UK : Shit country.

[Shockwave]

I'm sitting here with the windows open so that I can hear if there are any teenagers congregating outside the house

It's the same story every school holiday, especially in the warm summer evenings.

I live at the end of a street, there's a fish and chip shop a short walking distance away, I can see it out of my window now.  There used to be a lot of Polish people living in my area.  Basically they do the jobs that the local unemployed people can't be bothered to do.

I've never had any problems with the Polish people, they usually just keep themselves to themselves... Part of the way up my street is a large building, it's really quite a historic looking place but it's been converted into flats. 

Up until about 4 years ago it was almost exclusively Polish people who lived there.

The small minded local racist yobs (mainly teenage school kids) targetted the place, loitering around outside, spraying racist raffiti on the walls and generally giving the Poles a lot of shit that they didn't deserve.

Once these ignorant racists spray painted a swastika on the side of my house.
I've had the following cars vandalised outside my house;

14 year old Nissan Primera which I used as a run about, Mel caught a teenage thug jumping up and down on the roof, when she opened the window and shouted at him, he told her to fuck off.

We bought a new vauxhall astra in 2004, the local teenagers kicked the door mirror off that one.

The Nissan was also crashed into while it was parked and the guy was trying to leave the scene when we caught him.. He was uninsured as it turned out so that went down as a fault claim against us.

Our front garden wall has been damaged by teenagers and we often wake up to find beer bottles in our garden.

Last night somebody kicked the door mirror off Mels BMW and also tried to kick the mirror off my BMW as it was bent right back but luckily it didn't snap, none of the other cars in the street were attacked, our two were the only ones selected.  They are not new cars, one is 7 years old, the other is 9 years old so it's not as if they are anything flashy that people would be envious of.

So I'm here until 1am again now and I will be all Summer unless it's raining because on the warm evenings, it's the time when they come out and I'm determined to catch someone red handed and make an example of them.

The street where I live is supposedly one of the nicer areas in my town.  I grew up in a much rougher area on a council street and I know damn well that I could have parked my car outside without it getting broken into or damaged... Or is the world going this way?

If I phoned the police about the attacks on my property they wouldn't even come out, they'd just give me a crime incident number for my insurance company.

Our council tax is over £1,300 per year.. There are even areas where the council switch off the street lighting early on in the morning and only light alternate street lamps..  The bins are hardly collected on time.

It seems fucking wrong..

Thinking of the cars, we pay over £800 per year to insure them.
We pay over £250 per year on road tax.
We pay £1.38 per litre of fuel.
We pay 20% VAT on most of the things we buy.
They tax us an extra 6% on the insurance premiums we pay to replace our property when it's damaged by the local criminals.
We pay income tax and national insurance all our lives.
When we're old and can't care for ourselves, the government make us sell our homes to pay for us to go into care homes to die.
If there's anything worth having in our estate when we die, the government taxes it.

Mel wonders why I'd emigrate if I could..

I'm sitting here and wondering whether it's better or worse in other countries or other parts of the UK.

[Hotshot]

Whoa....shocking story as it something that I am not aware of but I do know there is quite lots of polish people coming into our country.

What make me mad is that....let just say they(polish people) got job before we British people trying to get the job in England is so wrong in my view but again everyone got own different view.

Govor is cutting police down and the crime is going go up I am afraid.....It depend on area where the person live.

Have you ever thought that your front garden that you make own path to make park for your car with CCTV Camera outside of your house as you will be catch them?

Moving different area isnt easy but once you know the aera that have no crime would be good thing!

[Shockwave]

Honestly, the Poles are not the problem.

When I worked as a courier I would go to work at 5:30am and as I drove up the street, the Poles were outside their building waiting to be picked up by the minibus so that they could go and clean factories or pick potatoes or some other menial work.

I've also been in the unfortunate position of having a broken leg and having to go to the dole office and I've sat there and watched and listened to some of the sad cases who simply don't want to work because it's not worth it for them.  These people would not do the jobs that the Polish workers do.

Newspapers like to blame immigrant workers for taking jobs and employers for driving down wages by employing them.  Personally though, I think that as long as you are able bodied and you are prepared to do any job then you'll never be permanently out of work.

In the meantime it's local Welsh teenagers who are causing all the problems around here.

As for parking off the road, I wish I could, but you've stayed here yourself - there's not enough room in the front for one car, let alone two.

[Moroboshisan]

I'm sitting here with the windows open so that I can hear if there are any teenagers congregating outside the house
[...] Mel wonders why I'd emigrate if I could..
I'm sitting here and wondering whether it's better or worse in other countries or other parts of the UK.

really sad to read that ...

