Came home to... *update*-Post 9

[agnes!]

oh GOODY, some (Halloween-spirited I suppose)miscreant decided to twist our DirecTV dish practically to bits while we were away for a long weekend AND DirecTV is undergoing some system maintenance tonight SO we don't have any TV reception AND DirecTV had NO idea of when we'd get a new one (because of the aforesaid system maintenance) AND I also can't figure out *if* it is possible to get ANY signal through our now somewhat-straightened dish (it's in our yard and has never been bothered since it was put up several years ago).

So, what was the worst vandalism *you* ever came home to when you went away for vacation?

Grrrrrr.
agnes!

 

[jlima]

Can't top that.

We have a satellite antenna thing on our roof; it's a square panel on this pipe that stick up from the roof. The winds were so bad last week that it blew over; and the internet company had to come & put it back up. No internet for two days. Grrrrrrr . . . had a cranky DH.

 

[JohnsPrincess]

Really the only vandalism I can ever remember going through was about 8-9 years ago, living ON BASE, at Christmas. Some kids (I assume) RIPPED the Christmas lights off my house. They were the ones with the clips and all the clips were broken off, etc. *sigh*

 

[AprilShowers]

Don't you hate it when people do things for "fun" that are destructive and expensive for the victim?

Our vehicle was "keyed" while parked on the street in front of our house, planters stolen off the front porch, for sale sign ripped out and thrown on the front porch, car broken into and misc. stuff stolen twice!
We don't live in that neighborhood anymore.

 

[dawson5]

woke up to find dog feces smeared on my front door. That was lovely. Haven't come home to anything after being away though.

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

My dad was selling an old Fiat convertible that was in the barn when we bought their house. Some kids flipped it over in the middle of the night.

What ticked me off most was the fact that they were kids I knew from school, they had issues but I was always, always nice to them. What a way to pay me back for my kindness, huh.
One supposedly has his life squared away now but the other I see walking the streets all drugged out.

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

DH and I went out to a school function. DD was home with a babysitter. She called and told me that it sounded like something was hitting the house. It was windy so I told her that it was probably the slate that I had hanging against the house and it was banging. Told her to stay inside with the babysitter and just ignore the noise.

DH got home first to find the house had been paintballed. He called the police. They came out only to tell him that they had been tracking the kids all night. Apparently the whole neighborhood had been hit. He powerwashed the house before I even got home. And it was 11:30 p.m. when he got home!!

 

[laurie31]

oh GOODY, some (Halloween-spirited I suppose)miscreant decided to twist our DirecTV dish practically to bits while we were away for a long weekend AND DirecTV is undergoing some system maintenance tonight SO we don't have any TV reception AND DirecTV had NO idea of when we'd get a new one (because of the aforesaid system maintenance) AND I also can't figure out *if* it is possible to get ANY signal through our now somewhat-straightened dish (it's in our yard and has never been bothered since it was put up several years ago).

So, what was the worst vandalism *you* ever came home to when you went away for vacation?

Grrrrrr.
agnes!

The worst thing that we came home to wasn't technically vandalism, but we had hired someone to come over twice a day to let the dogs out, clean the cat boxes, bring in the mail, and newspapers, etc.

We came home, and yes, our mail and newspapers were inside. But DH's cousin lives two doors down from us and while we were gone, she had told DH's mom that we had a bunch of newspapers piling up in our yard, and didn't we know that was an invitation to theives...um yeah. That's why we HIRED someone to bring them in. Apparently she just showed up the night before we were to return and brought them all in. She also hadn't bothered to do anything with the pets. The dogs were in the kitchen, and we literally had to replace the floor after that. It was like a lake, an OCEAN of pee in there. And the cat boxes were filled beyond capacity. It was SOOO gross!!

Just what we wanted after a long day of airplane travel. Finally to get home, exhausted and ready to go to bed, and then have to clean litter boxes and mop up urine.


As far as actual vandalism, some teenaged boys got drunk and decided it would be fun to go to a cemetary and destroy grave markers and headstones. They did $1600 damage to DH's ancestor's graves alone. Thankfully, they were caught, convicted, and ordered by the court to pay restitution, which they did. We had paid for the repairs ourselves (home owner's insurance doesn't cover your family's graves - we found that out) and people told us we'd never get that money back. It took several months, but we eventually did get the money. Sadly, one of the headstones could not be repaired (DH's great-great-great grandfather's ) and we had to have a replica made.

 

[agnes!]

Guess what? My FABULOUS DH fixed the dish! When we came home last night, when I went out to investigate I had pointed the dish facing the correct general direction and while I was out running an errand DH adjusted it and Houston, we got a picture!

Yay! Now I get to call DirecTV and tell them we don't need that service call after all (which probably would have ended up costing us $$ even though we've had the same dish for the past 8 years).

laurie31 - sorry for the pet surprises. We haven't had any since our one cat passed away a while back. He used to jump up on shelves while we were gone and inevitably ended up breaking some china or something similar. (And my sympathies on the graveyard vandalism...I hate it when cemeteries are desecrated.)

The other posters here - Wow...dog feces? That took a lot of hard work. and paintballing?!? Why? What is the point! sometimes mean/careless people just plain *suck*.

agnes!

 

[momrek06]

OP, sorry about the DirecTv dish. Idiots.


For laurie31....
Call your newspaper and STOP delivery while you are gone. Here I can do the LATimes and OCRegister all online....very easy to do. Why would you want to have the paper delivered while you are away....you aren't going to read them all when you get home, right, then just but a vacation hold on them and it extends your subscription a week longer.

