tompaulco's Journal: Annoying thugs

I've seen the movies where kids play "mailbox baseball"; driving down residential streets smashing up mailboxes with a baseball bat. I always thought that was a irresponsible, stupid thing to do. I mean, for one, it is a federal offense to interfere with the delivery of the mail. For another, it means that several people are going to have to get a new mailbox, even though they shouldn't have to, and even though they may not be able to afford to.
I thought that I would be immune to this, since I have a brick mailbox. But alas, I suffered from some derivative of mailbox baseball. During the night hours, what would almost certainly have to be several people, knocked over my brick mailbox. It would have been no easy feat, as it is about four feet tall, and 2.5 feet square. Someone would have had to both knock it loose from it's mortar, and then lift it up before pushing it back over. It obviously wasn't hit by a car, as the mailbox was knocked back toward my house, not along the street in either direction.
I can't understand the mentality that considers this "harmless pranking", as it quite obviously does harm to my budget, which is thin already, and also causes me unneeded stress with my family, and leaves me feeling violated and vulnerable.
Our whole society has a problem wherein the law abiding have to pay the cost for both upholding the law, and for the consequences if the law is not upheld. I feel it is unfair that I should have to pay for someone else's damage to my property. Why don't we just charge all the criminals that have been caught doing crimes like this, and pay for their damage out of that money?
We should make criminals pay for their own room and board in prison, pay for the legal system that brought them to justice, and recompense all the people that they hurt. Sure, it seems harsh, but of course, criminals always have the option of not committing crimes. It's not like anyone ever steals to survive anymore. The reason people steal these days is because they want stuff that they can't have unless they are willing to work for it.
I wish I could afford a camera system at my house. It seems like every couple of months, somebody vandalizes my house. If I could catch them on video, maybe I could get them thrown in prison. Seems harsh, but once again, nobody forced them to vandalize my house.

bored little hoodlums

[Bill Dog]

It seems like every couple of months, somebody vandalizes my house.

Wow, do they do it to everyone's house in the neighborhood? Unfortunately kids will be kids. And I don't mean by that to excuse them, but to say that you can't escape it. I live in a townhome complex nestled in an area of literally million dollar homes. Even in this extremely nice area, the kids of rich parents still clobber mailboxes (happened to my folks a few months ago), put gum on cars (happened to me just last night!), spray grafitti,

Re:bored little hoodlums

[nizo]

A friend of mine had a problem with people playing baseball with his mailbox, so he bought one of the huge mailboxes, and a small one that fit inside. He then proceeded to pour concrete around the smaller box inside the big box. He never had to replace that mailbox again; he did find wooden baseball bat splinters around his box a few weeks later though :-D

Re:bored little hoodlums

[tompaulco]

Our house is the last one on the way out of the neighborhood, so I think we get more than our fair share. The neighrborhood is not that bad, but there is an apartment complex about two blocks away, and quite a lot of time, the people from that complex walk past our house on the way into the neighborhood. The apartment is definitely a nuisance and attracts some pretty crappy tenants. On average twice a day, a fire truck or ambulance gets called in there for some problem or another.