MODS: If you think this belongs in the Off Topic section, by all means, feel free to move it.
My apologies for the excessively wordy post, but I’m hoping to get some opinions on what to do here…
A while back, I posted a thread in the Off Topic section entitled “Why I park in the garage...”. I included a pic showing a stolen car that had been driven up onto my front lawn and into my front porch. I intended this thread to be kind of a humorous “Can you believe this?!?” sort of thing. In addition to that particular incident, someone had driven a stolen Ford Aerostar into the back of my Ford Explorer (which I DO park on the street in front of my house) a few months earlier…yes, someone stole an Aerostar minivan…no, I have no idea what the thinking was there…
Now fast forward to this past December. The house next door to mine was vacant, and a new family moved in. They’re loud, problematic, and listen to gangster rap at loud volume late into the night. Additionally, it’s fairly common knowledge that the kids that live there hang out with “a bad crowd”, so to speak. The police don’t seem interested in doing anything about that, but I figured that as long as they didn’t bother me, my mom-who’s disabled and lives with me as a result of her disability-or any of my property, I’d just try to overlook all the various annoyances/problems associated with them.
I figured the Supra was safe parked in the garage…until earlier today.
Before I go on, I should mention that I live in one of those “quaint” older homes in the city of St. Louis. Since my house was constructed around 1916, it, like virtually all of the houses in my neighborhood, has a detached two car garage that’s located at the back of the property. The garage door faces the alley that runs behind the property. A day or so ago, I found what appeared to be some strange soot and minor burn patterns on my garage. I really wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I wasn’t sure what I could do about it either…
Anyway, earlier tonight I was out in front of the house checking something on my Explorer when a neighbor who lives on the block behind me (a guy I know and trust) was walking by with his wife. They stopped and told me that I needed to keep an eye on my garage. I asked, “What? My garage? Why?”
He told me that this past weekend, some neighborhood kids-including two of the kids who live next door to me-tried to SET MY GARAGE ON FIRE!!! He said that he actually SAW them doing this and went out to stop them. By the time he got out there to the alley, they had succeeded on setting a very small part of the garage on fire. He screamed at them to put the fire out, but they refused, shouted obscenities at him, and ran off. He quickly got some water and doused the flames. Thanks to his quick thinking, he seems to have saved not only my garage, by my Supra parked inside. After going back into his house, the same kids came back and set fire to a nearby dumpster in the alley.
Mere words fail to express how unbelievably pissed off I was.
After thanking this guy profusely for not only preventing my garage from burning down but also for preventing my Supra from going up in flames, I immediately got my Supra out of the garage and moved it onto the street, parking it in front of my Explorer, hopefully parking it far enough forward to be out of the “crash zone”, so to speak.
Since the mother of the kids who live next door to me was outside a little while later, I went outside and tried to speak with her about what this neighbor had said. She swore up and down that her kids couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with this, as, according to her, her kids wouldn’t do something like this. Worse yet, she then accused me of being a racist for accusing her kids of doing something like that. For the record, I have absolutely no problems with race, have had friends of different racial backgrounds, have dated women of different racial backgrounds, and have never been accused of racism in all my life. This accusation left me absolutely speechless.
When I moved into this neighborhood several years ago, it was actually a pretty good neighborhood, but crime seems to have escalated over the last year or so. Not to seem paranoid, but I’m thinking it may be time to move.
All this brings me to my question: Considering the problems I’ve had with people driving cars into both the Explorer as well as into my front porch, does everyone think my Supra would be safer parked on the street far enough forward that it shouldn’t get hit by another car, or does everyone think it would be safer in the garage away from the danger of being hit by another car, but where someone could possibly try to set the garage on fire again? I’m kind of torn between these two options, and I’m not sure what to do. If it’s parked on the street, I’m not too worried about theft, as I not only have the factory alarm, but three kill switches as well as a somewhat unique way of activating the starter; my main concern would be that someone would hit my car while it was parked outside. But if it’s parked in the garage and someone tried to set fire to my garage again, I wouldn’t necessarily know that the garage was on fire until it was too late to save the Supra. What does everyone think?
