This is a FOAF story. Once upon a time there was a guy whose car was targetted. So he had the car repaired. When the car was returned, he lay in wait underneath the car, armed with a baseball bat. Sure enough, the robber returned. And got a beating.
This, of course, is illegal in the U.K. - I don’t know about America.
A friend of mine was once eating in a restaurant and the police came in and asked if any owned a brown mustang. My friend replied that he did and was taken outside and shown his car. A semi, tractor trailer, went out of controll and plunged of the interstate and after flying over the service road, landed on my friends car. The car was a complete loss.
“Otto-moblie” <snerk>?
Well, it would depend on the state, but I’m pretty sure it would be illegal in most of them. I doubt you can just lie in wait outside your house for someone to show up, even in Texas. IANAL, though.
Legal or not, Bill has seriously thought about it. Which is why he’s not joining any more associations for now…he’s too busy Lurking.
Got one for ya. Parked my car - which is about 12 years old, but is my baby and I take really good care of it - on the street at a friend’s house as we played a little music. It was a little wet and cold outside, but then it really starts to come down, probably about three inches or so. Jam session is over, so I head to my car. First weird thing I notice - my door doesn’t open. Then I look over and notice my driver’s side mirror is smashed to shit. Then I notice a ginormous bash in my front driver’s side fender. As if someone took an aluminium can and kicked it in…
No note, nothing. Nobody saw anything (it was snowing and nighttime). I can’t ever remember being angrier than that day. I mean, I live in Boston, I expect to get my bumper tapped when people are trying to parallel park, etc. But what kind of low-life causes that kind of damage to someone’s property without leaving a note or something? I’m not an asshole, I would have worked it out with the person instead of calling his insurance company or whatever… Shit, he/she had to really have been moving at quite a speed to cause that kind of damage.
I hate people.
Anyway, Otto, hope you catch the fucker and get a chance to knee him/her in the balls/ovaries (metaphorically or actual). Car-fucking-with is the lowest level of criminal activity, like stealing candy from babies in prams or pushing people out of wheelchairs. Spotty youths trying to show how they’re “sticking it to the man.”
Once I was walking with my cousin and she dumped her sticky soda all over a Mercedes. I was like, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” She responds, “People who have cars like that deserve to have people throw shit at their car, they can afford it.” I told her she was a fucking idiot and a jerk… Saw her at a family reunion a few years back… and she drove there in her husband’s car… a FUCKING Hummer. Boy, I wish I had a sticky soda in my hand right then…
URGH!
Oh, Otto, I so hear you. My store had its logo in nice, big vinyl lettering put up on the window last year. My store happens to be situated beside a dance studio. The box-toed little brats that come and go from the dance studio have gradually picked and peeled away the letters so that my art store is now simply called ‘Ror’. How do I know it was them? Because I caught the little darlings in the act several times. How I’d love to know who they are so I can charge them/their parents for the cost of new signage, because those vinyl letters cost the department over $200.
OK, I’m stumped.
Does an auto-erotic entanglement always end with blood being spilled?
I’m thinking back to that song from the 1970s, but I don’t remember the name, it had the chorus “She came and took me by the hand. We made love to my Chevy van and that’s all right with me”. Did they lose a bunch of blood?
I think that Troy’s sentiment (and mine, too) is that car alarms which go off for a “casual loiterer” (or when the wind blows), but which will not stop a “determined vandal” do absolutely nothing to protect your car, but are an extreme annoyance to anyone within earshot.
Ah! OK, understood. It’s an adjustable alarm; it doesn’t even go off when the train goes past, unlike two neighbors’ cars. Certain young (former) residents of our neighborhood were known to go around trying door handles, though, and this proved useful.
In fact- since no one ever goes out to check on their car alarm, they are worse than useless. There was a car that was always parked outside my window. It had one of those alarms that would go off when a truck drove past. 5th or 6th time that happened, I made a crudely printed sign that said “IF THE ALARM GOES OFF ON THIS CAR ONE MORE TIME, I WILL SMASH THE WINDSHIELD SO THAT AT LEAST ONCE IT’S NOT A FALSE ALARM”. They apparently both dialed down the sensitivity (or got a new alarm) and moved the car down a half block. Since then, it’s gone off only once, I think, and that was during a windstorm when tree limbs were being torn off, and dozens of alarms were going off (all being ignored by their owners, of course, but at least there was a reason).
In Santa Monica, if your car alarm goes off and there is no real cause, you’ll get a ticket. 
I hate car alarms almost as much as I hate my car being fucked with. Almost.
