Escalation
What’s the point in more photos? You already get the idea. It’s all over the place.
This time it was through a very small kitchen window. A very nice and beautiful young woman was in the kitchen at the time. She was hit by the gunk and our evening was ruined. Things have indeed gotten quite personal, now.
A quick search down the dark twists and turns of the neighborhood turned up nothing. Questioning the various groups who stand around at night doing nothing seems to indicate that the two pranksters are apparently well-known in the neighborhood. While no-one would give a name, it seems the two boys live somewhere nearby on Strada Doina.
It was made very clear to everyone that I’ve very keen on catching them. I trust that message will get back to these twin losers. And I trust they’ll have the ego to try again soon, because I’ve got I had a particular idea in mind.
Let’s hope it ends with tonight’s warning and there are no further updates to this topic.
In the meantime, I’ll have to shift-up the timetables on making adequate defensive changes to the perimeter of my castle in order to forestall any future sieges of this nature.
UPDATE: Found them!
The egg throwers belong a group of about eight malcontents, estimated between the ages of 14 and 16. Part of the gasca was one of the small groups spoken to earlier. So, they definitely know I’m interested in the particular egg culprit, one of whom appears barely 14 and possibly 13.
I followed them around for a couple hours during their exploits.
They live on an unlit side street named Blejan Florea. Some of them appear to live at Block 14, Scara 1. Others are from nearby scaras.
The group operates in a pack and seem to be completely without any fear of reprisal. They throw rocks and bottles at the windows of a nearby industrial building. They talk about buying eggs and throwing them at people’s homes.
They like to hang out next to a seemingly-abandoned car under a street light on the corner of Spatarul Preda and Strada Doina, until they have a close brush with being caught doing vandalism by some unfortunate motorist passing by at which point they run down to their block entryways for a sense of safety.
I believe they stole this hubcap (pictured below) from the seemingly-abandoned car they lean on during the hours of around 8 or 9pm until some time around 11pm when they seem to have a pattern of going home. I saw them throw this hubcap with a good deal of force at the glass door entry of my apartment building.
There’s some city maintenance which has been going on for a few days. It looks like the installation of new water pipes. Some construction company has been tearing up the street on Blejan Florea and installing subterranean conduits. Some are 10 meters long, others about 2 meters.
These kids like to take the smaller pipes, which are approximately 5 or 6 inches in diameter, and place them onto darkspots in the street. Many motorists, particularly taxis, are travelling fast and not paying close attention. Then comes the big boom as the car jumps over the pipe and gets the undercarriage damaged.
The kids run and laugh. Some people jump out of the car to yell, pick up the pipes, and then move on. A bicyclist was also victimized. I helped pick up some pipes, myself. But the teenagers come back after just a few minutes of hiding out on their doorsteps to come put pipes back in the street.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Apparently, no one living here does anything. The group seems to be known, at least to some people. The little gang doesn’t appear to be deeply concerned about real trouble of any consequence. So, they conduct their petty terrorizing most nights, it would seem.
When they finally talked about heading home, one kid asked another (possibly an older brother), “Are we going to church tomorrow night?” I’ve come to learn a great many Romanians attend midnight mass on the night before Easter morning.
The other kid snorted, “Church? No, we’re not going to church!”
I’m undermanned without friends nearby and don’t speak the language incredibly well.
What would you do?
April 6th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
You should hire someone (me) to hang out around the neighborhood to keep a watch out of your place. I would have my camera ready to take pictures of them, along with my phone to give you a heads up o_o
April 7th, 2007 at 12:44 am
Get friends – or at least someone to commiserate with.
I had no idea this kind of thing was happening (but that’s nothing special, I’m kinda clueless like that anyway), but hey, if you need help…
I’m kind of curious about the idea of throwing eggs right back at them, but somehow that just makes me think “escalation of retaliation” – rather than helping, it’ll just make them more mad. Still, there has to be way to teach these yobs not to mess with the wrong people. Violence would be the easy way out – if you could gather up enough people willing to kick their little behinds, they’d learn to fear you – but it’s really not the right thing to do.