Where I live here in Italy there isn't that much ciminality (not really a city... under 15000 ppl) ... everything else seems to be quite the same as everywhere in the world (insurance, taxes etc etc).

As for every place on earth we have Polish, Albanians, Romanians, Indians, Bulgarians as well as Russians, Jugoslavs, Spanish, Turkish, Lebanese, Algerians, Senegalese, Moroccan and such... as for everything eòse people coming from all over the world belonging to a particualr place are not the problem by themselves... some of them are just simply more problematic than others independently from where they come from.

If you can afford to move to another [nicer] place that would be great instead (I don't think you really need to move outside UK to find a nice place to live)... you just need to consider how to deal with you job and everything else... moving away is not a very easy choice.
Sometimes you won't regret to pack your things leaving to another place.

[rain_storm]

I'm feeling the same thing at the moment. But in my case it's not juvenile deliquents but a couple of drug addicts living two doors up. There's about 8 or 9 of them staying in a 3 bedroom. They range from late teens to late 20's but one of them is well into his 40's and still hasn't copped on (such a loser). They're always fighting and messing. They'd be roaring and shouting at all hours of the morning.

Last week I found the door of my car open and the head lights left on. This has happened a few times and it certainly wasn't me who left it like that (I've become somewhat security concious these days manually checking each door twice to see if they're locked). This time though they put a hedgehog in my car. I didn't spot the thing til the next day after I finished work. By that time the poor thing had made shit of the back seat. All clawed up and chewed. And a mess left for me to clean.

Where I'm originally from has a bad reputation for being a deprived area. But at least back there I knew everyone for a mile around me. And because of that nothing much ever happened. Here I really know no one. I'll be moving soon I'm only renting this place so for me moving is an easy decision. I'm tired of having to look out the window every time I pass the hallway.

These people are such a waste of life. I know plenty of similar people from my old neck of the woods who just live for drugs and cheap cider. Never had a job and at this stage of the recession they are truely unemployable. That middle aged yob sums my point up nicely. Who would employ a middle aged man who lives in the same tracksuit every day.

The funny thing is that most of the people in my old area would make you wonder why the place had such a bad name. They are honest people who work hard for a living. But then you see those losers hanging out in a feild getting drunk at that hour of their lives, acting like they're homeless tapping change.

It's not the world that's changing. Those mountains were always there. It's the people in the world that change.

[Jim]

If it's any consolation, we have thugs and idiots here in Sydney too.  I had the passenger side mirror kicked off my MX5 (for good measure they did the mirrors for the whole street of parked cars) and the roof was slashed twice, the second time beyond repair.  My previous car was broken in to.  My neighbour had a man with a knife in her garden.

We were already looking to move house for other reasons, but things like this make you concentrate.  Some people are just fuckwits.  I wonder if they grow up and regret the things that they did, or whether they'll still be crowing about it on Facebook when they're 40?

Jim
PS.  Sydney's actually a very nice place to live, and the above hasn't upset me beyond initial rage - it seems to be a price you pay for living in an urban area.  You shouldn't have to, but you do.

[padman]

Well, I live in Berlin and eventhough that there are some areas,  where even the police doesn't really like to go to anymore and if you are in bad luck could get beaten almost to death by some kids in the subway for no reason other than boredom and frustration, I can't complain about the part I'm living in. The only act of vandalism I recall was, when some wannabe ghetto gangsta dyslexics tagged on our trailer (and no, I don't live in it, it's just a trailer ). They'd have probably gotten beaten up by real "gangs" (or by me for that matter, if I caught them) for the ugliness of their artistic effort, but there aren't any around. Three years ago, we also had some kids loitering around at the playground/park across the street, drinking booze and yelling at night, but after a week of police visits they gave up and weren't seen ever since. Oh yeah and someone stole the radio from my bud's Mini in the 90s. It was stone old and the thief probably blind...

BUT, the youth of today is simply a bunch of morons no matter what country/city you live in, even here. And that is the main prob. They lack respect, manners and most importantly brains. I think it has to do mostly with family life, crappy schools and dull TV. (and of course a whole bunch of other things) I mean my Mom could afford to stay home, when we were kids, because my Dad earned enough money. And even if that was not possible and both parents had to work they usually had a secure job with standard 9am-5pm working hours. Just as an example I work in retailing and it's practically not possible to have a family life how I recall it from my youth. You have three shifts from 6/7am to 10pm (sometimes until midnight) which alternate at a non regular basis and if there are some holidays or Sundays, they open up the shops for a special occasion... Now if both parents have fulltime job (not only in retailing) you can imagine how much time is left for real family life.
Next thing education: Here in Germany we have badly trained and spiritless teachers ( mostly due to the spiritless and disrespectful students, it's a vicious cycle ...), so kids get bored in school and very often leave school with no degree or just a crap one. This then leads to no good further education and ends up in a crap job, if at all.
Dull TV: I mean come on, we have myriads of channels these days, but all that's on is reruns, talkshows, anything that has to to with crime and reality crap. When I was a kid we only had like 6 channels and sitcoms etc. were aired one time a week. You had something to look forward to for next week. Now they don't even bother to air shows chronlogically. So TV isn't consumed consciously anymore, it's mostly on, so there is at least some noise in the room, when Mom and Dad are at work... 

