Wing Mirrors broken of Cars

Deadalus

Hey all,

Ok so this is really starting to become an issue round my area. I live near ice house hill and have done for about 19 years. To date we have never had any issue with anti-social behaviour but over the last few months whenever we (the residents) leave our cars parked on the street over night at least one of the cars on the street will probobly have its wing mirrors smashed come the next morning.
Only a few of the residents have driveways and have no option but to now park there car up the town and then walk up to it the next morning or risk it been damaged during the night.

I know people would say I should stay up all night looking out the window until I catch who is doing it but it can happen any night of the week. For example last Tuesday night two cars where done and will cost over 200 euro to fix both. It might not happen again until Sunday night or something. I can no longer afford to keep replacing my wing mirrors but I have no choice.
Sorry I'm starting to ramble but I am so annoyed by this, I mean WTF is the point in doing something like this to people.
I have informed the police and they said they will put extra foot patrols and stuff in the area but there is no way they could just dedicate a team to watch my street every night.

Is this happening to anyone else in the town? Any suggestions on how to counteract this or what to do about it?

Sorry for the length of the post. Nearly turned into a rant.

mickmcgee

Sorry for your troubles,, Hard to deal with these guys as you will need to catch them at it,
Is cctv possible,
It happened to my van a few years back in Woodbury gardens after leaving it at a friends house to go on the pi$$ .

Local ford gararge, ,49 euro plus vat.
Rooneys scrap yard, 10 sterling,, sorted.

mickmcgee

event

if you can, set up a video camera facing out towards your car

or put up a sign, saying CCTV now in the area, might deter them

rugbyman

Deadalus,

Believe it or not the Guards sem to have upped the ante in Dundalk. I have never seen so many Garda on the street and on Bicycles.
Its not much immediate help to you but it may help in the near term.
Rugbyman

MellHell....

If its so irregular in both nights of the week and anybodys car.. I would be thinking........its some body whos drinking during the week or weekends and coming home late and striking out... or some angry teenager of some sort ( and theres a lot of sorts ). These people are probably using that street during the day aswell. Id be keeping an eye out.CCTV hooked up to the laptop on motion detect or park the car outside the front of the house and leave the window open a bit and you ll hear him...... Then chase him down.................(bring the woman just in case)..........

Deadalus

Ok heres an update lads.
So last weekend the girlfriend heard some noise outside about 12:30 and I got up and looked out the window. There right beside my car where about 10 lads with sticks and everything. I would say they where about 15 or 16 year olds. Anyway I wasn't gonna go out of the house and start shouting at them as there was 10 of them after all. Rang the guards and they said they would drive around the area and keep an eye out.
They moved on before the guards got to the street but next moring we got up and two cars on my street had had there rear windows smashed in!!!! Anyway the guards didn't get anybody that night but they have def started to spend more time around the area.
I'd say the fact that the lads probobly caused about €500 worth of damage that night alone the guards are starting to take it pretty seriously. It's been quiet round the street ever since so hopefully thats the end of it.
Little fu*ckers!

positron

I really totally hate these hooded criminals! I think anyone calling them 'anti-social' or 'teenagers' or anything like that is just doing them a service, and being very lenient on them, and causing rest of the society to look leniently on them. They are criminals and that's all they are. It doesn't matter they are someone's son or someone's brother. They are criminals and should be dealt just like that, and their age should never come into picture.

Apologies for that rant. I would second the suggestion of video camera earlier, or set up a webcam at your window looking out to the public space (there might be privacy issues if your webcam is capturing neighbours property, so just point it carefully). And if you have broadband, stream it online, so that the whole town can see what crimes are being committed and may be by who even.

I sincerely hope the increased Garda presence works for you!

TopBombing

It's a fairly common occurence all over town.

I've had to replace both wing mirrors recently, both broken in different areas of town. First incident was not too far from where the OP is and after that left the car in the Seatown area and the other mirror was smashed off.

Pretty much impossible for the Guards to prevent, and unless they are seen doing the damage no one will ever get charged with it.

soups05

sorry for your trouble op,i have friends who lived round there for awhile and they loved the area. if it any help the local aldi are stocking a cctv camera for €50 next thursday. hook it up in a front window and connect to a dvd/video recorder. if nothing happens then no problem. if something does the you catch them on tape.

a word of warning though. dont expect the local gardi to proscute them as in my experiance they wont want the paperwork.