It sucks that your wife is so antsy about it. That'll mess up the implementation of the Ultimate Reaction. This method has kept vandalism at my house down to a minimum for years.
The Rationale behind the Plan:
These real-life trolls love to see you or her out there, agitatedly trying to reverse their vandalism. It's what gives them the lulz that make doing it worthwhile. Knowing that, the obvious response is to NOT bother doing anything! EVER!
Not only will this deprive them of the sight of you cleaning up their mess, it'll LOWER PROPERTY VALUES for all the surrounding houses, which is something all richies hate. Once their parents realize that you are not going to do anything to de-uglify the place, they'll start bitching to their kids to stop uglifying it up to begin with "because if someone TPs that place, we'll be looking at it for the next 6 months!"
Examples:
(Reaction must always be with an unperturbed "meh" voice and somewhat bored expression! In public, YOU DON'T CARE AT ALL!)
TP
A few years back the trees were TP'd. I left it there. When a neighbor asked "did you know your house got TP'd? Aren't you going to take it down?"
I said..."NAH that stuff is biodegradable; it'll go away on its own!!" And that's exactly what I let happen. So, the neighbor had to look at it until it rotted completely away!
Never been TP'd again.
Eggs:
"Did you see those eggs on your ledge?"
"Oh, are there? Oh well. Rain'll wash that away." I let 'em rot. (Keep window closed during rotting process.)
Never been egged again.
Spray Paint:
IGNORED. Right now, the letters "FU" are on the mailbox. Been there for two years. Will be there for 3 more, unless I get a bigger mailbox for unrelated reasons.
There's been no more spray painting.
Cans left in the yard:
Ignored until spring.
"Are you going to leave those there?!"
"YEAH! I only clean up junk outta the yard once a year. Anything that appears after that...STAYS!"
(Went out one night at about 3AM and they mysteriously "blew over" across the street. Not all at once, but over several weeks so it looked like their crap was coming back to them nice and natural-like.)
Escalated to Glass Bottles:
Mowed so the shards ended up in the driveway of the source.
"There are glass shards in the road/our drive!"
"Yeah [shrug]. I can't be picking through the weeds to find that stuff. Anything that's in the yard gets mowed over. If people don't want glass all over, they'll have to learn to Dispose Of Properly."
The littering ceased.
One of the glorious parts of being a webmaster is that if someone does something like TP or even spray painting...THEY will have to look at it, and I WON'T! If I do go "out There," it's at night. And everything always looks fine enough at night.
Just leave that big dick on your fence and "not notice" it. If someone says something, say you'll "get around to it" (of course, that'll be on the 12th of Never!). They WILL regret putting that there after hearing their parents bitch about it forevermore!
Best thing is that the parents don't even have to know that their kids did it (remember, many parents really do have delusions that their brats are little angels). They'll complain to their whole household about how every time "those kids" do anything, they (the parents) have to look at it for months!
Of course, this works best when YOU don't intend to move. That way, you don't have to give one whit about YOUR property values, and in fact, lower ones are better for your tax bill!! Make sure to mention this to all adult relations of suspects if they mention their Holy Property Values. Low property values = low taxes, so you love it! Make sure you can say this with a completely straight face.
Oh, and in my situation, it wasn't the kids doing it. It was the b*tch across the street and her friends, and she's about 38!