Ok, my 10 cents about this. 

[slinks]

Here in the Isle of Man, we have our own share of problems. Significantly less violence and yobbery I must admit, but a very large drink problem (our alcohol consumption being 2nd only to scotland in official figures) and now with plant food out there, it gives a lot of fuel to the scum you find walking the streets.

I honestly hope plant food turns out fatal in the long term, as it would certainly cut down on more than a few problems we get over here. I've had chavy little shits trying to wander in my place at 3 in the morning, eyes completely glazed over, wanting to use the phone.

[Kirl]

I figured I'd beat the youth to it by letting my friends 6 year old daughter paint my car last weekend, we had a lot of fun...
If people bump into me in a parking lot or wherever, instead of filling out insurance papers I ask them to put their autograph next to it. Whose idea was it anyway to make the chasis (protective casing) more expensive then the actual functional parts it's supposed to protect...

Random vandalism really sucks though. I'm happy to now live in a really quiet place near the city.

[Dr.Death]

Jesus mate i really do feel for you its not that bad by me ( Birmingham ) but there still are some stupid pricks who like to mess about, i am getting some little prick throwing crab apples at my house about 10 ish at night but i can't see them i know they are BORED but if i catch them i will KICK THE SHIT out of them....

[combatking0]

I'm sitting here and wondering whether it's better or worse in other countries or other parts of the UK.

Where I live in Woodlands, Doncaster, it isn't too bad - recently there have been some noisy neighbours, but that's it. If you were to move over here you may like it.

I had a similar experience with authority at school - the teachers had no problem with me being bullied, but as soon as I retaliated, I was the one at fault.

I just can't understand the mentality of the police in this case, but I've seen this happen before:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6241098/Police-failed-mother-and-daughter-who-burned-to-death-in-car.html

The police service don't know their arse from their elbow sometimes, even when the detective work has been done for them.

[Raizor]

I share a number of your concerns, but I wonder if that's just due to me becoming a 'grumpy old man'. It seems every generation views the next generation as devil worshiping heathens who have no respect for anyone, including themselves.

Personally, I do think the UK is going to the dogs, or a least parts of it appear to. Our local town is fast becoming a ghost town due to small independent shops being replaced by countless fruit-machine rooms as supermarkets continue to suck the life, soul and money out of the place. In Dover (where I live), a large influx of immigrants over the last ten years has created an "us and them" mentality, which most of the local residents have bought into. I think they're probably just the latest in a long line of scapegoats - previously, this was a garrison town and soldiers were considered due to be the root of most of the anti-social problems around here.

I think a large part of the problem is lack of prospects and amenities, there is pretty much nothing for anyone under the age of 30 in terms of entertainment or recreation. The job situation is pretty bleak too, but I think this is probably a national problem.

It seems to be a bad time car wise too. I got boxed by a massive, banged-up white van yesterday and ended up ripping a hole in my rear wing and denting a door trying to get out   I think Kirl has the right idea about cars

Sorry you're feeling down Shockwave.  Hope things improve...

[Rbz]

Sorry to hear that Shocky , seems that this crap happen everywhere, here it's not different and some times it's worst than only delinquent/drugged teenagers.

[ferris]

Sounds nuts. Awful to hear about peaceful people getting harassed and thrashed by incompetent, deranged youth. Really hope your situation improves there.

[Shockwave]

I need to dig a moat around the house and fill it with crocodiles
Thanks for the good wishes, it's really interesting to read how things are for people in other parts of the world.

[Pot Noodle]

This may be going against the grain but I used to leave in Jersey, Channel Islands 27 years it was.
I moved over to the UK in 2004 and I must say that I have never been so happy, most things here
are so much cheaper, I think that until you have leaved somewhere like Jersey you wont appreciate
The UK as much as I do, I know this may not make you feel better about your problems but
I don't think it's all the UK maybe just were you leave!

If you own your home, Sell it and move on..

[benny!]

This sounds provoking but maybe we are just too many.