Threw an egg at a car in an insomnia fuelled rage. AIBU?

[EggVigilante]

I live in a block of flats with a turning square for cars outside. It’s painted with double yellow lines.

Unfortunately, this space attracts antisocial behaviour, especially during warmer months. We tend to get cars parking up and people congregating there during the night, with people playing music and chatting/shouting away at all hours.

In the past I’ve just turned over and tried to get back to sleep (often being woken up a few more times that night). This was a real blight on our lives last summer, but we’ve had a bit of respite over the winter. Last year I thought seriously about what I could do to try and get the noise dealt with by the council, but from research (and past experience about a noisy neighbour), I don’t think this is likely to be effective. It’s not always the same cars/people. I’ve thought about going out there and asking people to be quiet, but given how inconsiderate they are being, I doubt this would work (and feels potentially dangerous). After thinking about it I decided there was nothing I could really do to solve this, and it was just one of those things, and I’d have to lump it.

Last night I was jolted awake at 3:30 am by loud music booming from a car. I looked out the window and saw it had pulled up just outside.

I had a tough week last week, getting some bad health news, and I have been suffering from a bit of insomnia. My job is always quite full-on, and I was already filled with a fair bit of post-weekend dread about the amount of work I’ve got to get through this week. I thought I’d been coping pretty well, but I do feel a bit stretched thin.

When I saw the car parked there, blaring music so loudly and probably waking at least a hundred people up in the overlooking flats, I was so incensed that I ran into the kitchen, grabbed an egg, and lobbed it from the window.

The egg splatted harmlessly next to the car, which drove away sharpish.

AIBU to become the egg vigilante?

As a fellow insomniac and hater of noise and inconsiderate people I sympathise, but as a mother of a child with a severe egg allergy please please don’t throw eggs. The context is not ridiculous, if my child happened to fall over on that bit of ground, or open a neighbouring car door etc etc there would be serious dangerous repercussions. It’s not like a restaurant which we would be avoiding. Please could people be more aware of this. You wouldn’t throw other dangerous objects around.so don’t do this either. It’s also disgusting to leave food outside.

This makes no sense. People are antisocial dicks, absolutely. Is the answer to behave the same, or worse? Perhaps inciting aggressive or violent retaliation?

There’s never a reason to behave like a common thug.

I would get on to The Police & Local Authority

You can get a Public Space Protection Order

Also report the registration numbers

If the OP's local police are anything like Police Scotland, there's not a hope in hell that they would come out for something like this.

Practically our whole street was out one night a couple of years ago, because two yobs had taken a 'For Sale' sign and were using it to bash parked cars.

I phoned the police. They weren't interested.

“Call the police.”
Do the police actually exist any more?

”Eggs thrown at people can be deadly.”
Is this why people throw eggs at politicians, to assassinate them without using a gun? Also, do trick or treaters who throw eggs know that it’s deadly?

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I too thought of the fuse box idea when the student house next to us had an all night party, I didn’t do it in the end (complained to the university instead, who did carry out disciplinary proceedings).

The Police wont necessarily come out for one incident BUT there are steps that can be taken if its constantly happening

Yanbu
but bare in mind if it hit someone, it’s actually assault x

Would it be assault? Or… battery?

(it was, in fact, a free range Burford Brown)

This was happening regularly near me and the police wouldn’t ever come out. They did absolutely nothing. In the end I went out with a hammer and threatened to smash the fuckwits’ headlights if they didn’t stop. The previous ones had been put off with a bright torch. I can’t say I’m proud, but when my child was sobbing with tiredness, and I was exhausted and enraged, I’m afraid rationally thinking went out of the window.

Ooh, fancy Op! They didn’t deserve such a nice egg!

I adore these threads. They bring out the unbelievably po-faced 😂

Given that there was so many people impacted I'd be denying all knowledge, it could have come from anywhere? 🤷‍♀️

you need more practise at aiming

Eggs are rather expensive if this happens a lot, can you get something splatty that’s cheaper (wet paper towel?)

