(no subject)

[deathboy]

I am pretty much incandescent with anger, plus pretty depressed and frustrated for being so naive as to think there's something some fucker won't steal.

I have half an idea who it would have been, now, too, hilariously.

I was wondering "who the fuck would steal a push-chair, man?" - when Patrick suggested that perhaps it had been taken in the London Tradition of people leaving stuff on the side of the road that they don't want (for people whose neighbourhood doesn't do this, it is interpreted as "if you want any of this, take it, because it's going to be scrapped").

I said "Yeah, but who would come on the drive and take a new-looking pra... ohhhhhhh"

Fucking rag and bone man drove past today. I noticed it because it was a) rather anachronistic and b) he seemed to stop next to our house.

I know I'm going to be prone to jump to conclusions while I'm still mad about it, but it wouldn't blow my whole mind if someone who collects junk on a van felt free to pick up potential non-junk, on the basis that anyone complaining would be told it was a genuine mistake.

Either way, I won't be leaving anything on the drive that I don't actively want removing for me.

Piss. That's really fucked my mood.

Comments

[ladyserpentine.livejournal.com]

It just goes to show you can't be too careful!

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

Quite so.

[ephemera.livejournal.com]

'Tis a most shitty thing indeed.

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Can you track down the rag and bone man and get the pram back?

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

very much doubt it, darlin'. if I'd just seen him and had a car, I could leg it down the street, but it's a while ago now.

(which is making the assumption it was them, of course, I could be entirely wrong)

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Aw crap. That really does suck.

[smarriveurr.livejournal.com]

>>Can you track down the rag and bone man and RAPE THE CUNT WITH A FUCKING BRICK?

Fixed.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Sorry you had to find it out the hard way... like so many of the rest of us.

Prams (or "strollers" as we call them in proper American English) are one of the most often nicked pieces of property in the States.

First time, my mother left the pram by the side of a road that had no houses on it. We wanted to go play at a creek, but the stroller couldn't handle the terrain. She thought about taking it with her, but she also had to carry my sister. Surely, the thing would be safe for half an hour on an uninhabited road, right?

Ha. Gone by the time we returned.

Second time for me was in 2002, when I stupidly left my daughter's folding stroller leaning up against my car in the driveway. I'd just bought the damned thing to the tune of $70, and was putting away groceries. By the time I had everything put away and Trin down for her nap, a total of little less than an hour in broad daylight, someone had stolen it.

Welcome to the vengeful dads club. I might show mercy to a thief who steals food from me, but if I find the fucker who took that pram, I will choke the life from them with my bare hands.

[tga.livejournal.com]

I agree, it's rather sick for someone to take something like that. However, prams are worth a lot of money I would have thought. They are usually pricey and I could easily see some crackhead stealing one for her crack baby.

Let's hope it was a mistake though but still, doesn't help, it's still gone. Sorry to hear it buddy!

[tamago23.livejournal.com]

They are usually pricey and I could easily see some crackhead stealing one for her crack baby.

WTF? It would have been fair enough if you'd said "some crackhead stealing one to resell". But you're being derisive about the concept of a mother who's struggling with addiction stealing something for her child, who was born drug-addicted (with all the problems that entails) through no fault of its own.

@Deathboy: You have my sympathy. :( This is why I always lock our stroller up with a bike chain and lock if we have to leave it anywhere (such as when we go swimming at the local public pool). There's just too many shitheads around who have itchy fingers.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

yerp. I hadn't even thought, to be honest, and I'm one cynical motherfucker :/

well. moreso now. ho ho.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have thought of it either. In the mid 90s large Silver Cross prams were still a common sight parked outside shops, unrestrained, often with babies still in around the Borders. Nothing wrong with it either, IMO. Often community-spirited old ladies would hang about waiting for the mother to appear, coo over the baby and leave money in the pram (seriously. It was like they would pay for the privilege of imparting their wisdom on babies and so forth, a custom, to leave - at the time £1 coins seemed popular - a token of respect/good luck/whatever for random babies).

