Last night, whilst watching East Enders, Claire and I heard this very strange noise coming from outside. At first we thought it was someone sorting their recycling box on the pavement (bin & recycling day today), but the noise didn't sound right and seemed a bit brutal for sifting.

Being the nosy neighbour that I am, I went and investigated. Lo and behold, I saw some little snot smashing the windows in on a car that belongs to the girl across the road. I flew downstairs at break neck speed (I didn't break mine) and asked him exactly what he thought he was doing. He told me it wasn't any of my business and proceeded to shove a recycle bin in the side window.

I told him to stop as this wasn't his car and he was making a mess of the neighbourhood (I know, what was I thinking?) To which he replied "This is my neighbourhood too and you can't do anything about it" and proceeded to shove a bin bag full of rubbish through the rear windscreen. Well, a bit more shouting occurred (I can't remember the details, but I was being quite vocal, but clean) and the kid eventually stopped, and marched up the road tossing the contents of two recycle bins into the road on his way.

In the mean time Claire had called the police and several other neighbours had joined me on the road.

Well, it turns out the kid lives in the same block of flats as the girl who's car he smashed up (immediately below her in fact). Apparently they'd had a bit of heated exchange of words after the kid went round several times complaining about noise. This apparently involved doors being kicked and the girl being spat at (nice!). The kid apparently also had a huge row with his mum before flipping out and breaking off the wing mirrors and smashing some of the windows on this poor girl's car.

I don't know the full details about what provoked him, but it seems a bit extreme for him to flip out like this. Apparently they haven't had much problem with this kid before either.

We had the police round, one of which wrote my statement out (in poor English, I might add) and the police cleaned things up. No idea if they found the kid or waited for him to come home, but my car windows were still intact this morning and I did my bit for the 'hood.

Only time will tell what happens, but I really hope this doesn't become a regular occurrence - we've just remortgaged for two more years and it's a nice neighbourhood.