Methy Mike and the Sketchy Bunch

OVERKILL

$100 Site Donor 2021
Joined
Apr 28, 2008
Messages
61,194
Location
Ontario, Canada
As we've discussed previously, the downtown cores of many cities are now filled with the homeless and addicted and my city is no exception. When my kids were younger we had numerous bicycles stolen off our deck. My son's 4-wheeler front wheels were stolen from my driveway.

With the return of the nice weather, we have the return of what are called "Car Hoppers" locally, which are the degenerates that go around checking door handles and sometimes breaking car windows when there's something of value visible.

My wife's truck is still in the body shop, so she has been driving my Jeep since she ran out of rental coverage last Monday, while I've been driving my parent's new GC-L. We have a music festival that happens downtown and she drove my Jeep down to take our daughter and her friend to the show.

Next day, she goes out and finds the passenger mirror on the Jeep pushed in, which means one of these "down on their luck" individuals made their way up my driveway and checked the vehicles. She pushed the mirror out and was on her way.

Well, later that afternoon, when she comes out of work, she actually takes a second to look at the vehicle and there are scuffs on it. She feels just sick and doesn't want to tell me, but she does when she gets home and I go out and take a look. There's a scratch on the rear passenger-side door that leads into a smear-like scuff, then a break, then another on the passenger door, then another on the fender, come around to the driver's side, there's another on the fender and another on the driver's door.

These are all at the same height. This is from a bicycle. It's not uncommon for hoppers, which regularly get around on bikes, to not get off the bikes, and just slide off the seat and walk the bike around the vehicle as they try the doors, which, as one would expect, means the handlebars are contacting the vehicle, hence the smear-like scuffs, these are from the handle grips.

I was not pleased by this discovery.

Got out the Meguiars polish, all of the rubber smear came off thankfully, but the scratch is well into the clear and probably needs professional correction, but worse, there's now a small dent in the fender that was in the middle of the smear:
IMG_7199.webp


But it gets better!

I assume this happened at the music festival, since it would have been difficult to go around the vehicle on a bicycle in my driveway given its proximity to my dad's Jeep, and there were no similar marks on it.

However, on the side where the mirror was pushed in? There's a dent on the window trim and it's pulled out about 1/4" and won't go back to where it's supposed to. So, that's a trip to the body shop to replace a piece that was recently replaced due to hail damage 🤬

I don't want to fence my front yard, it would look a bit silly IMHO in this neighbourhood, but it's extremely frustrating to know that millions of tax dollars are being poured into not solving this crisis, but effectively perpetuating it, while the city mostly ignores their inability or unwillingness to actually do something effective and instead hand waves and blows millions on bizarre "rejuvenation" projects in areas that get little traffic from the people paying for them because they are crawling with prostitutes, addicts and homeless, many with MAJOR mental health issues and several that are walking biohazards with multiple strains of hepatitis and other infectious diseases.
 
That sucks. What about some cameras or motion lights? If you are having issues, maybe the neighbors are getting frustrated too. Maybe everyone would appreciate some very bright, obnoxious motion lights that wakes people up. I get woken up by my neighbor's light occasionally, usually due to a deer, but I have quite a grumpy disposition. And a bat. And maybe an air pistol.
 
Time to move.....
I wouldn't tolerate it...no way!
Best of luck 👍
I'd have to move into the country, which has some disadvantages in terms of conveniences we presently enjoy, but I have considered it. Presently, we are a few blocks from my (aging) parents, which is something kept in mind due to health (and other) emergencies. I aided my dad with installing cameras around their generous triple-lot for the same reason, they've had things stolen out of their driveway (my son had his tools stolen out of the back of the Ranger when it was stored at their place), this is truly a universal problem no matter where you reside.
 
That sucks. What about some cameras or motion lights? If you are having issues, maybe the neighbors are getting frustrated too. Maybe everyone would appreciate some very bright, obnoxious motion lights that wakes people up. I get woken up by my neighbor's light occasionally, usually due to a deer, but I have quite a grumpy disposition. And a bat. And maybe an air pistol.
I have a camera on my deck (I have most of the bike thefts recorded, as well as other incidents) and I ordered one for my driveway on Friday which will be 4K. Not sure where I would mount a motion light, but that's an option (though my neighbour probably would not be thrilled).

We have some advocates (bleeding hearts) nearby that totally downplay the inconvenience, frustration and loss of security that this scourge brings with it. A hug, some free drugs and a clean needle solves everything dontcha know? I'm firmly of the belief that until it punches them in the face, that they will continue to be blinded by their own arrogant virtue.
 
My younger sister was a heroin addict. As I've said before, guys shouldn't buy sex, people shouldn't buy stolen crap and you shouldn't give money to beggars. That would help cut down on the drug problem.
Indeed, however the path taken by cities and municipalities is the opposite, driven by parasitic advocates who have turned this into a burgeoning cottage industry. Handing out drugs, needles, giving a place to get high, shelters, "counselling" (but not treatment)...etc. A worker at one of these facilities recently helped a drug dealer, who, in a shootout with another dealer, managed to kill an innocent passerby, escape. To paraphrase a line from the movie "Shooter", some of these people's moral compasses are so out of whack it's amazing they can find the parking lot.

People are no different than animals, if you feed them, they will continue to come back for more, and that goes for no matter what is being fed or the hunger it means to address.
 
