Random acts of violence

I HAD a very long, very tiring day at work yesterday. When I finally got home my back ached and still is aching as are my feet.

After a far too late dinner I sat down to check up on emails when I heard the most almighty crash, thud, thump, smash wallop. It is dreadful I know but my immediate thought was the Young Wan has seriously destroyed something in the flat like a massive window. The noise sounded like someone was struggling with a washing machine in their arms which suddenly came crashing down onto the heavy granite step.

However the Young Wan came running into to say two men had come into the garden, picked up one of the steel buckets we use to clear away Bord Na Mona Peat Briquettes ash before chucking it at the house.

I went downstairs to see what the story was and saw the two drunk men staggering sauntering about 150 yards up the road into the night seemingly without a care in the world (ie they weren't running). At that moment the woman who lives downstairs came out in her dressing gown, seriously distressed and confused looking. Her husband was away and she was on her own and scared.

I told her what I knew and what the Young Wan saw. The Young Wan proceeded to look among the leaves in the garden for the bucket only it wasn't there. It was then the woman downstairs told me 'no look at my window'.

I looked and Oh my god, the b*stards had chucked the bucket in through her living room window, complete with ashes. My neighbour was obviously distressed and upset by this. So I went in and we surveyed the damage before I headed back to my flat to phone the landlord and the Gardai as well as try to locate something to cover her very large and smashed window.

The Gardai came very quickly but couldn't find the men. However the male proceeded to have one serious nosey around her things, peering at photographs and just stopping short of picking up her little ornaments. Before he left he told I had phoned the wrong Gardai station, the one which is closest to me is not my local, the one that is three times the distance away is. And he told me to phone the proper one in future.

Yeah, yeah, I can see it now. 'Help, help I am being attacked in my own home, I am phoning from my locked bathroom'. 'Sorry love you are onto the wrong station'.

In fairness to the 'wrong' station I originally phoned they just dealt with it, I just thought it was a bit meh to inform us of that after noseying everywhere.

When I left this morning the cardboard I put up last night was still there. She must have been freezing last night. At least the Gardai said they would drive by a couple of times to make sure there was nothing happening.

I am just bemused by the viciousness of it all, why would someone do that? I know awful things and worse things happen all over the city all the time but it was just such a random act of aggression and vandalism in an occupied house. Why would you do that?

Anyway that was my night.



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