Here's our mailbox:
And here's where our mailbox used to be before it was ripped off the wall:
Yesterday evening I was reading a book in the dining room when I heard a gate slam downstairs. It was pretty loud, and Lorin heard it from her room and came down to see what was going on. We could hear the people in the basement yelling, and the kids crying, and the gate slammed (or somebody slammed into it?) several more times. As Lorin was calling the police, I could hear the woman scream "abre la puerta!" (open the door). The police got there pretty quickly and handcuffed the guy (the same scumbag who has been taken away before). We could hear the police talking, and apparently they wanted to charge him with preventing someone from calling the police (he had unplugged the phone). I don't know if they actually ended up taking him away, because the woman didn't want to press charges. Anyway, Lorin and I were kind of shaken for the rest of the night, but assumed that it had been resolved for the time being.
This morning we were headed out the door to go peach picking, and found our front porch in an unusual state. The weird things: there was a bag of trash on our porch, and part of a futon leaning up against the door. There was also a suitcase full of flowers that had been uprooted from our garden out front. The more disturbing thing was that our mailbox (which Lorin's dad had made) had been ripped off the wall and smashed with, apparently, some amount of force. Joe commented that it looks like someone was on a drunken tear (although a very targeted one--the neighbors' side of the porch, as well as the mailbox directly under ours, which belongs to the people in the basement, was untouched). The futon and suitcase we recognized as trash that people on our block had put out on the curb in the past few days.
We don't *know* who did it, but it seems reasonable to assume that this is connected with our calling the police yesterday. I would hope that the police wouldn't outright tell the guy downstairs that we're the ones who called, but I'm sure he could guess that we're the most likely candidates.
I think calling the police was the right thing to do, but it's disheartening to realize that there's pretty much nothing preventing this guy from retaliating.
And here's where our mailbox used to be before it was ripped off the wall:
Yesterday evening I was reading a book in the dining room when I heard a gate slam downstairs. It was pretty loud, and Lorin heard it from her room and came down to see what was going on. We could hear the people in the basement yelling, and the kids crying, and the gate slammed (or somebody slammed into it?) several more times. As Lorin was calling the police, I could hear the woman scream "abre la puerta!" (open the door). The police got there pretty quickly and handcuffed the guy (the same scumbag who has been taken away before). We could hear the police talking, and apparently they wanted to charge him with preventing someone from calling the police (he had unplugged the phone). I don't know if they actually ended up taking him away, because the woman didn't want to press charges. Anyway, Lorin and I were kind of shaken for the rest of the night, but assumed that it had been resolved for the time being.
This morning we were headed out the door to go peach picking, and found our front porch in an unusual state. The weird things: there was a bag of trash on our porch, and part of a futon leaning up against the door. There was also a suitcase full of flowers that had been uprooted from our garden out front. The more disturbing thing was that our mailbox (which Lorin's dad had made) had been ripped off the wall and smashed with, apparently, some amount of force. Joe commented that it looks like someone was on a drunken tear (although a very targeted one--the neighbors' side of the porch, as well as the mailbox directly under ours, which belongs to the people in the basement, was untouched). The futon and suitcase we recognized as trash that people on our block had put out on the curb in the past few days.
We don't *know* who did it, but it seems reasonable to assume that this is connected with our calling the police yesterday. I would hope that the police wouldn't outright tell the guy downstairs that we're the ones who called, but I'm sure he could guess that we're the most likely candidates.
I think calling the police was the right thing to do, but it's disheartening to realize that there's pretty much nothing preventing this guy from retaliating.
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