I don't get it

[Dirtman2007]

I've seen this happen twice this wek so far. Kids busting out the windows of construction equipment. I saw a nice cat 140H motor grader the other day that had been destroyed by rocks. Every window was just obliterated. My buddy parked his tractor in a field overnight after cutting hay right down the street from my house and someone busted all the windows out of it. All these are in populated area with houses and cars around. Nobody throws rocks at house windows or cars that are mere feet away. But they always manage to get the equipment as soon as it arrives. I've had the same thing happen to me, real populated area where you think things would be safe and it gets hit. Leave it out in the middle of nowhere and you loose sleep over whether somebodies going to screw with it at night. Just really makes you mad when you see it. God hope I never catch them:guns

 

[Red Bank]

A couple of years ago we were working on the "bad side of town" and never had any problems. Moved over to the "million dollar homes" neighborhood and went in one morning to find our EX200 Hitachi had graffiti painted all over it. I don't know what kind of paint the rich kids used but we tried everything to get it off, finally just spray painted over the graffiti in Hitachi spray paint.

 

[N.CarolinaDozer]

Our company went around to every piece of equipment and put locks on the fuel tanks. They said they had problems with theft and things getting poored in lately. Only one key was given to the foreman, so we can't even open them.

 

[special tool]

A couple of years ago we were working on the "bad side of town" and never had any problems. Moved over to the "million dollar homes" neighborhood and went in one morning to find our EX200 Hitachi had graffiti painted all over it. I don't know what kind of paint the rich kids used but we tried everything to get it off, finally just spray painted over the graffiti in Hitachi spray paint.

Yup - that because of mis-information.
City kids see (and are taught) "development" and rural kids see (and are taught) "destruction" and "killing the trees", etc.

 

[cat 385]

i've have a few storys but in type to slow to tell them:Banghead

 

[T_S_S]

Funny story. In the summer one night i drove into one devolpment we work at to show a good friend of my one of my new excavators. As i rounded the corner by the top soil pile i saw about 6 cars parked by our equipment. Some teenage kids were all standing around talking and one kid was tossing rocks right by our equipment that was parked there. I hopped out of my truck and my self being young also (21) walked right past them up to the d7 started her up lifted the blade , put her in 3rd gear and headed right towards their cars. I dont think i have ever seen a group of people scatter so quickly before. Since then there has not been one incident of broken windows or tampered machines on that site anyways.

 

[CM1995]

we were working on the "bad side of town" and never had any problems. Moved over to the "million dollar homes" neighborhood and went in one morning to find our EX200 Hitachi had graffiti painted all over it.

That has been my experience as well. The wealthier the neighborhood, the more we put on the vandal guards. My philosphy is the poor kids usually have a full plate just living life and the rich kids have too much idle time on their hands, which leads to trouble.:beatsme:cool2

Now if you are doing demo on the "bad side of town" be sure to take any copper or any other salvage material with you at the end of the day.

 

[stock]

Now if you are doing demo on the "bad side of town" be sure to take any copper or any other salvage material with you at the end of the day.

We normally leave it where they can get it on a Friday ,if we had no trouble ,thefts, or damage done during the week.

On one or two construction jobs we did in the"bad aeras" we asked them why they were robbing materials off the houses at night and were told that it was for pet constructions so ,we asked our suppliers for seconds of timber etc and left it out again for the locals and from that day until the day we finished we never had an ounce of trouble ,and the sparks company left the waste copper in a bin at the gate with the copper pipe from the plumbers each week where it was collected by the locals and recycled.

 

[bluntman410g]

stupid kids that dont have anything better to do happen countless times at my dads shop anywhere you go its going to happen. it sucks!

 

[JS580SL]

We lock all the doors, tanks, hood etc. Try to park in good visible areas. Fortunetly we've not had problems. It was the others on the jobs that got robbed or vandilized.

 

[John H]

One thing my uncle would do if there was a lot of kids watching the job site he would pick the biggest one out of the croud and go talk to him. He would tell the kid Ill give you 25$ a week If there are no more broken windows one my equipment. It worked out pretty good.

 

[Bellboy]

"Spare the rod and spoil the child" comes to mind. The richer they are, the more s*** they get into just to see how the "other half lives", when in reality, they are just either dirt poor and have very limited opportunities. They richer they are equates to how bored they are.