[tamago23.livejournal.com]

Yes, let this be a learning experience: YOU WERE NOT CYNICAL ENOUGH. TRUST NO-ONE. ;)

Seriously though, it does suck. I'd be royally upset if anyone ever stole my stroller, so the bike lock is my preemptive strike to prevent my upset. ;)

[deviblue.livejournal.com]

rag and bone man?
they still exist?

either way thats got to be classed as theft...they should be asking permission before just taking...I mean you leave cars on the drive way and they're not fair game.

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

Car theft is such an ugly term... I prefer "urban scrumping"

[edwards.livejournal.com]

Actually, cars DO get lifted from driveways. Given how unpleasant British neighbours can be, often with the knowledge, and approval, of twitchy-curtained "neighbours". When the price of scrap was high, many of the people I know and know of in car clubs had their rare, sometimes valuable (and sometimes not, but still rare) older cars lifted by truck with a crane (meaning that even if you DID catch them the car is ruined) by "scrap merchants".

One of them had a rare, and entirely functional, 1980s hot hatch lifted whilst the neighbours watched, apparently pleased that this "disreputable old car" had been removed - it was a concourse-winning example, but was taken and crushed for the sake of £80 at best (less the costs of fetching the damn thing with a 12mpg truck).

Is this a new thing? No. In fact, on the old Minder yesterday, Terry and the annoying sidekick-mechanic who seemed to become a regular feature in later episodes were shown pretending to be council workers "towing people's illegally parked cars" which were actually entirely legally parked, crushing them, and pocketing the scrap money. If you're that bereft of respect for people's property and that thick that you can't steal a car for the real value - well, every lump of metal out there for the taking is still worth a few quid crushed into a cube. It's like finding a £50 note, only a bit heavier and harder to get in your wallet.

I've had this rant myself; when I was a kid I felt relatively safe leaving my bike outside a shop, and indeed, I've never looked at someone's bike and gone "oh, I'll have that". Yet if I want to use my bike, I have the added inconvenience of finding something to chain it to (and removing the lights and computer) because I cannot just leave it for five minutes as I go into a shop, even though it's MINE. Not anyone else's. The knowledge that it is NOT anyone else's should be sufficient for them to leave it alone, they don't need to know who it does belong to - only that it doesn't belong to them.

This logic, however, is lost on people born of entitlement and low moral fibre.

As such, I suggest they're raped with a brick.

It just goes to show, you can't be too careful!

[tobestool.livejournal.com]

For some reason, that reminds me of several things.

1) My neighbor recenlty had his shiny new BMW dropped by the council while picking it up on some DVLA-type flatbed. Following some argument involving the fact that he had in his sweaty hand the V5 and a cheque made out for the tax disc, but thanks to the post office in town having shut, no opportunity to exchange same for a tax disc, he felt not a little disgruntled. Long story short the council did £1.5k+ of repairs plus hired him a £300/day merc. All on my tax bill. Not happy, but I'm not entirely sure where I place the blame, legally or morally.

2) I've frequently considered sitting in Costas in town and leaning a shiny track bicycle (i.e. one with no freewheel - if you're moving, you're pedaling) lent against a lamppost, and watching the local youth jump on it, go pedal-pedal-pedal then find some traffic and stop pedaling, only to fly over the handlebars. Then go and pick up said bike, apply another mark to the frame and lean it back against the lamppost and resume my coffee.

3) I have before now walked past about £4k's worth of bike leaning against a shop window (In Brighton), and while I admired it, thought the owner was a fool for leaving it unlocked and indeed considered how easily A.N.Other could have jumped on it and ridden off, it only struck me later that it hadn't even occurred to me to ride it off myself, as you said, because it belonged to someone else...

I'm not sure there was any point to my thoughts, but they seemed relevant...