Maybe try to be friendly? Take their pictures? Find out what makes them tick? They’re only human, after all, and they’re doing this stuff most likely (I won’t presume to judge, but odds are for it) because of bad circumstances. I mean, heck, I was a little hell-raiser when I was a kid, but the buck stopped at damaging other people’s property. They’re doing this for a reason – best idea is to try to figure them out.
I dunno, maybe I’m full of hot air (so as not to say s**t), but I have extenuating circumstances – it’s been a loooong week.
April 7th, 2007 at 12:48 am
Narc – You’re right in that having friends would open new opportunities for the community to police itself. I’m personally split between what’s “right” and what’s right.
April 7th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Enough with the Easter eggs and kebabs. Tell us, how many building-in-progress churches can you see from your new balcony?
April 7th, 2007 at 1:37 am
Prick. =]
April 7th, 2007 at 1:57 am
Ouch, so the bad neighbourhood got you :(
I would suggest moving to another city :D or getting some friends [to kick their asses?]. I don’t think the police would do anything…
April 7th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Total brats!! I wonder if anybody else in your building or block is having problems…seems like you could round up your own gang and scare the hell out of them!
April 7th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I’ve always believed that trying to talk sense into these kids won’t work. I know you love government about as much as I love summers in Bucharest, but I always wondered if something akin to the “Fixing Broken Windows” theory would work in Romanian cities.
I’ve always been fascinated by this theory and I suspect it might work. In this scenario, the bulk of the work would come from local authorities and people in the neighborhood–good citizens like yourself :-)
April 7th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
Jacob – Got a baseball bat?
Narc – To follow up, yes, they’re bored. They obviously get a kick out of seeing what they can get away with. I doubt their parents have any idea what’s going on. Some parents might not care, but I bet some other ones would care a lot. Particularly if some other neighbors spoke up at the same time.
The problem is that the more they get away with, without retribution, then they continue to push the limits.
Talking to them directly? Possibly, but I’m fairly skeptical about that. It turned out that I’ve already spoken to them, inadvertently, when trying to discover who they were. Now that they know there’s a human face, will that change their behavior? Tonight will be Saturday night; they’ll be out on the prowl again.
Musculin – Thanks for the well-timed chuckle. A little slap into perspective lightened the mood around here.
Denisa – Sort of. I still feel Rahova is a good neighborhood, actually. Even a good neighborhood can have trouble with teen vandals. It seems like you have to take care of these things early, though, before the problem grows and this area lapses back into a lesser state.
The only way the police could help is by walking a beat here. Since I’ve been in Romania, I have come to love the way the politie comunitara physically walk the streets in many, many areas. That is one of the best ways to reduce crime and vandalism; show a presence!
Dispatching cars to drive streets does nothing. Showing up only if you’re called does nothing. But putting a couple officers to walk a fairly regular route during the night hours will temper the great majority of youthful indiscretion.
In Brasov, the police were crawling all over the place. Since that never happens in the US, I thought I might be bothered by it. But within just two or three encounters during my first week, I very much grew to like the idea of police beats. It’s great.
Now, they have some in Bucuresti. I’ve seen them. But not on the streets surrounding my immediate vicinity.
mon ami – Yes, friends of that sort would be helpful. Even just one or two who were ‘down’ would be enough, I think.
Cristian – Just before striking the kitchen last night, they were overheard to say, “Hey, look. That guy left another window open. He doesn’t know what a dozen eggs is.” Implication: they’re all too happy to repeat. And just a few moments ago, they were outside the apartment window just now bragging to one another, “This is the place we got last night.” But they darted off when they saw someone coming to see their faces.
They’ll come back. Probably tonight.
I’ll be going out in just a short while to find a hardware store, if there’s one open on the big Saturday-before-Easter malaise. I may even shut the windows from 8 to 12, just to further defuse their antics. But I won’t be a prisoner in my own home. No, no… something else will happen.
You bring up a good point about organizing locals. I suspect it would be pretty hard to get people involved in this area, because they’re completely unaware of such efforts and it would be a brand new (read: weird) idea. Something like a Neighborhood Watch which we have back in the States. It only takes a dozen or so people to make it effective. Even the merchants should get on board, but maybe they’d be “afraid” (of what?! teenagers?!!) to “get involved.” Worth thinking about.