Yes, I have one, but it only goes off when my car is broken into- or when I, like a moron punch the wrong damn button, but at least I am right there and turn it off super fast. :smack:
Does it make you dudes angry when idiots put those flyers on your windshield? Does that count as “fucking with the car”?
A few years back my mom had a Dodge Caravan with a really crappy tape player in it. We had very little money at that point, but my sister, my dad, and myself saved up and got her a CD player for it for Mothers Day - not a super good CD player, but she could listen to her music.
Not two months later, someone bashed in the back window and stole the thing. She was heartbroken.
Someone has been syphoning gas from my car. This is weird because my car’s gas door locks and the cap locks, too. There’s no damage so I can only assume that this person either somehow got the keys to my car, or is a very experienced lockpick.
It seems really stupid to syphon gas from my car - I only have a nine gallon tank. Go hit up my parents Econoline - it’s got like a seventy gallon tank.
~Tasha
My SO had his (company) car broken into by some bangers who apparently thought they could start it by hot-wiring (they can’t) and in anger they tore up the dash. The neighbor saw them in the car and called the police. Twenty minutes later the neighbor looked out and saw them still in the car. He didn’t know whose car it was (company car changes often) but he did call the police again. Police never came. Next day, SO called the cops to report and they said drive the car down so they could see it. It doesn’t run, he said. Oh. Then he went to the police station to take the cops the tools (his tools) that the dumbfucks used to tear up the car and told the cops they might have fingerprints. They said well, you have to bring them in on Thursday morning when the fingerprint tech is in. (chain of evidence???) I love LA. I don’t even blame the cops; they’re short of help and there are too many car thieves/vandals in town. I blame…who do I blame??
Given all of these stories of people losing their stereos/cd players…
Where exactly do these things go? Not that I’m in the market for a used stereo, but if I was, where would I buy one? What could they possibly be worth?
I am guessing pawn shop, but are there other markets for these products? Doesn’t the pawn shop owner notice the obviously poor condition of the stereo, with the torn wires, bits of dashboard, and screwdriver scratches? “I’ll give you 5 bucks.” hardly seems worth the trouble. And who is buying these stereos to create such a demand?
Sorry about your car. That stinks.
Yep. It seemed like you considered a “casual loiterer” (as opposed to a potential thief) to be someone who should be shooed away. Of course, I live in SF, where anyone casually loiting* near a car is bound to be on a public street, where they have every right to be.
*-Yes, I know that “loitering” is the proper word. I just think this one sounds funnier.
Check the tank itself. There’s another thread on the board somewhere about someone who found a hole in their tank that people had been syphoning gas out of.
Flea markets and garage sales, among others. I think that the thieves also get off on just plain vandalizing, as well. The one who got my husband’s CD player certainly had to spend a lot of time and effort to get into the car, much more effort than the item was worth. If only s/he had to pay for the damage…
I think you hit the nail on the head. I’ve changed my stereo in my own car with an aftermarket model, and it took some time. I realize that if I wanted to dig the stereo out and play “beat the clock”, I could have done it more quickly, but I would have hosed things majorly.
They must like the thrill of vandalizing and the excitement of perhaps getting caught. The stereo must be a trophy. I’d never buy a used stereo at a flea market or yard sale. I wonder if they end up in the nearest dumpster.
The damage to your husband’s car sounds excessive. That truly sucks to have to pay for that (insurance or not). To not have your car for a week is an annoyance. I think I’m joining the previously mentioned club.
Tank’s fine. 
It’s one of the first things I checked, because I thought at first that it was a leak. My dad and I took the entire tank out to look at it.
I put a piece of scotch tape on the door and when I came out in the morning it was busted open - they didn’t even bother to remove the tape! I’m still really curious as to why they’d do it to my tank and not the gigantic van across the street (my parents) that has a huge amount of gas that won’t be noticed if a little is missing. As it is we’re thinking of mounting a watch - we have like ten people in this house, we can mount a watch. I’m not the only car getting hit, but mine is the most perplexing case.
People who steal shit from other people are assholes. People who fuck with other people’s shit should have a special level of hell reserved for them.
~Tasha
Do you have someone to record the ‘watch’ on tape?
Have you contacted the police. If you know about what time it might be happening, they might be willing to steak out with you. Or, if it’s a small town (I’ve done this for other things, BTW). Call the 911 dispatcher (the non-emergency number). Explain the situation to them, and that it would be very helpful if they could have a squad in the area, so that when you see the person, you’ll call 911 and they can have the cop there within a minute or so.