Adding my own bit of neighborish issues based on the topic of apartment/condo living and trying to get police involved with vandalism etc.
Since last fall, my condo complex has been plagued by this group of 5 or 6 teenagers who live up a neighboring street, they'll hop the fence to get in and out. Well, they've started hanging around the garages here, which is hard to give a visualization, but the buildings are 4-plex and under them is the garage area, with a 7 foot wall at the end that goes up to ground level. Anyway, these kids will often be hanging around these garages, hopping up and down the wall, which at first didn't bother me, but what had me suspicious is they would bolt the moment you even walked in their general direction (even when walking my dog, etc).
Well one night, before I saw these kids for the first time, i accidentally left my garage door open (or something tripped the laser to cause it to go back up) - typically i didn't keep my car doors locked because of the garage, but when i went down the next morning to go to work, i noticed the door was open, which was a bit of an "oops" moment, i didn't think much about it, my neighbors for the most part are cool and i trust them after being here long enough. Anyway the second concern was once I got in my car, it was telling me the passenger door was ajar, and this is never the case. I don't have passengers often in this car except maybe a few times a year. But I also don't keep anything of value in it that wouldn't take some effort to remove, and nothing was missing.
However, maybe a few weeks, I checked my other car, which is a bit of a beater, and it's doors were also ajar, and the battery was dead (cabin lights were on from it) Well, luckily i kept a portable jumper kit, however, it was missing. I figured maybe it was in the garage storage closet or back in the house and I forgot i was recharging it or something. Nope. So now when I start seeing these shady kids, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.
Apparently, these kids have also been seen throwing mudballs at cars and other vandalous shit, issue is, with how they bolt when somone potentially sees them, I'm finding it difficult to be able to call the police. Which ironically, there's a cop who is lazy and has a speed trap set up on a nearby street (not theirs) but he doesnt move from that spot and doubt he has an interest in anything but meeting his ticket quota.
The only positive i've got out of this is taking advantage of the kids willingness to run. I came home from work one day to see them in my building's garage area, so I turned on the brights and floored it while blasting my horn, trying to emulate a moment from Christine or something. I'll tell you something is hilariously satisfying about watching some teenagers, including a chubby one try to scramble up this wall like a bunch of terrified cats. It of course didn't solve anything long term, I just didn't see them for a few weeks after that, then winter came, but now that it's warming up, they've been seen again.
We have a security guard here, but he can't do anything other than call the cops, and these kids tend to hang out near fences they can hop over for a quick escape so it's difficult to figure out exactly where they live.
