Has anybody had their holiday lights vandalized?

[jenrose66]

I have and I'm absolutely heartbroken over it.

My neighborhood isn't the best place in the world; but it certainly isn't the worst. My house is currently for sale based largley on an incident of vandalism that happened this past September where a 31 year old man spray painted a death threat to his girlfriend on my $6800 vinyl fence.

Anyway, alot of my neighbors put up christmas lights and they have never had any problems. I put up lights last year and didn't have any problems...but on Saturday night a bunch of my stuff was trashed. It wasn't enough to just pull stuff out of the ground...they had to actually break stuff.

I had two strings of those candy canes that stick in the ground and all of those were pulled up and completed ripped from their cords and cracked. I had lights along my fence and those were ripped down tied in knots and the lightbulbs were busted...My inflatable tigger was ripped from his air source and thrown (but luckily not broken) and a bunch of red bows that I had tied to my porch were taken. Also one of my extension cords that I use to connnect all my lights together had the prongs completely bent in two.

None of my neighbor's things were touched. My mom says it's because I live in the corner house. I say things like this are inexcusable. My husband wanted to salvage everything as best we could and keep our stuff out. I just couldn't do it. I took everything down but the icicle lights because I know it would just get to me too much if my stuff was trashed again.

I'm trying to make my neighborhood nice; but it's like a few select people can't stand to see anything nice and they just destroy. I'm assuming that kids did this...When I was a teenager I didn't go around ruining other people's stuff.

My husband thinks I'm over reacting and my mom says that there's nothing I could do about it...but I'm just so upset. It is also very violating to know that people are just walking around your property.

I haven't even lived in this house for two years. My aunt and uncle live two doors down from me and they were the ones who said I should buy the house. It is also two minutes away from my mom and literally a block a way from where Jake works. It had everything; a nice double log (which we fenced in and added a pool and a nice one and a half car garage. I knew the area fine before I bought the house since I grew up around here and it was never a bad place.

In the two years since I've lived here there are 2 abandoned houses on my block and property values are plummeting.

I'm so mad because if I sell the house I'm losing at least $10k but if I stay everytime something like this happens I feel miserable. I like the inside of my house and we could easily start our family here...but I'm worried that the longer I stay here the more ghetto it's gonna get and we'll get even less money for the house.

I'm sorry this turned into such a long rant...I'm just wondering how you guys have dealt with stuff like this.

 

[ziggystardust]

I'm sorry you're having to go through this. I don't really think its b/c you live on a corner, I grew up on a corner and never had any incidents.

I really don't have any advice having never gone through this myself. But don't get yourself too upset. Theres not much you can do about it now. Just focus on the good parts of your neighborhood.

 

[#1MMFan]

Oh I'm so sorry. I wouldn't let them totally ruin things for you. If you don't put stuff back up they kind of win. We had our stuff (which is a lot less than most americans put out) vandalised a few yrs ago. A couple of the stand up silhouette figures had their bulbs broken, one large candle with a bulb (it's about 3ft tall) was removed and we discovered it by chance while walking the dog. It was thrown in a garden 2 streets from us... was lying there on its side so we knew it was ours (plus the gravel that we'd put in it to weigh it down was spilled all over the sidewalk). It really is awful what people do these days. Good job I wasn't around when they were doing it.

 

[jenrose66]

Hi guys,

Thanks, for replying. Ziggy, I would love to focus on the nice things about my neighborhood...unfortunately besides convenience for my husband's work and to our families there are none

#1MMFan, I thought about what you said about "letting them win" when I decided to take most of my stuff down. I certainly do not want to let them win, but at the same time, this Christmas stuff isn't cheap and I'm the kind of person that will worry every night about if someone is ruining my stuff. Then if I find that it is ruined it will just really upset me. Plus I'm really starting to think I'm stupid, at Halloween my Pumpkins lasted on my porch two nights before they were smashed. Combine that with my vandalized fence and it is a no brainer that my Christmas lights wouldn't be safe.

