So I noticed today (Wednesday) that about five bricks and brick fragments were in my backyard. The thing is, our backyard is pretty secluded - it’s got a gate that’s fairly hard to open and cedar planks about 6" high. I don’t have any brick stuff back there, so somebody had to go back in the yard and put them there. I was back in the yard Sunday and didn’t notice them.
They were randomly scattered in the back part of the yard. Now I suppose it’s possible the homeowner behind me might have tossed them over - but I’ve never seen them and that strikes me as rather weird. (As far as I know they’re not building anything back there.) I think they have fairly young children, and maybe they were monkeying around back there at some point or had friends back there. As they were close to the back fence I guess that’s a possibility, which is pretty bothersome… I’ve got a toddler who is out there on a daily basis (supervised), what if one of the bricks had hit him? :mad:
One of my more paranoid thoughts is that someone is casing the house and left them there to heft a brick through a window at a later time. Or it may be to see if we’re careful homeowners and a potential easy mark.
I went out back and removed the bricks, so they’re not there anymore. It just perplexes me how they got back there… any thoughts from the Doper nation? There was a burglary in the neighborhood about 6 months ago, but we think it was an inside job - the homeowner in question owns a liquor store and we suspect former employees knew their schedule and that they kept cash in the house.
Whether or not they were thrown over the fence could be deduced by the indentation (if any) they made in the lawn. If they were just dropped or placed on the ground (your burglary suggestion) then they would’t leave much of a dent in the soil at all. So check that out first.
Also note the color, compostion and size of the brick - can you match it to any of the houses around you?
Isamu, my backyard (in that particular section) isn’t terribly green or well kept. So it’s hard to figure out if they were tossed over.
The houses in my immediate vicinity are red brick. This brick is beige. The houses behind us are part of another subdivision and we can’t get to their side of the neighborhood without driving in a huge circle about half a mile. But I think they’re red brick as well.
Zabali, no pets here. There is a barking dog right behind our house (which would be the likely suspect if it was indeed a hefted brick from another yard). That would be all kinds of weird though, as we’re not loud, don’t do anything obnoxious, and the neighbor behind seems fairly normal. Of course if they have kids all bets are off…
Well, until you resolve it I wouldn’t let the toddler out there (of course you know this, I’m just saying, is all). I agree that it’s probably kids - they do very stupid things sometimes. They might have built themselves a trebuchet or some kind of projectile launcher and they were trying it out. I would introduce myself to the neighbours and have a friendly word to them, see if you can get some information. Bring the brick with you - they might know it’s origin, you never know.
BTW - was the recent burglary in the neighbourhood a “brick through the window job”?
This is unlikely to be part of an elaborate casing of your house. The most probable culprits are your neighbors’ kids. Go over and introduce yourself to the parents, and give them a friendly “heads up” about a problem in the neighborhood. Present it as if you are concerned one of their kids may get hurt, not that you are accusing them of anything. If their kids are to blame, they will get the message, and they will most likely be grateful you are not putting them on the spot. Then, if it happens again, call the police. This is a serious issue when you have a little one playing in your yard.
You just found an outcropping of a brick node. Depending on your zoning, it’s possible that you could open up a small brick mine, if you make sure not to strip mine, and take care to restore the landscape as it was after you mine out all the bricks.
Where they just sitting on the ground, or could they have been in the ground from a previous structure and recently unearthed by weather? Could gets have come into your back yard and been playing back there?
The most likely direction is from your neighbor’s yard so I second this approach. You could also lie and say another neighbor also had bricks in his yard. Maybe the kids are dumb enough to insist they never threw bricks in that yard.
I found a bunch of balls in my yard recently. There was a plastic football, a baseball, a golf ball, and a couple rubber balls. There was also a bat and I found hotwheels cars and toy knights buried in the garden.
