August 2014, I noticed one of my car tyres kept losing pressure. After re-inflating it a few times, I made an appointment with Evans Halshaw in Hull. An inspection confirmed a puncture caused by a screw embedded in the inner wall of the tyre. The position of the screw was highly unusual, being on the inner wall and not on the outer wall or the road tread itself, and it's position made repair impossible. It was suggested it could have been placed specifically for me to run over, simply due to its unusual position. The only remedy being a new tyre, cost to myself: £94.93.
Just a few weeks later, in September 2014, on an clear sunny warm morning, we came out to the car to find eggs had been smashed on the passenger front door and passenger side of the windscreen. The eggs had been there some time, and were starting to dry in places. Raw egg is extremely difficult to clean from a car, particularly when it was starting to dry. The position of the eggs seemed weird, why would somebody come all the way onto my driveway, squeezing their way through the limited space I'd left between my car and the fence, to hit the front passenger side of the vehicle with eggs? Why not the drivers side, my side, the easily accessible side? It made absolutely no sense for this to have been done on my driveway. The eggs had to have been thrown over the fence, from number 1.
I'd had enough now, this was obviously deliberate. We cleaned the mess from the car, and as I worried about any escalation of these incidents leading to possible insurance claims, I reported the incident to Humberside police, making clear this was not the first, or an isolated incident. It was suggested by the police that it could be local kids, but I just didn't believe that at all, not the position the eggs were on the car, anyone standing next to my car smashing eggs would have got themselves covered in raw egg. Plus, my boys hadn't fallen out with the local kids, they had made friends and were well liked. R was a regular in the small local pubs, where he played pool and had many friends. There really wasn't that many kids in the village. It didn't make sense, at all.
A few weeks after the egg incident, in October 2014, I found smashed wine glasses on my driveway and path, and around my back tyre. This was getting ridiculous now. We'd been here well over a year, why would anyone in a village so small, want to cause us so much trouble? We were on friendly terms with the other family in the cul-de-sac with kids, D being close friends with their son, and the older lady in the Close, Hillary, who always smiled and stopped to talk. R had even mowed the front lawn of the elderly gent across the road from us at number 8, until he moved on and an old couple moved in. I very much kept myself to myself, I had friends I would go to visit back in Nottingham, and also in London, while my kids made friends in the village I kept things civil with the locals. I didn't know who was doing all these weird things to us at this point, and even suspected an ex partner in Nottingham. I was too paranoid to make new friends, I just didn't know who I could trust. Who was doing these petty things to me?
I reported this incident to Humberside police, and again they suggested kids doing it. But what sort of wayward kids/teens carry around stemmed wine glasses? I wasn't so sure it was kids.
The police suggested I get cctv but back then it was quite pricey. I bought an infrared camera that linked up to the TV, it didn't record but displayed live images. I couldn't fit it properly to my wall, so I opened my ensuite bathroom window which overlooked my driveway, positioned the camera pointing out of the window and down at my car and driveway, and at night I watched. For hours, I watched. Nothing more happened for several months, whoever was doing this had obviously seen my camera. But I couldn't just sit every night, being my own surveillance. It wasn't possible or feasible. Besides, maybe the camera had interrupted their fun, and they'd just leave us alone now. We tried to enjoy Christmas, and looked forward to the new year. As spring 2015 came around, my obsession with watching my vehicle, had all but disappeared. I thought it had all blown over. But just as I relaxed, whoever was targeting us, stepped up their game...
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