It's just really hard sometimes because I'm trying to find the humanity in people...and it just seems like nobody has any respect for anyone anymore.

 

[tiggger1]

my grandmother recently had a bunch of windows ( including her car rear window and her front picture window) with a bb gun, the kids got 10 houses on her street. so my dad bought a outdoor video camera and hung it facing the road. it was only 19.99 and hooks up to the tv and vcr. he bought 2 8 hour tapes and would tape each night and if anything happened he could go back and see who it was...unfortunelty he never caught the kids but he did tape over 15 deer in the front yard one night and there was even a buck fight

 

[SamRoc]

jenrose66, I'm sorry you had to go through this. This happened to us 2 years ago with our Halloween decorations (We live in NYC also) a bunch of kids came to our neighborhood about 10pm and were mad that no one was answering their doors, so they decided to trash everyone decorations. Little did they know that we heard them, and me like a psyco that I am went out and confronted them. I told them I dont go into their neighborhood and break their possessions and that I was married to a cop (i lied) and I was calling him to have them arrested. One of the girls started to cry (fake i'm sure) but i told them if they ever came near my house again, they would be in alot of trouble. they never came back but after this Halloween I was very skeptical of putting any thing out, but I did, I figured these little monsters werent going to ruin it for the rest of the kids. I put alot of stuff out for Christmas this year too, don't let anyone take the Holiday spirit away from you. I actually have a good idea, wrap concrete blocks in tin foil and put big red ribbons around them, then when the little darlings try to kick them, they will be in for a big surprise!

 

[grlpwrd]

My neighborhood isn't the best place in the world; but it certainly isn't the worst. My house is currently for sale based largley on an incident of vandalism that happened this past September where a 31 year old man spray painted a death threat to his girlfriend on my $6800 vinyl fence.

Do you think the person(s) did what they did out of retribution? Maybe they think you were involved with that fence incident.

My huge pumpkin sitting on our porch was stolen this past Halloween. Trivial, but it still hurts to know there are people who just don't care or respect other people's property.

Now I just place my holiday decorations (mostly lights) indoors showing thru the window.

Yes, don't let them win!

 

[MoniqueU]

I am sorry that happend to you.
One year I had my plastic mickey mouse stolen. It broke my heart.

 

[spoon full of sugar]

I also live on a corner and have alot of trouble with things being stolen out of my yard. My neihbors don't have as much problem with this type of thing. Our area has alot of absurd rules for corner lots too, how high your fence can be etc. that don't apply to other lots. I'll never buy a corner house again!

 

[bettyann29]

I havent had any problems since we moved to the home I live in now.. this is our second Christmas here.. but we used to live about 2 streets from here and one Christmas I had my stuff messed with.. We have 2 deer that are lit up with white lights.. one deer moves its head from right to left and the other one moves his head up and down.. we went and got a quick bite to eat one night and left the outside decorations on.. We came back from dinner and someone moved the deer so that the one whose head was moving up and down was humping the other deer, who was shaking his head no!! I got really mad at first but kinda laughed.. It happened again a time or two after that.. the only part that really made me made was that they ruined some of the lights on one of them.. we changed the bulbs and all was well.. I assumed it was a teenager in the neighborhood, but never found out..

 

[jenrose66]

Do you think the person(s) did what they did out of retribution? Maybe they think you were involved with that fence incident.
QUOTE]

Thanks for all the advice. I've had a couple days to cool down and am starting to feel better. Grlpwrd, to answer your question about retribution; it would have nothing to do with that. Everyone in the neighborhood knows that our fence incident had nothing to do with us. My next door neighbor has a 20 year old daughter and she was dating this 31 year old guy. They had a fight and he got drunk drove into the neighborhood and trashed my fence. He then called her and told her he left her a message. She saw the fence and called the cops. She apologized profusely for the actions of her "boyfriend" and I had charges filed against him. It was so embarassing...it took the cops 12 hours to get to my house to take pictures of the "crime scene" so my house looked like a crack house for the day. We were not able to recover any damages and the guy wasn't even sorry about what he did

tiggger1 I am seriously considering putting some video tapes around my property. You get to the point where you have to protect yourself. Right now; I'm trying to look at this as stupid kids and petty vandalism; but how long until that escalates to burglaries or car robberies?