 

[Speedpup]

I have a yard with masonry equipment few trucks and 4 Lulls. Some one was screwing with the equipment banging it up. So I stayed at night on the weekends waiting. I heard some kids at night but they never came by my yard I guess they were drinking and with girls.

Go down to the yard at 5 PM on a week night in the summer to get the neighbor a laddar. I here all types of banging so I walk up slow. I see a bunch of kids from 10-13 just trying to wreck anything they can. I yell and they start to scatter. I never thought they could out run me with the shorter legs :beatsme Well they did and I tripped and fell. I jumped up and focused on one kid. I never could have caught him either. I yelled and he got so scared he stopped in his tracks.

I grab him and pull my cell phone out and call the cops. I then tell him he is not going anywhere. He stays basically calm. Then a min-van comes back with a load of kids in it.:guns Woman gets out and demands I let the kid go. I said he is going to wait along until the cops come down. Cops come down and all 8 kids get a ride to the police station.

They all ended up paying about 900 each except for one kid who had no money. He was the only one who had it remain on his record because his family had no money.

Funny thing is when all the parents came to the station not one came over and said sorry. They looked at me like I was the problem as I stood there with blood on my hands and dirt on my pants from when I fell.

Glad they all had to pay to fix everything. So young but they had a great time puncturing all the filters on the machines, smacking glass in the trucks, hammering the fenders, and ripping wires from the machines. Majority were closer to ten than the older two at 13. Sad to say I live 1/2 mile away and it is a good neighborhood or should I say I thought it was. Sad to see them act like this.

 

[Clayton M]

We had an incident where they went to the local dealerships and got keys that would fit them all and drove 3 excavators, 2 motor-graders, and a wheel loader into a pond. They were trying to get there truck off of the side after there "mid-night mud-bog" from where it had gotten stuck. Then they took a full bucket of a 450 and dumped it right on top of one of our off road trucks cabs! Everything in the end had to be sold it was rouened. In the end the idiots left the license plate on there truck the police ran the number and went to the house and found muddy boots on there front step and they are living life in the slammer now! Not really a slick way to end the fun!

 

[surfer-joe]

Too often police do not want to investigate, district attorneys do not want to prosecute, and victims don't want to mess with it either. In the end the perps learn that it's OK to do because they likely won't get caught and won't suffer any harm if they do get apprehended.

I always insisted that cops take a criminal conduct report, even if they never showed up on the work site. I also went to court several times with evidence and testified as to costs incurred by the company. Cost one set of parents several thousand dollars, and after the dad apologized to me he also promised the son was going to the woodshed as soon as they got home for a real beating.

But you know, I had as much trouble with vandalism from our own people as I did from outsiders. Especially in New Jersey. These were union people that were making in excess of thirty bucks an hour and whom were offered all the overtime they could stand. Actually caught a couple of our union surveyors marking up a rented excavator one day with orange marker paint. Project management and union officials stood up for them, but me and the Project Equipment Manager had witnesses and they were both fired. Equipment Manager wanted to have them charged, but project manager talked him out of it.

Seems like if they don’t own it, people don’t care what they do to others property. I shake my head at the damage done to railroad equipment.

 

[Dozer575]

Well since alot of people, police included, usually say its just some kids having fun, or its a prank and all that baloney. Instead of calling it what it is, terrorisim, and since we have a whole bunch of new laws that are for that sort of thing, how come the little darlings are allowed to get away with all the evil that they can muster up?
What needs to happen is they need to be imediately inducted into the military, and then they won't have all the spare time they had to do their dirty little deeds any more. And maybe they will get a chance to use their handy work in a war.

 

[bear]

Yup - that because of mis-information.
City kids see (and are taught) "development" and rural kids see (and are taught) "destruction" and "killing the trees", etc.

I'm about as rural as you can get and was never taught destruction.

 

[The Farmboy]

i have never destroyed anything but on our brandf new case ih 8010 combine some kids made a mess of it by bustyong the windows throwin mudd on it and this was like the 3rd day after broght it home

 

[biggrader]

Seems like if they don’t own it, people don’t care what they do to others property. I shake my head at the damage done to railroad equipment.

i've always been amazed at the graffiti on rail cars. Alot of it is spectacular! Wish those people would put their skills to something more productive than painting rail cars. If I knew who they were, I would pay for all of the paint and even give them a few bucks to "graffiti" something worth while.