[edwards.livejournal.com]

1) I can sympathise with him, really - you used to get a reasonable 14 day "grace period" which has gone out of the window with subcontractors, targets and ANPR. Most drivers contribute around £800 to the treasury per year in fuel duty, plus VAT on their parts and accessories. The blame I think really lies with the subcontractors moving the cars and they should (and probably did) pay for it in the end, but the detemination to make car users (34 million of 'em, or "nearly all the adults in the UK") potential criminals for what I certainly don't see as criminal acts is frustrating.

Though on the other hand you DO get plenty of warning for taxing cars and can do it online, so I'd expect some pretty good excuses for not having done it that way. At the end of the day, though, if the council wishes to impound and fine people without tax discs, the car is STILL their property - they need to do it without damaging their property at all. I believe clampers can be sued for damaging your car too.

My car's tax is £415/year I think. Not looking forward to that, though it did make justifying a DVLA plate (cheaper than the tax) easy.

2) That would be hilarious. Do it.

3) I've walked past £100K+ supercars with the top down and admired them, but I don't even think the owners stupid for leaving the roof open. It's their car, why should they have to work around other people being stupid? I did, myself, leave my Fiat's top off when I parked it in Kelso, and I'm secure enough leaving the MX5's top down if I'm in Halfords or something where I can see it at all times - I've never seen anyone pay the slightest attention to it.

I don't really understand the mindset than can just take - or damage - something belonging to someone else without reason. You know, a vandalised car because of a personal grudge, or someone bumping into a car because the owner's parked it on the pavement instead of on the road? That I can understand as either "unavoidable" or "inevitable". To go out of your way to deprive someone of their property or damage it though?

You wouldn't ride it off because you respect it. If I found said bike say, abandoned in a field, I still wouldn't feel comfortable "taking" it - if I thought it was at risk of damage I might move it, if I thought it had been abandoned having been stolen I'd take it to a police station... but I couldn't just "take" it.

[alohura.livejournal.com]

fucking arseholes. Those things are really expensive too.

I actually had something to cheer you up

[disgruntledgrrl.livejournal.com]

But the sound was disabled on the youTube video.
It was a skit detailing the time that Bill Cosby and the kids in his neighborhood stole 27 pram wheels for their downhill go kart race.

Which ended with the cops waiting at the bottom of the hill.

I'd talk to the man in the van - or have someone not quite so irked do it.

:(

[angryangeltoo.livejournal.com]

Can you or Liz claim it back on an insurance policy?

Re: :(

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

I have one, but I don't know if it's covered, or if we have what's necessary to prove it. am going to phone them tomorrow.

Re: :(

[edwards.livejournal.com]

If it's normal home contents you should be sorted, but you'll probably need a crime number.

Re: :(

[deathboy.livejournal.com]

yeah, but while it's not quite run out yet, it's for my old address, which I haven't moved because I was intending it to lapse.

they may say "fine" then go "WTF?" when I ask for a different delivery address :P

[nem0.livejournal.com]

That's some seriously unbelievable shit right there. Who steals a pram, for fuck's sake?

The only time I've ever struck anyone in anger was when they tried to steal from me. I'd kicked off my sandals under my desk during a lecture, and then walked out to the hall during a break to get a drink of water. Came back to see some guy trying to sneak my sandals into his bag. I came up behind him, shoved him over with a kick to the ribs, and said, "DON'T TAKE WHAT ISN'T YOURS, ASSHOLE," loudly enough for the whole lecture hall to hear. He turned bright red and scrambled out of the building.

Not that my sandals were worth much, but they were comfortably broken in, and hell, they were mine. You want charity? Go dumpster diving or hit up the dorms during move-out week. Otherwise, you're just being a freeloading dick, and you deserve to be shat on by weasels with cholera.

[dyfferent.livejournal.com]

Who steals a pram? Total trash.

I wonder if the creep who tried to nick your sandals was going to whack off over them?