spoon full of sugar, I agree about corner lots. They are terrible. I guess you don't know that until you live at one. Now, if I see a house for sale on a corner lot...I keep right on looking

SamRoc, I actually live in the Buffalo area (when I was looking at colleges I had my heart set on NYU...it just didn't happen). Anyway, the cinderblocks would be funny. Maybe I'll just start sticking straight pins in everything I have outside and then the hoodlums can get a good poke when they touch what isn't theirs.

 

[Planogirl]

We had some teens go around smashing car windows one night. I think that they caught them later but I was so glad that I park my car in the garage!

I'm so sorry that this happened to you. Some people decorate their backyard and maybe you could consider doing that?

 

[we3disneygo]

I too live on a corner lot.....last Oct. all my solar yard lights were taken and smashed in the street a block away.....neighbor saw kids doing it .....we asked parents ! then we had to call police....they did nothing....but it must scared the neighbors because they stopped hanging out by our house.... why can't people leave other people's stuff alone???? we also caught the same kids sledding in our yard when we weren't home!

 

[momof3disneyholics]

I havent had any problems since we moved to the home I live in now.. this is our second Christmas here.. but we used to live about 2 streets from here and one Christmas I had my stuff messed with.. We have 2 deer that are lit up with white lights.. one deer moves its head from right to left and the other one moves his head up and down.. we went and got a quick bite to eat one night and left the outside decorations on.. We came back from dinner and someone moved the deer so that the one whose head was moving up and down was humping the other deer, who was shaking his head no!! I got really mad at first but kinda laughed.. It happened again a time or two after that.. the only part that really made me made was that they ruined some of the lights on one of them.. we changed the bulbs and all was well.. I assumed it was a teenager in the neighborhood, but never found out..

I laughed out loud on that one!

 

[FergieTCat]

My friend tells me that someone put her two reindeer in, shall we say, a compromising position. Her husband swears he didn't do it.

Not sure if that's vandalism, creativity, or a sick mind at work.

 

[picantel]

Last year I put out this huge display and it was all taken. In fact, they missed a couple items and some hooks and I told my wife I was sure they would come back again. The next night I got the video camera and waited for everyone to get to bed and I was gonna wait near the window but they had the *alls to come back at 9 when everyone was still awake. I could not believe it and missed out.

 

[Jeanny]

When I was growing up, a kid from two streets over used to come down and steal our lights.... it was amazing, every year his house had more and more lights. My Dad always threatened to wire the lights so they'd zap the kid when he came to steal the lights!!!!

Nowadays, kids are just rotten. But DON'T let them get you down. I know how expensive the decorations are, why do jerks have to ruin things~ just to be mean, they just don't care!!!!!

Can you just do "inside window" decorations so at least you can still enjoy the festivities???

 

[nativetxn]

It has happened to us and we live in an excellent neighborhood. Kids are just going to do things like that, I guess. Doesn't make it "okay" though.

Katholyn

 

[SamRoc]

Well I had just posted about our Halloween decorations getting trashed last year and yesterday it happened to our Christmas decorations! I can't believe it! Again my dog started to go crazy and luckily I caught one of the offenders, I took his name and school and told him I would call the cops if him and his friends came back to my house, well today the little monsters came in a pack wielding hockey sticks! luckily i was pulling out of my driveway to see them coming down the block. I am sure they were going to do more damage to the block. I waited and watched them and they got very mouthy, but then ran past my house. I then went up to their school and gave in their names, the principal called their parents and now their in deep trouble. I told the ring leaders dad if anything else happens I will have his son arrested, what really stinks is these kids live right here in the neighborhood, they have no respect for where they live. I had to take everything else in that they didnt trash, all I can think I thank God I only have one more year to live here, then I'm outta here!