April 7th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
2 words “Le Patator”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q4uoU-2TKg
Vive le France!
April 7th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Alex – Not bad! I seem to remember knowing some people who made those things a long time ago. They were pretty effective non-lethal weapons.
April 7th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
move out of the neighbourhood already. Then you can return and carry out social reintegration programmes, if you will. Mr Stingo told me you have settled in Buchy, and I am due some beers, or you are. However, I am not visiting you there. I am already under the weather. Give a sign, you know the email and the drill.
April 7th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Do nothing and make sure you avoid being noticed by them. As one who had done similar things in Bucharest in 70′s I can tell you that they thrive on your response. The more you look for them, admonish, scream, etc., the more fun it is to do pranks on you. Don’t beat them. Chances are if you do it (and they deserve it!), that a big guy would show up saying: ” Ce ba il bati pe frate-meu?”
If you disappear from their range of vision, they’ll forget about you and move on to another victim.
April 7th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Call The Pied Piper of Hamelin .
April 7th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Oh, and,..keep the windows closed.
April 7th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
two words …louisville slugger……you only have to catch one of them…I would also suggest putting a sign in the window “omelettes for sale….please bring eggs” Then hide out somewhere in the vicinity with a carton of your own special eggs. You know, the ones like when we were kids. Left out in the sun for a week before halloween, ripening…. Maybe a bb-gun would be useful….or some pepper spray….they wouldn’t come back for a second dose of that stuff….it usually comes with a uv dye in it. . .As if the politia has a black light in thier vast inventory of crime fighting gadgets, it would render them identifiable….they would run home to mommy and have to explain why it had happened! I personally would pick one up by the throat, while kicking the other ones.Then make him bring me to his home…and explain to the neglecting parents that next time…I’ll be carrying him to the police station like this!
April 7th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
1. Call the police. Now.
2. Move the other side of Calea Rahovei, to a higher floor.
April 8th, 2007 at 1:39 am
or…you could regress totally and throw your feces at them…that would be a shock….
April 8th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
monsoux – I’m sorry to hear you aren’t feeling well, but them how bad can it really be when you’re blue? That night is going to be one hell of a show, I bet. You know that both you and Stingo are at the top of my short list. I’m nearly done getting acclimated (able to remember where I put things away, but haven’t figured out the trams and busses yet).
It’s possible I may find out what y’all are up to this coming weekend. Besides being able to meet either one or both of you at any given moment, there’s extra magic in the air as I’ve got a very fun friend coming to visit me whom I’m very sure would love to meet either of you. With so many stars aligned, how could I refuse to try? Anyway, I’ll take it to email.
Rotexan – I suspect there’s a little bit of karma in all this for me, too. And, I do agree with you that getting into a tussle may reveal some hidden allies which could be far more trouble. My immediate goal is to secure the windows. From there, we’ll see what course of action I take next.
Ron – I like the UV dye idea. In fact, it makes me seriously consider a paint gun. While I wouldn’t want to accidentally nail someone’s car, I think zapping them with a paintball and leaving them marked might cause them to see fun elsewhere. I definitely been thinking that talking to the parents might have an impact. I’m convinced this neighborhood is not that bad; I think the parents probably have no idea what their kids are doing and would be pissed to find out.
mutz – Even the second floor would have prevented this problem, I admit. But there’ll be no moving; that’s unRomer!can. I may possibly talk to the police, but I think I’ll do it only after a bit more information about what these guys names are, more documentation on their activities, and perhaps talking to some other neighbors for corroboration. This way, the police will have enough data they’ll be forced to take action… and that action should be to walk a beat between dusk and 11pm.
April 11th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
If I were you, I would call the poliţie comunitară, almost all blocks of flats or building administrators have their number. It is dangerous to deal with the little fuckers by yourself. Take care and keep in touch.
April 30th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
[...] Additionally, I’ve mentioned how my particular neighborhood could really benefit from a minor police presence. Having a couple officers walking a beat here after dark, maybe circulating twice or so, would be enough to keep some of the bored youth from feeling free to wreak a little havoc. [...]