Thanks for all opinions and ideas; I appreciate any thoughts on the matter…
Joe
My apologies for the excessively wordy post, but I’m hoping to get some opinions on what to do here…
A while back, I posted a thread in the Off Topic section entitled “Why I park in the garage...”. I included a pic showing a stolen car that had been driven up onto my front lawn and into my front porch. I intended this thread to be kind of a humorous “Can you believe this?!?” sort of thing. In addition to that particular incident, someone had driven a stolen Ford Aerostar into the back of my Ford Explorer (which I DO park on the street in front of my house) a few months earlier…yes, someone stole an Aerostar minivan…no, I have no idea what the thinking was there…
Now fast forward to this past December. The house next door to mine was vacant, and a new family moved in. They’re loud, problematic, and listen to gangster rap at loud volume late into the night. Additionally, it’s fairly common knowledge that the kids that live there hang out with “a bad crowd”, so to speak. The police don’t seem interested in doing anything about that, but I figured that as long as they didn’t bother me, my mom-who’s disabled and lives with me as a result of her disability-or any of my property, I’d just try to overlook all the various annoyances/problems associated with them.
I figured the Supra was safe parked in the garage…until earlier today.
Before I go on, I should mention that I live in one of those “quaint” older homes in the city of St. Louis. Since my house was constructed around 1916, it, like virtually all of the houses in my neighborhood, has a detached two car garage that’s located at the back of the property. The garage door faces the alley that runs behind the property. A day or so ago, I found what appeared to be some strange soot and minor burn patterns on my garage. I really wasn’t sure what to make of that, but I wasn’t sure what I could do about it either…
Anyway, earlier tonight I was out in front of the house checking something on my Explorer when a neighbor who lives on the block behind me (a guy I know and trust) was walking by with his wife. They stopped and told me that I needed to keep an eye on my garage. I asked, “What? My garage? Why?”
He told me that this past weekend, some neighborhood kids-including two of the kids who live next door to me-tried to SET MY GARAGE ON FIRE!!! He said that he actually SAW them doing this and went out to stop them. By the time he got out there to the alley, they had succeeded on setting a very small part of the garage on fire. He screamed at them to put the fire out, but they refused, shouted obscenities at him, and ran off. He quickly got some water and doused the flames. Thanks to his quick thinking, he seems to have saved not only my garage, by my Supra parked inside. After going back into his house, the same kids came back and set fire to a nearby dumpster in the alley.
Mere words fail to express how unbelievably pissed off I was.
After thanking this guy profusely for not only preventing my garage from burning down but also for preventing my Supra from going up in flames, I immediately got my Supra out of the garage and moved it onto the street, parking it in front of my Explorer, hopefully parking it far enough forward to be out of the “crash zone”, so to speak.
Since the mother of the kids who live next door to me was outside a little while later, I went outside and tried to speak with her about what this neighbor had said. She swore up and down that her kids couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with this, as, according to her, her kids wouldn’t do something like this. Worse yet, she then accused me of being a racist for accusing her kids of doing something like that. For the record, I have absolutely no problems with race, have had friends of different racial backgrounds, have dated women of different racial backgrounds, and have never been accused of racism in all my life. This accusation left me absolutely speechless.
When I moved into this neighborhood several years ago, it was actually a pretty good neighborhood, but crime seems to have escalated over the last year or so. Not to seem paranoid, but I’m thinking it may be time to move.
All this brings me to my question: Considering the problems I’ve had with people driving cars into both the Explorer as well as into my front porch, does everyone think my Supra would be safer parked on the street far enough forward that it shouldn’t get hit by another car, or does everyone think it would be safer in the garage away from the danger of being hit by another car, but where someone could possibly try to set the garage on fire again? I’m kind of torn between these two options, and I’m not sure what to do. If it’s parked on the street, I’m not too worried about theft, as I not only have the factory alarm, but three kill switches as well as a somewhat unique way of activating the starter; my main concern would be that someone would hit my car while it was parked outside. But if it’s parked in the garage and someone tried to set fire to my garage again, I wouldn’t necessarily know that the garage was on fire until it was too late to save the Supra. What does everyone think?
Thanks for all opinions and ideas; I appreciate any thoughts on the matter…
Joe
OP, get outta there while you still have your supra!