It would really suck to live in an otherwise nice area where the street riff-raff feel free to damage your personal possessions while looking for things of value to steal and sell and most of us aren't buying what they're selling. There is another layer of low-lives in the food chain who do so and then offer the goods through various legit channels.
Much as I hate to think it, stricter policing and some prison time for repeat offenders might be the answer.
Nothing dries an addict out as well as a year or two of prison. To fall to the point of becoming a street dwelling addict is a personal tragedy that others should not have to suffer from or finance through theft of their property.
Yeah, I know all about the disease theory of addiction. I also know that tough love is sometimes the appropriate measure.
 
Just some quick suggestions:
1) Never leave valuables (or anything) to be seen thru the windows (I'm sure you don't).
* I cover anything in my car with a 'black' towel.
2) Get together with neighbors and start a 'neighborhood watch program, where someone is walking up & down the street.
3) Contact the police and ask for more patrols.
4) Some type of 'bang' devise left in a package in your yard.
5) Put a tracking devise in a package for them to steal and find where their lair is.
 
It would really suck to live in an otherwise nice area where the street riff-raff feel free to damage your personal possessions while looking for things of value to steal and sell and most of us aren't buying what they're selling. There is another layer of low-lives in the food chain who do so and then offer the goods through various legit channels.
Much as I hate to think it, stricter policing and some prison time for repeat offenders might be the answer.
Nothing dries an addict out as well as a year or two of prison. To fall to the point of becoming a street dwelling addict is a personal tragedy that others should not have to suffer from or finance through theft of their property.
Yeah, I know all about the disease theory of addiction. I also know that tough love is sometimes the appropriate measure.
We have a facility in Toronto, CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) which offers a full range of treatment options meant to align with the level of care required and this is everything from a full lockdown wing to outpatient with everything in between. It's a sprawling facility broken up by care type and has a history of success. Ultimately, I think some considerable (mandatory) time in a place like this, with staff trained in actually dealing with addiction and mental health issues offers a far greater probability for success than jail, particularly given the nature of the offences that most of these people end up charged for.

I think a large portion of them, with proper inpatient treatment and a gradual reintroduction to society and actually being followed by a healthcare worker could once again be productive members of society, able to pay their own way, isn't that what we really want? It should be. This idea that we are being compassionate by endlessly giving them free drugs until their brains are tapioca and they end up dead or permanently living in some zombie state in a hospital is pure delusion cooked up by people who love the idea of making themselves feel good that they are "doing something", while they are ultimately helping put the noose around their necks.

Unfortunately, nobody seems willing to invest in facilities like CAMH. We scrapped all the mental health asylums, taking the problem out of the institution and inflicting it on the population, one that is ill equipped to handle it and the result has, predictably, been a disaster.
 
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We have a facility in Toronto, CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) which offers a full range of treatment options meant to align with the level of care required and this is everything from a full lockdown wing to outpatient with everything in between. It's a sprawling facility broken up by care type and has a history of success. Ultimately, I think some considerable (mandatory) time in a place like this, with staff trained in actually dealing with addiction and mental health issues offers a far greater probability for success than jail, particularly given the nature of the offences that most of these people end up charged for.

I think a large portion of them, with proper inpatient treatment and a gradual reintroduction to society and actually being followed by a healthcare worker could once again be productive members of society, able to pay their own way, isn't that what we really want? It should be. This idea that we are being compassionate by endlessly giving them free drugs until their brains are tapioca and they end up dead or permanently living in some zombie state in a hospital is pure delusion cooked up by people who love the idea of making themselves feel good that they are "doing something", while they are ultimately helping put the noose around their necks.
That's all fine, but there was a time when these people were NOT addicted.
People need to take responsibility and just say "NO"
Because if they say "YES", their future is ruined.
 
Get some n-butyl mercaptan from a local chem lab. Put a rag in a jar and pour in the mercaptan. DON"T get it on your hands. Seal the jar and put it in a nice package after labelling the jar as containing something valuable. Thy will be esay to find and obnoxious to others.
 
That's all fine, but there was a time when these people were NOT addicted.
People need to take responsibility and just say "NO"
Because if they say "YES", their future is ruined.
Sure, but for those that are already addicted, just giving them free dugs and clean needles is not a path back to society. We have China pumping fentanyl into our countries and the Canadian justice system is a total joke, so the gang members, dealers...etc, none of them go away for any meaningful period of time.

This is an onion, there are a ton of layers of problem here, but I think mandatory inpatient treatment for addicts who actually want a path back is a much better option, with a much higher probability of success, than just incarcerating them.
 
@OVERKILL, I am sorry to hear of that. It IS all over the place these days unless one wants to move into the middle of no where.
We ourselves stay living where we do not want to because we must be close to attend to elderly family members. I am certainly glad at least that we all have double garages to keep the vehicles in locked up tight at night.
I know from the experience of others down the streets that calling the police accomplishes very little. It is NOT the L.E.O.'s faults either. They are out there 24x7 risking their health and safety doing their jobs.
The main problem is the enablers. The easy Judges and Politicians who accomplished all of what we are dealing with as a result of their proud (misplaced) virtue signaling by taking up for criminals at every chance they get. All simply for them to seek media attention they feel makes them look good to the public. If there was an easy answer we would not all have to be putting up with some form of just what you are having to. Good luck man. Hope it gets better..... Maybe they will find another section of town they like in time?
 
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