I know am not but want to moan...police really p*$$£d me off this morning at 3.30am

[Curiousmama]

I'm suffering from insomnia at the moment as going through house move and divorce. Both of which I'm ecstatic about but it's affecting my sleep.
So, this morning at 3am I heard a loud noise coming from the corner shop, next door. I look out and see 2 youths messing about with the big wheelie bin the shop has. They were throwing rubbish etc... then proceeded to try to wheel it uphill past my house! They were both palatic drunk and had what looked like bottles of cheap cider in the other hand. I kept an eye on them and rang the police. I also rang next door for a bit of moral support. Although my dog would've had them if they'd started.
Something must've startled them as they ended up leaving bin and running..if you can call it that...to the park over the road. When I went outside the smell of alcohol was still in the air and I could smell it on myself back in the house. The next thing a lone policeman arrived and I told him which direction they'd gone. He followed and whilst I was watching out of my window I saw them going through the park in other direction, so I rang 999 again and they said they'd tell police. After another 5 minutes the same policeman pulls up and starts moving the bin back. I said 'did you get them?' He said 'oh no they ran over the school field' Some dialogue continued with me shouting at him saying I could've caught them my self wearing a blindfold! He said they'd done their best I went in the shop this morning and told the owner (he hadn't been told) and he's going to show me cctv later. He was asleep upstairs and shocked he hadn't heard it. Next door heard me and said they were laughing their socks off.
I'm just so sick of this attitude. Ok so no harm was done really but it could've been. Plus they did damage to signs at the shop and no one told the owner?

meant myself

Why phone 999 for this? I know its annoying when kids wake you up doing stupid things when they are drunk,but 999 is an emergency number if someone is at risk of being harmed in a crime.

Where I live its usually for knife attacks.

999 twice for two drunk kids with a wheelie bin?

You rang next door for moral support, at 3am? Then shouted at the police in the street, in the middle of the night? Blimey, glad I'm not your neighbour!!

Sorry, I know it can be frustrating when kids mess around like this, and I can understand you want them caught and told off.

But I'm not surprised that the shopkeeper hadn't been told yet - it's hardly an emergency.

And difficult to judge if the police had tried hard to catch them or not, without being there.

I think YAB a bit U. Maybe the insominia is skewing your perspective a bit?

999 for wheelie bin on a Saturday night! I'm amazed the police sent anyone at all. 999 is for emergencies, ie risk to life or serious crime.

If you'd left them to it, they'd have struggled with the bin for a couple of minutes, got bored and toddled off home.

I wouldnt have called the police or my neighbour for this or shouted at the officer. What exactly did you want them to charge them with? Harrassing a bin? Sounds to me as though you have alot on your mind and are perhaps over reacting. They sounds like a couple of people on the piss who decided to mess around with the bin. A nuisance - yes. A crime - no. NIMO. So yes YABU. I hope you get your move and divorce sorted soon.

YA definitely BU. Police on a Sat night are needed in the town centre to deal with actual crimes like assaults. Imagine if you had been assaulted in the street and were left waiting for police to arrive, but they were busy dealing with an hysterical woman who decided to waste police time by calling 999 not once but twice about two drunken lads larking about?

Every police force has a non-emergency number, and even if criminal damage had been caused (I don't see how - they were throwing rubbish about) then you still should have used that.

FFS, 999 is for life or death emergencies. Don't do it in future.

I think the Officer went above and beyond what was necessary in the circs.
I cant beleive you rang 999 for a drunks mucking around witha wheelie bin.

YABU please don't waste 999 calls again, and I'm sure your neighbour would prefer not to be woken at 3 am for "moral support" when you're perfectly safe tucked up in your home.

What a waste of police time!

You called your neigbour?! I hope they hung up on you, I'd not entertain a conversation about a wheely bin at that time of the morning. I think you are obviously very stressed atm and are letting things get out of proportion in your head. What did you expect the neighbours to do?!

I think if anyone should be aggrieved, it should be your neighbour

To be fair to the OP, the Met descibe an emergency as "when a crime is happening now". Damage to property is a crime.

However, probably would have been easier to just open the window, yell at them to STFU, and go back to sleep.

Calling the neighbour was unreasonable.

Where do you live? Trumpton?

Ha ha ha ha!!!! you really called the police and your neighbour about a couple of drunk lads moving a wheelie bin a bit down the street?

If you where my neigbour calling me at 3:30am to tell me someone else's wheelie bin was in the process of being stolen, I'd have told you to piss off.

If you had rung me at 3.30am for that shite it would be me being arrested!!

Bonkers and conkers.

same here Riven.

Zero tolerance I agree with. Dialing a dedicated emergency number to report minor crime I do not. 999 is to report crime where loss of life is potentially imminent. To use it otherwise is a gross misjudgment at best, criminal misuse of resources at worst.

And a zero tolerance policy must come from law enforcement, not from curtain twitchers.

Riven- yes, that's completely true but why couldn't the OP just open the window and shout at them to fuck off home and threaten to call the police if they then didn't?! Seeing as they were only throwing some rubbish about, I don't think that they really sound like the kind of lads who would have then caused major problems.

To call 999 TWICE in the middle of a Saturday night is ridiculous in this situation, and I'm surprised the police even sent anybody down.

Yes minor anti-social behaviour shouldn't be tolerated, but why should the police have to deal with everything? Are we no longer capable of just getting on with things ourselves?

999 is to report crime where loss of life is potentially imminent.

Well no, it does not have to be for potential loss of life. You would call 999 if someone was stealing your car, wouldn't you? But the OP was a bit excessive calling 999. However, that is far less U than waking up the neighbour at least the police were awake and working at 3am, and they obviously thought it was worth sending a squad car to attend.

The op rang 999 twice and presumably wasn't told by the call handlers that she was wasting their time. They don't hold back if they feel the number is being misused.
Young men as drunk as that and behaving stupidly are at risk of harm actually and damage to property is a crime as somebody else has already said.