they'll lose interest and disperse their efforts again?

EDIT: Followup to the murder: Can't be named because he's 17. Poor woman.

Bloody hell Perkies! Sorry to hear about your trouble. And yeah, I'll be ignoring them from now on. Hopefully they'll get bored. Seriously thinking about moving elsewhere soon anyway. This place is expensive considering the aforementioned problems and the paper thin walls!

I would do what afish said but also keep a diary of everything that goes on. I hope it gets sorted soon! It's so unfair that idiots like this can make life miserable for people.

You're obviously sick of noise from the neighbours and this bullshit from chav assholes isn't something that you should be putting up with so, assuming you're renting, just leave and be done with it man.

…and be thankful you're only renting. Fuck it.

Probably not especially practical, as I'm assuming you guys are out to work during the day, but if it were at all possible, I'd get a brace of Rottweilers. Nothing disperses/frightens chavs more than a couple of snarling, enraged and unleashed Rotties, in my experience - they can't be reasoned with either!

In 10 years here, we've only had a bunch of drunken twats turn up late at night once. Suffice to say they did not return.

Horrid little bastards; making people's lives a misery. Where the f*** are their parent(s), need I ask? Personally, I would birch the little shits and/or compulsorily enlist them into the Army, and punish their parents/guardians also as well as them. If their benefits were stopped, perhaps then they would take some semblance of an interest as to what their little darlings were actually getting up to night after night.

Or patrol around your garden at night acting like a dog.

You don't own the house? Unless you've signed a 100 year lease, STFU or leave.

While by my own admission I don't live in the most salubrious area of Nottingham, we've had very very little bother at all. *touches every available wooden surface* The worst we've had is snowballs thrown at us as we walked from the tram stop to the house. I'd hate to think what we'd do if we had neighbours from hell, as there's no way we can move out in the foreseeable future.

We rented somewhere where the neighbour was horrible. We didn't renew the lease - simple!

It's costly to move house even if you rent.

See my edit.

But at what price happiness?

Well that's for WTB to weight up.

If you rent, you can move (at a cost), but there again, why should you have to? Why can't the Police ensure reasonable security/living conditions for ordinary, law-abiding people who pay their way and just want to get on with their lives in peace? That's what we bloody pay them (handsomely) to to do; perhaps if a few of 'em got off their arses and stepped out of their police stations/sacked off form-filling/got out of their Range Rover 'Vogue' spec motorway speeding camera vehicles etc., people like WTB might be better off.

Besides, what about those people who have - shock, horror - bought their own houses and can't just upsticks? If all the decent, normal people who can leave do so, what's left for them?

It never ceases to amaze me the kind of ridiculous shit that we in this country are prepared to accept; anything rather than to face the facts of the situation & grasp the nettle. (See also the recent riots, which numerous right-on types liked to characterise as some coherent protest or other, whereas in fact it was nothing more than an explosion of lawlessness and greed, fanned by the sheer cowardice and ineptitude of the various authorities charged with keeping law and order. Etc.)

The police use BMW X5s now.

The poor fuckers (normal plods not the motorway ones) have Hyundai i30s round here.

I don't think anyone's suggesting WTB should have to move, only that it's probably the lowest-stress solution to his current problems.

Oh sure, I'm not having a go at anyone for suggesting he should move - that's almost certainly the most pragmatic option. I'm only making a much broader observation about why that seems to be true for him, and no doubt many thousands of others caught in the same dilemma, through no fault of their own.

Cavey for president.

LULZ

Thanks anyway dude!

The grandparents were national serviced and birched. They then brought up their children to bring their children up like this. lesson there, somewhere. I'd make them read the Bible a bit.

The Police service is different from area to area. Where I lived before, they only ever sent the pretend police around if you had an issue. Where I live now there are posters on notice boards on the street and in shop windows showing who your local police are with numbers.

There is also a presence as well, I see a car doing the rounds a few times a week. As a result there are few problems, the odd group of merry people going home late at night and making a bit of noise but that’s it.

It's utter fucking bullshit that it's the easiest option but, well, it is the easiest option. Not least because he's got other issues with the house anyway.

Um, this is all assuming WTB is renting which I thought he'd mentioned before but if no one else thought so then maybe I've just made it up?

I think he is, as we deffo weren't invited around for a housewarming party.

I had that too a few years ago. I threw some back, we all laughed, and then we both went out seperate ways.

I suppose if they did it maliciously, that's another thing.

We'd been in town shopping and were laden with bags. Ange had just had her hair done and we asked them politely to stop throwing them at us, as we were basically defenseless. They carried on regardless and Ange got really angry with them, which just made them do it more. Then they started being little sweary shits so I chased them away.

What everyone else said, basically.

And be warned, it's only going to get worse, because those fuckers are breeding, and we're not.

If they're coming by every night at similar times, the police absolutely can do something about them. It's pattern-free ASB they struggle with.

If the whole street doesn't like them, get the lot of you out there, ready and waiting, with as many friends shipped in as possible. Strength in numbers, just standing there, arms folded, looking unimpressed, will be sufficient to have them pick a different street to hassle.

These people are cowards.

Patience, my friend...

http://www.theroot.com/buzz/incurable-g ... -spreading