We've been having some work done on our home and it's being overseen by a very reputable general contractor. We've worked with numerous contractors before and he is by far the best. However, one of his long-time subs brought his teenage son to our house, unbeknownst to the contractor I believe, while he worked. The kid broke into our locked desk (with a screwdriver that he left IN the drawer) and stole credit cards and cash. It is evident that he went through all of our cabinets and drawers and even ate some of our food. He also apparently took an old cell phone and MP3 player but ended up chunking them into the neighbor's yard. I've also discovered my jewelery in random places in the house, but nothing missing as of yet. My contractor is mortified. We are supposed to sit down with him and the sub to figure out what to do. The kid is young - like 13ish. My first inclination is to ask him to return everything and we'd forget it happened. However, after finding the misplaced jewelry today I'm pretty steamed and considering pressing charges. That jewelry was in a very, very inconspicuous place. It's evidence to me that the kid must have gone through everything in our house. Please advise. How common is this? What recourse do I have? My contractor has already told me he will pay us for everything.
the good news is that they are willing to work with you. seems like you should ask the father, "shouldn't we call the cops and teach your son a lesson?" so that you not only involve the authorities, but also teach the kid a lesson. cover your bases, you have been robbed and that kid should learn accountability for his/her actions. tossing items into neighbors yard, shows that this kid was ready to be caught or just plain stupid.
I am usually pretty liberal, but I think you are considering letting these guys off too lightly. I would certainly press charges if this kid sacked my house like he did. Who knows how many times he has done this before? The sub contractor brought this kid to your home; he should be accountable. If I was the GC I would immediately fire the sub and never use him again. All these contractors have is their reputations and this has put it in jeopardy.
Call the police! You can decide not to file charges later but hopefully the experience of having to goto the police department and the embarrassment that his father will face will cause the kid not to do this crap again. Never too young to learn a lesson.
Having him return the items and then letting him off the hook completely diminishes the seriousness of his actions. That kid is well on his way down the wrong road and he needs a bigger wake-up call.
1. Call the police, file a report, have him picked up. You need a police report to help with getting alerts placed on your accounts for identity theft. 2. Place fraud alerts on your accounts with all your card companies and the credit agencies. Decide what to do after you get all your stuff back.
Hell yeah call the cops -- that's the first thing you should do. Let them figure out a way to talk you out of pressing charges. At the very least you're looking at some kind of discount on this work. But the kid needs to learn.
The kid might hand you back all of your credit cards, but you have NO idea who his friends are & what kind of access to him they have. It's beyond "kid stuff", i.e. it's not like he's 5 years old & should be struggling with the concepts of right & wrong.
I think I'd make my decision based upon a discussion with all parties involved, but most importantly with the kid. You put something like this on the kid's record and doors close for him. The ones that don't close are the ones you/we don't want the kid going through. He may need to be sent that way, but he might not. I'd want to decide for myself before I closed doors on a kid that young. There was a kid in SA that got shot by a homeowner while stealing a rooster kept for cockfighting. I got lambasted on this BBS for intimating that the death penalty was pretty harsh in that instance so I might be out of step with popular sentiment.
So the theory is that kids make mistakes and that we shouldn't hold them accountable because it could damage their future? Or that we should try and handle it internally rather than get the cops involved? I don't see that at all -- if the kid is old enough to know how to jimmy a lock with a screwdriver then he is already headed towards the a criminal lifestyle. He needs to get rocked back in place. The lesson needs to be that this **** isn't a joke. If he gets off with just having to give the stuff back and apologize, he's going to just keep going. Hell, I'd start stealing **** if I knew the only consequence was having to give it back if I got caught.
Call the cops, and do everything to sound as serious and threatening as you can during this "meeting"... both the contractor and the sub need to know that you are not only unhappy, but very mad about what happened... you also need to reinforce the contractor that you appreciate his service and would like to keep working with them... this way you don't miss out on a good contractor and he's likelly to make very sure that nothing like this happens again...
We just found out the kid is in jail as of last week for something else. Wow. I think we are going to file a report now. I didn't know you could do that and not have charges pressed.
Wow is right. I would bet the dad brought him to the job bc he cant trust him at home alone...just guessing. It's sad but he needs to learn a lesson.
...if only there was video. File charges. I feel for the dad because he's probably trying to fix his kid before he goes to a pound-me-in-the-*** prison.
I never said there shouldn't be consequences. I'd focus my attention on the kid as opposed to a formulating my opinion based upon a bunch of internet posters (like me) and go from there. Someone said the dad may have been toting the kid along to keep him out of trouble, but it's possible the dad was toting him along to give him the opportunity. I was advocating an evaluation based upon the situation, not a bunch of us who don't know what the situation really is. Most juveniles are treated with fairly strict privacy for the very reasons I mentioned. We(society) don't want their only options to be a life of crime. At some point you give up and treat them like criminals. 13ish is pretty early to give up. Maybe justified, but I know that I'd rather he pay taxes as a productive citizen that have my tax dollars pay for his lifelong incarceration.
I feel the same way as you, Nick. Thirteen is young. I also really feel for the dad, as he is a nice fellow. But we are peeved he brought his troubled kid to the job, where he obviously could not keep his eye on him all the time.
if he gives you everything back make him cut your grass and edge for one year for free... assuming you can get his father to watch him do it... wait now that he is already in jail.. call the fuzz..
Decades ago, my brother had 600 old silver dollars stolen from a trunk in his attic in Balcones Village. His son had played up there previously with a somewhat jerky neighbor kid. Unfortunately, Brother left his garage door open a lot so it wasn't too hard for the Jr.High-age brat to find the opportunity to get up there unseen. Some time later the theft was discovered. Anyway, Brother heard from a neighbor that the kid had spent a few silver dollars at the local 7-11. Of course the clerk wasn't going to squeal on the little ****, as he probably was making a profit turning the coins over. This was long after the fact, so Brother never confronted the brat's family about it. But he did hear years later that the little bastid went to law school.
