I have been dealing with a slowly escalating situation at my apartment building. A group (6-10) of juveniles (10 years - 16 years old?) have been causing issues. Here are a few:
- Entering a small shared laundry area for my building and smoking and/or just hanging out. There was a lock on it, but it's been broken. I'm waiting on maintenance to fix it. Out of the dozen or so times I've witnessed this, I told the kids to stop twice.
- Throwing rocks at our parking lot dumpster
- Throwing rocks at our door.
- Unverified: rock chips on my girlfriends car.
- Latest event: kicked in my backdoor (which leads directly into my bedroom) as I was stepping out of the shower around 9pm, then ran away.
- Strange event: one of the kids knocked on my door at 10pm and asked if I had any water and really didn't know what to do in this situation. I ended up giving her a soda then she left.
None of them live in my building and it's very difficult to find out which building (most likely owned by a different company), let alone which apartment they do live in. I called the police after my door was kicked in. They advised me to put up cameras and talk to my landlord. However, they also seemed to play it down as "kids just messing around" (their exact words). When I called non-emergency to request additional police presence in my neighborhood, they were the ones that suggested I have an officer come out immediately and take a report. So I think it's strange that the police that did come out made it seem like it wasn't a big deal. I talked to my landlord as the police suggested and the landlord said he wasn't sure what they could do besides put up a sign, but even then the "kids will probably ignore it". However, he did say he'd check into the maintenance request and expedite it.
I apologize if this isn't the right forum for this type of post, but I'm trying to get some idea of what legal recourse I have and who/what I should pursue?