Reflectors

[elizilla]

This house is on the inside of a 90 degree corner. A year or two ago, I set up a half dozen of those driveway reflectors along the edge of the road in the corner, to encourage people to stop cutting the corner so close that their wheels went off the road and churned up mud. It worked well. The muddy strip at the corner stopped getting churned up, and the grass grew in. Now and then we'd lose a reflector or two, but we'd stand them back up if they were intact enough, or replace them if not, and the grass weathered the occasional trampling pretty well, now that it wasn't being driven over multiple times each day. The reflectors came in a box of a dozen, so we had spares, which we have slowly used up.

The other day we came outside and found that one of the roadside reflectors had been relocated to the lawn outside the front door, and all the others were gone. Our stock of spares was already depleted, but we put the one reflector back at the corner, and made a mental note to get some more.

Today I noticed that one remaining reflector is gone. Not a sign of it anywhere. No broken pieces, just missing.

I am not sure why someone has suddenly decided to mess with the reflectors. They've been there a couple of years and have not been disturbed except by snowplows and occasional driving mishaps that were clearly unintentional. Perhaps someone who has been occasionally hitting them, has decided to assert their right to drive across the grass in the corner?

I can buy another dozen reflectors, they aren't that expensive. But if I'm going to have to replace them all every couple days, it isn't worth carrying on a weird feud just to grow an extra ten square feet of grass. I just have to wonder why they are doing it.

Comments

[also-huey.livejournal.com]

Contruction-worker friend of mine was plagued by local teens mailbox-hunting. Somewhere around the third or fourth time he had to replace his mailbox, he called the police. Cops were like "Christ, whaddya gonna do?"

So the next time he was on a job-site and the backhoe digging the basement unearthed one of those enormous one-ton boulders, he said "I'll get rid of that. Put it in the back of my truck." He had to jack up the front of the truck and get about eight feet of leverage to get the damn thing out, right in the spot where his mailbox had been.

2AM a couple days later, he hears a crunch and goes outside to find a caved-in Jeep and a couple teenagers sprawled all over his yard. Ambulances take the kids away, tow-truck takes the dead Jeep away, and the cop says "...y'know, that rock has got to go." I think he paid the backhoe guy something like $200 to get rid of it. "Worth every cent".

He hasn't had to replace a mailbox since.

[elizilla]

When I first put up the reflectors, several neighbors recommended giant rocks instead. I don't feel that much hostility towards the people dragging wheels over the grass in the corner. It's just grass. I don't think any of the people cutting the corner are doing it on purpose. They're just lazy and inattentive, not hostile. The reflectors were a gentle reminder that encouraged enough of them to be slightly more careful, that the grass could survive the remaining idiots.

When the reflectors get mowed down (and like I said there was steady minor attrition), I never have to call 911, and I like it that way. Run 'em down if you must, then get outta here without making me deal with your drama. I don't get any satisfaction from seeing idiots get hurt, or their cars get damaged.

[greyhat.livejournal.com]

Teens are on spring break. Maybe wait a couple of weeks before putting them back up?

[elizilla]

Yeah, that's probably it. Give it a couple weeks for them to find some other prank to play. Hopefully their attention spans are short.