West Seattle Crime Watch: Egg vandals strike again, and again

Back in early November, Amy reported two nights of egg-throwing hitting her condo building in The Junction near 44th/Oregon (map). Tonight, she says it’s happened again – twice in the past three days – and she’s frustrated and angry enough to offer a reward for catching the culprits, if that would help:

The first day was Friday, Christmas Eve, and the other time was tonight about 30 minutes ago (8:10 pm, 12/26). The police are on their way to interview us again.

Here’s what happened:

We were sitting in our living room and saw the eggs hitting our sliding glass door on the balcony.

My husband, Tim, then ran outside to see if he could see anything. Outside Tim talked to a neighbor, who was taking out his trash, and asked him if he had seen any activity outside (in the dark) of our building. Our neighbor said he saw two boys/young men run past him through the alley between the townhomes next to our building. Tim then hurried into the alley to look for signs of the boys. When he arrived in the alley, Tim saw a car (dark blue) driving south down the alley toward SW Oregon Street (near the corner of 44th and Oregon). When Tim approached the car, it sped off down the alley, turned west onto Oregon, and sped away.

I don’t know if you post these kinds of activities on the blog, but it has been four or five times now that we’ve been egged and I’m sure you can imagine how frustrating this is to the homeowners of this building, many of whom are elderly, having to clean up eggs night after night on our balconies.

In the Junction business district, several business owners had to clean up after the same type of vandalism a week ago, according to Click! Design That Fits (WSB sponsor)’s Twitter feed.

35this35mph December 26, 2010 (9:50 pm)

NOT to blame the victim; is there *any* possible reason why this building and/or unit and/or residents might be targeted? Somebody a teacher? Cop? Parole officer? Just seems curious to be targeted repeatedly…

Amanda December 26, 2010 (10:09 pm)

My house was egged as was my car. Three incidents in the last 6 months. We live at 23rd/Cambridge. Annoying, and completely unknown as to whom would do it. At least it’s not spray paint…

Here December 26, 2010 (10:09 pm)

I hope these children are caught soon. The police have better things to.

GenHillOne December 26, 2010 (10:42 pm)

There seems to be a lot of vandalism over the past months in this general area, from eggs – houses @ 44th & Andover were hit months ago – to Madison trees to Xmas decorations to…? If someone has this stuff compiled, it’s probably worth it to forward to the WS middle school & high school principals just so they’re aware. (Though nothing says the culprits are actually still in school or don’t go to school outside of WS, does seem like they might live in the area). Stupid actions often go hand in hand with stupid bragging and something might come up on the student grapevine.

DEF December 26, 2010 (10:49 pm)

A bit late to report this, but our car was egged back around a week ago, as we were driving north on Calif between Alaska and Oregon. Completely random. With our kids in the car. Startled us all (quite loud), thought it might be a freezer-made snowball until we saw the egg remnants on top of the car when we got home. What makes anyone think this is okay is beyond me, it’s dangerous to target a moving car with anything.

TL December 26, 2010 (11:03 pm)

Agree with 35this35mph. It could possibly be someone you know.

JB December 27, 2010 (2:29 pm)

I disagree with the “It’s probably someone you know.” theory. Stupid kids are stupid kids and it probably has to do with get-away routes. In my home town there was an alley that was notorious for egging of moving cars and the nearby apartments. When some of the kids were caught and slapped on the wrist, there was no motive unless you include stupidity and poor upbringing as a motive.

Carol December 27, 2010 (7:35 pm)

I did not report it but our house has been egged twice in the last 2 months. We have a large picture window that was hit but also a window and front door. Needless to say what a mess it is and how difficult to clean up. We are up on Genesee hill. I have teenagers so we thought it could be related to someone in school.

Nancy December 28, 2010 (7:42 am)

My van was egged about 6 months ago as I was driving south on California near Charleston.

sunset December 28, 2010 (9:00 am)

Where do you suppose the vandals are getting the eggs? I wonder whether asking someone working the night shift at a nearby store about it might help.

Tim McGuire December 28, 2010 (11:34 am)

I was amazed to find out that throwing eggs at buildings is not a crime. Repeatedly throwing eggs at someones property could be called harassment after you warn those throwing the eggs and they continue doing it, but unless the eggs break something or damage some property there is no crime according to the several police officers I spoke to. In my experience, it does damage to property and costs a lot to clean up. Not to mention the health issues that come in to play when the rats gather to feast on the broken eggs.

Granted, it’s not a huge deal but perhaps we’d have fewer of these incidents if it were a crime. It would certainly be a deterrent to many who choose to do this sort of thing and would possibly allow police to spend more of their valuable time and energy preventing other less petty crimes.

KEW December 29, 2010 (1:26 pm)

Our house was struck over the Thanksgiving holiday at 45h and andover. Additionally, on Christmas Eve, a friend observed teenagers buying large amounts of eggs at the 7/11 on California and Charleston.