Time to Move?

TV Stevie and I love living in our city. Yeah, we had concerns about the Chromos' schooling, but they both ended up just fine. But the neighborhood is changing, and not for the better.

A couple of weeks ago, someone paintballed my house, 

Porch window with paintball

my garage,

Lower left corner, upper right corner
and two spots in the right door.
TV Stevie tried to clean these
but they left stains

Close up of paint ball damage to garage door

the stop signs, and a couple of neighbors' houses. 

Last night, someone stole our gas grill. Off our patio. It was nestled in an ell of our house, where the laundry room meets the kitchen. 

The grill was wedged in this corner, between the table and the two walls.
You can see the missing "foot" in the lower right hand corner of photo.

And some . . .  person . . . walked off with it. Except the loose foot. I'm tempted to fill that with the dog doo another . . . person . . . left on my lawn and see if the criminal comes back for the missing piece.

I realize the police must deal with more "important" crimes, and they're doing the best they can given budget cuts and the current climate. A few paintball marks pale in the face of the violence, drugs, gangs, etc. I absolutely do not expect them to patrol my little side street on an hourly or even daily basis. 

But my city needs to deal with quality of life issues. Without quality of life, the people the city want to attract aren't going to come, and if they do come, they won't stay. Quality of life isn't just about getting drugs off the street, stopping the random shootings, gangs, etc. It's about being able to unload your groceries at the side of your house and not stepping in dog doo; it's about sitting out on your patio on a summer evening without trepidation; it's about not finding smashed bottles on your sidewalk. Again, insignificant in face of other issues. The Chromos call these First World Issues. I'm a spoiled American woman. 

If we invest in another grill, I'm going to spray paint the following message on it:

STOLEN FROM insert my street address.