Last time I was back at my parents’ place, my mother told me someone stole all four wheels off the neighbor’s brand new car. She woke up one morning, peaked across the street, and there it was: a Honda Accord tiled on cinderblocks. Why would someone steal wheels off a plain Honda Accord? Because the Honda sedan is ubiquitous. There’s so many of them on the road that the demand for spare parts (law of large numbers vis a vis collision accidents) must be equally sizable. That means a fresh set of (stolen) wheels (plus nearly new tires) should easily fetch many hundreds of dollars.
I do feel bad for the neighbor. According to mom, it’s some young adult who moved into the downstairs in-law unit across the street. The Honda Accord was the first new car he’s ever bought with his own money. Pretty exciting, right? I can remember that joy when I drove my Subaru WRX STI home from the dealership. So much joyful emotion that I nearly had an anxiety attack. Anyways, it has to suck greatly to see something so new and cherished (and expensive) being messed with by amoral thugs. That undercarriage is forever marred by being jacked up on cinderblocks.
I can empathize with that neighbor, too. It seems that particular block of Visitacion Valley is cursed for new cars. Back when my parents bought a brand new Toyota Corolla for me to begin college (many thanks), another set of thugs threw a cinderblock at the driver-side A pillar, while it too was parked on the street. It was a complete violation of the most precious object me (at the time, anyways). While the damage was fixed promptly, the car never felt the same to me since that incident. Sentimental value vanished alongside the purity of an unmolested new car.
Hopefully that neighbor doesn’t love cars as much as I do. If that Honda Accord is just an appliance to him, he’s going to get over the incident rather quickly.
People watching.