And as far as the kitty and pooch go....PET MOTEL. My DS has a kitty and kitty goes right to the Kitty Motel every time DS travels.

Three words....PEACE OF MIND!!!!

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

Agnes - glad DH was able to fix it! I love handy men!!!

 

[Pooh_Friend#1]

I came home from vacation to find my lawn furniture stolen. They only left one chair and that was because the matching foot rest was in the back where they couldn't get to.

 

[HM]

There have been a couple houses egged in our neighborhood.

We've been pretty lucky. Our only problem is that our mailbox has been knocked into/backed into twice (meaning a$100 replacement the first time...and not sure what we'll do this time). No one will fess up....but we're pretty sure that our across the street nieghbor's visitors have done it.

 

[funkychunkymonkey]

I dont trust ANYONE but my family with my fur babies so ive never had the pet suprize. There going to go to grandmas when we go on vacation. I guess the worst was comming home to find out that the dryer pipe poped off and all the lint (and spiders) were all over out landury room! ICK

 

[AntePrincess]

Worst thing I ever came home to was dropping by to check on my parents' home for them while they were on vacation: someone had dragged a Christmas tree from the curb up against their car and lit it on fire. The car was, of course, a burnt out wreck. Whoever was responsible was never caught, they did it late at night when the whole neighborhood was asleep. What a lovely surprise.

 

[BeachGirlFLA]

The worst thing that we came home to wasn't technically vandalism, but we had hired someone to come over twice a day to let the dogs out, clean the cat boxes, bring in the mail, and newspapers, etc.

We came home, and yes, our mail and newspapers were inside. But DH's cousin lives two doors down from us and while we were gone, she had told DH's mom that we had a bunch of newspapers piling up in our yard, and didn't we know that was an invitation to theives...um yeah. That's why we HIRED someone to bring them in. Apparently she just showed up the night before we were to return and brought them all in. She also hadn't bothered to do anything with the pets. The dogs were in the kitchen, and we literally had to replace the floor after that. It was like a lake, an OCEAN of pee in there. And the cat boxes were filled beyond capacity. It was SOOO gross!!

Just what we wanted after a long day of airplane travel. Finally to get home, exhausted and ready to go to bed, and then have to clean litter boxes and mop up urine.


As far as actual vandalism, some teenaged boys got drunk and decided it would be fun to go to a cemetary and destroy grave markers and headstones. They did $1600 damage to DH's ancestor's graves alone. Thankfully, they were caught, convicted, and ordered by the court to pay restitution, which they did. We had paid for the repairs ourselves (home owner's insurance doesn't cover your family's graves - we found that out) and people told us we'd never get that money back. It took several months, but we eventually did get the money. Sadly, one of the headstones could not be repaired (DH's great-great-great grandfather's ) and we had to have a replica made.

I definitely think this is the worst thing I've read on this thread....did the poor dogs and cats have anything to eat while you were gone? If somebody did that to pets I owned, I don't even want to think about how angry I'd be.

 

[Deb Quen of Colorado]

The worst we ever came home to was after our last disney cruise. The neighbor watched the house while we were gone, the dogs went to the kennel so it was just basic keep your eye on things. Turns out her teen age daughter treated our home like her private party house. All the tvs had been switched to mtv stations and blairing, all computer were used and had interesting web site logged. Beer in the fridge, smoking on the back porch, beds just a little differently made then we do it. She went thought drawers and everything. Mom and dad had no clue, none.

The worst was I lost a friendship. parents did nothing, no punishment or anything... and that same weekend we got home the daughter trashed their car and was arrested for open container. she got zero consequences for that as well. We ended up re-keying all the locks and changing the garage door code.

 

[JerseyJanice]

Wow, that is a really horrible thing to come home to! Your house/pet sitter sounds almost as bad as the vandals.

I guess we've been very lucky over the years. We never came home to any vandalism; we did have one incident during the night while we slept. Some kids stole the jack o'lantern off our porch and smashed in the street in front of our house. They did the same thing to every house on our house. It was messy looking and probably hazardous with pumpkin goop all over the street, but thankfully, it happened only once.

Sorry this happened to you. I hope you find a better sitter for your next trip. Sounds like your pets were probably hungry too, poor things.

 

[LindaG4458]

In NH we got up one morning to find eight tires slashed and our lawn furniture missing. Our neighbors behind us had the same. One of our non-resident neighbors didn't like association restrictions about partying and such and hired someone to do it. He was caught with evidence by the police chief but he snatched it away from the chief and destroyed it. Then he accused the chief of making up the story and fabricating things against him. It was a fun court battle. The neighbor ended up having to move out of his condo and rent (then sell) it. He paid a large fine (as did his fellow miscreants) and had a police record (something he desperately wanted to avoid).

We recently found out that he was caught in MA (a very strict gun control state) with an unregistered, loaded handgun under his front seat (not a smart move on his part). He served 14 months in jail. It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

 

[momrek06]

We have never had any vandalism at any of the homes I have lived in. There was one incident in one of our homes that to me was minor but made DH angry as he is the resident landscaper......

We had a verrrrrry long driveway, house set way back on the lot. DH lined the driveway with those HUGE whiskey barrels and filled them with all sorts of lovely flowers. Very pretty.

One night some kids decided to dump the one barrel closest to the road over. DH came out in the morning and was angry.

DH decided to fill the bottom of the barrel up with cement...then layers of dirt and dirt and then replanted the barrel with all new flowers.

NOPE, lived in that house close to 15years....that barrel was never overturned again.