Busted pipes and busted glass
Argh! This weekend I had a mini flood in the basement. It started on Friday with the sump pump going off. I did bother to notice it really until the sump pump kept going off a lot. That is Sunday morning. Anyway long story short, the house next to mine has been unoccupied for weeks and their pipes broke, sending water into my basement. WASA was really great in all this. They came by in two trips. The first came to see if it was stinky water. Nope, clear non-stinky stuff. The second crew came, listened to me about how this happened last time with the house 3 doors down having busted pipes. So they checked my meter, the houses next door and 3 hours after I made my first call, the water for the vacant house was turned off. Yay, WASA!Also I noticed on the street and on the listservs there was a slew of car break ins. I saw one gal chatting with the cops over her busted window. Then a SUV with a shiny pile of blue green glass near it, and a duct taped driver's side. I don't have a car but still, a little reminder, don't leave crap in your car. Thieves will bust in if they "think" you have something. Besides the crap, stuff, you constantly drive around with and don't use, unnecessarily uses up gas. Lighten your load and improve your gas mileage.
Labels: crime
posted by Mari @ 12.2.07
8 Comments:
Right on. Most people are accustomed to a car being sort of a backpack on wheels, with all those little things you need once in a while. But in DC you can't keep your crap in your car, not even newspaper. If a crackhead could make bedding out of it, it's an incentive to break in your car.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
We had the same problem this weekend with the vacant house next door. Luckily, we heard the waterfall through the opened back windows before our basement was flooded. WASA responded withing an hour and the guy said he had spent all weekend turning off water to vacant properties.
Anon your comment was deleted because it violated my rule of no anon comments. Not for anything you say.
Let me address one thing. I hate to blame the victim, and no one deserves to be a vicitim of a crime but isn't reasonable to ask people to take a small preventive measure in an area where there are auto thefts and a few crackheads? Understandably there are times when we are forgetful and sometimes bad things happen in those times of weakness. However, when we are mindful we should take measures and one good incentive (I think) is to do our bit to reduce the amount of gas we use by not carting around so much unneeded stuff. I didn't mention it but I guess now I will, one of the vandalized vechiles still had some stuff (nothing that looked street valuable but was usable) in it. Last year I came across a SUV that was broken into, I don't know if anything was stolen, but after a day (saw the broken glass heading to work and again coming back) kids were pulling stuff out of it.
Let me preface my comments by saying that I have respect for what you do. I have read your blog for quite a while now. While I am certain that we do not agree on all issues, I respect your genuine and very public attempt to grapple with the issues in your immediate vicinity in a sincere and honest fashion. I am posting this to respond to the questions you asked in response to my post. Also, I have a comment regarding your policy against "anonymous" posts. My point is not to antagonize but to raise genuine concerns and to flesh out the point of my previous (now deleted) post.
Your anonymous posting policy:
Let me say that I understand that you do not like people who are not willing to stand by their comments. I also understand that the internet too easily devolves into unproductive and hurtful flame wars. Nonetheless, your policy has unintended consequences. I am not comfortable posting my opinion in public forums with my identity attached because of the sensitive nature of my employment. While I have a first amendment right to speak, the contours of this right are not the same for me as for many others. I just wanted to let you know that by deleting all posts simply because they are anonymous, you prohibit comments from those of us who work in sensitive positions. In DC more so than other cities, this is not an insignificant number of people.
The question you asked in your response to my deleted post:
In your response to my deleted post, you ask: "isn't [it] reasonable to ask people to take a small preventive measure in an area where there are auto thefts and a few crackheads?" The answer, of course, is there is nothing wrong with reminding people of the need to take precautions against theft. In DC, minor items of seemingly no importance can be targets for theft. But you miss my point.
My point is that there is another aspect to crime against automobiles in this city that you have apparently not experienced. Criminals in DC don't just break car windows to steal. Criminals in DC break car windows for the fun of it, even when all possible precautions have been followed. As I stated in my original post, I have personally seen this happen two times in the last two years to a very close friend. I have also seen it happen to my neighbors on more than one occasion. In the case of my friend, I can state with absolute certainty that there was absolutely nothing visible inside the car whatsoever. No tapes, no CDs, no store bags, absolutely nothing. Furthermore, the police found no evidence that any attempt was ever made to actually reach inside the car. Vandals smashed the car windows just for the fun of it.
To assume that simply removing items from one's car will protect one's car from harm is misplaced fantasy which ultimately results in, as I have already said, blaming the victim.
It may make us feel safer to think others just didn't follow the "rules of safety," or to think that others are somehow hurting the environment because they may have left a small item in their car, but this mindset does nothing to actually make us safer, nor does it do anything to address the real problem -- the criminals who think it's okay to smash car windows.
Hi, I too have questions about the anonymity of blogs. I understand the blogger knows every reader's address and/or location? So maybe we should use our real names anyway? I realize this comment is not relevant to the car-theft problem... nor the flooding. Youch. It sounds like Anonymous's friend followed all the usual precautions by not leaving any items in the car, and it is a shame that it was broken into twice. I know I'm guilty of finger-pointing too, for instance after a friend's car window was broken into while she was packing for a trip (leaving her purse on the front seat -- an empty purse, but still a purse), I too jumped to the conculsion that the owner was a country-bumpkin who never lived in an inner urban area... But I think it's more likely to have been a matter of chance whose car window would be broken that particular day.
anon according to the webmistress's policy, all you have to do is make up a name. like this:
- The Countess of Shaw Opossums
Thank you anon oppossum for easily explaining it.
To other anon. I dubbed thee "Faceless Govmn't Employee" (use it or something far more suitable). And I will agree to disagree on the auto vandalism vs auto theft as it runs close to an offline conversation I've had on kids that beat you up to mug you vs kids that beat you just 'cause. Something I'd prefer not to bother with again in a differnt format.
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