Don't waste your eggs. Copy ye citizens of Edinburgh in ye olden days.

Don't forget to shout Gardyloo you fuckwits at them as loud as you can.

www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/gardyloo-the-grim-story-of-unsanitary-edinburgh-1480434

its Difficult to know what to do though in these circumstances. I also live in a flat and have similar issues, especially as since living here a pub opened opposite and a small public square was built both of which have not improved things. Some young people round here literally walk around carrying a boombox?! Police don’t care unless things turn violent. Our area has a ‘noise control’ team but it’s only open at certain times, takes hours to call back, often by that point either the noise has stopped or I miss the call anyway as my phone is on silent as I’ve given up waiting and am desperately trying to get any sleep at 4.30 am… basically totally ineffectual. Things improved when I got a very big tall neighbour who wasn’t afraid to go out and tell them to move on. Alas he moved on too eventually! Good luck but please do not throw eggs.

If you want to start a go fund me to buy more eggs i’ll contribute- go you!

Anyone else with egg allergies- as we say in Scotland, nae luck!

Well, there is a regional egg shortage. Children in California are having to eat their avocado toast dry as it's still something like £5.50 a dozen, despite Erdoğan riding to the rescue! I would consider throwing something cheaper, like lentils.

At least use cheap eggs!

I would just be cautious of making sure you miss so you don’t have to pay for damage, hopefully them not knowing if your next aim will be better would discourage them from staying in future.

Plus are you able to disguise what window you are at so they can’t retaliate?

I would contemplate warm apple juice in a water gun so they can worry it’s pee.

Simeone once parked a BMW on our street (because they didn’t want to pay for residential parking on their own road).
Alarm goes off and was blaring for 6 hours (this is before cars were stopped from having this kind of alarm). We and others called the council once it got to 11pm.
The following morning we walked past said car on the way to the station, whose owner was sadly staring at all the dried egg on his expensive car.
It wasn’t us but I didn’t have a shred of sympathy for him.

I don’t blame you one bit op. I say that as someone whose front windows once got egged in a drive by lobbing; possibly by the cleaner I had recently sacked. It’s an absolute bastard to get off.

It is a funny comment, yeah.
If my child could die from a common product that they come into contact with every day I would probably suggest they don't act like a wazzock in case someone whizzes it at their head.
You're aware that laughing at a joke doesn't automatically constitute unwavering support for the course of action therein, aren't you?
Have a tiny sense of humour.

There is more action you can take. Find out who the landlord is for the block and any neighbouring ones affected. Find out if your neighbours are also disturbed - do you have a TRA? Every single time this happens, contact the council’s noise reporting line, and follow up the next day with an email to your local councillors. Keep records of every time it happens and take pics and licence plates if you can. If you can face the effort, make a complete nuisance of yourself and the council may do something (install CCTV or parking controls?) to make you go away.

Can totally understand why you did it. I'd have been tempted to do the same. But in the forefront of my mind is a story from my town a couple of years ago.. some troublesome kids started throwing eggs at passing cars and hit a woman in the face. The lost her eye. She was a nurse so has also lost her career. So would caution the use of eggs. Maybe water balloons next time? But as more longterm plan I would look into contacting council/landlord/whoever to come up with a solution.

Truly my sympathies to have a child with a severe life threatening allergy. And you're right ofc we shouldn't throw food around as sensible adults.

Having said that, an egg splatted on the road is fairly easy to spot and hopefully for your DC to avoid. And there are plenty of other contexts of food spills which are not as visible (food waste bag with unknown food products dripping on the pavement, someone dropping a drink by accident on the pavement, someone eating something on public transport and so on) so I don't think the egg throw risk needed to be highlighted as strongly as it has been on a relatively light hearted thread about yobs making noise at 3am.