Update on Abandoned Trailer

Submitted by SirGraniteHead t3_11bvjow in newhampshire

Just a quick update on the Abandoned Trailer.

The owner was located after WMUR ran the story. He was a resident of another nearby building. For some reason, his landlord told him he could park it there (why his landlord would have told him that, I have no idea). When I spoke to him, he said "if the police had just run the plates and contacted me, I would have moved it!" so for those of you wondering why the police didn't run the plates, you're not alone.

The trailer has been moved. That's all I care about.

For those of you wondering why I didn't just push it into the street or light it on fire, I wanted to avoid making the problem worse. Someone parking a vehicle on my property is something wrong they did to me, and there is a lawful way to deal with it. Me actively moving a vehicle into the public way (or asking someone to do so on my behalf) could have (a) had legal ramifications for me and (b) created a problem for even more people who were merely innocent bystanders, such as people trying to use the street. It's not fair for me to export my problem onto other people - as tempting as it may have been.

Thank you for all of the advice and recommendations. I hope you all enjoyed the little slice of absurdity I could bring into your days.

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Comments

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Adweena t1_ja04no3 wrote

Glad it worked out. Trended huge, too

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DeerFlyHater t1_ja05mpd wrote

Happy Ending! :) It was fun for me to follow along.

and yes, we're all wondering why the cops didn't run the plates. That's darn near automatic first thing cops do behavior.

If you're bored, you could shoot a note to the chief of police to ask WTF and possibly bring this poor service to his/her attention.

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rog_ChaiNSaW t1_ja0652e wrote

I was driving thru hooksett today around 12 and thought I saw a trailer that looked similar getting towed. That must've been it!

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DeuceClimaxx t1_ja07qtk wrote

The bottom line is MPD could have stepped in and assisted with the matter but it sounds like they opted not to. Hats off to you for doing diligence and notifying the actual owner. People make mistakes and it’s nice to hear that every now and again when they do, their property isn’t burnt to the grown because of it.

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Icy-Neck-2422 t1_ja07u57 wrote

I'd like to think the magician behind getting this solved was our guy Ray Fucking Brewer.

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Hextall2727 t1_ja09kps wrote

We don't hire our brightest to be cops.

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hedoeswhathewants t1_ja0ewlm wrote

Honestly, good on you for not simply making it someone else's problem.

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Nowhere_X_Anywhere t1_ja0hwm2 wrote

>so for those of you wondering why the police didn't run the plates, you're not alone.

Yeah, I cannot imagine any issues at all with the police complying with every private citizen's request to run the plates on some random vehicle.

The landowner, outside of claiming it wasn't theirs did absolutely nothing that would have warranted the police running the plate and giving the property owner the RV owner's info.

There is a reason you cannot just go to the DMV and demand info on someone based on their plate number.

If you want that info you need to start legal proceedings and prove that you have a legal justification to that info.

This protects you, I and everyone from some random crazy pulling your plate 'cuz they though you cut them off and showing up at your house .

The property owner had other options at their disposal they never pursued, like filing an abandoned property claim, and as this is resolved never need to pursue now.

It would be nice if a few more folks did a bit of research before leaping to 'the cops are lazy, the cops are lazy and they should have just doled out private info, the cops are lazy and should have had it towed, etc., etc.'

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Wasteland_Mystic t1_ja0w22x wrote

That’s good that it got resolved nicely. I still want to get an RV for free/cheap if anyone on here knows anyone selling one in working condition.

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Azr431 t1_ja17f7s wrote

This is example # 63621374 why police are fucking useless

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CheliceraeJones t1_ja19v36 wrote

A satisfying conclusion to the epic of Il Rimorchio Abbandonato

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JackWWalsh t1_ja1p2ef wrote

Thanks for being civilized. Too few decent neighbors these days!

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MagicalPeanut t1_ja25rp2 wrote

Replying to Hextall2727 (#2,005,694)

It's worth considering that a police officer could be right 999 times out of 1000, but all that good work can be forgotten when a case like this makes the news. Unfortunately, we rely on the statistical median IQ of the population to be correct 100% of the time, which puts a lot of pressure on them, much like the pressure put on teachers.

It's unclear whether the police officer failed in their duty in this case or if some policy prevented them from "protecting and serving." Having oversight in such situations could significantly reduce the failure rate. If a police officer is likely to make an error in judgment 5% of the time, having someone review the case could reduce the failure rate to 0.25%. Something to consider. But you know. Defund the police?

I'm one of the rare few who are willing to give police officers the benefit of the doubt because they're human, and humans make errors all the time. We put a lot of pressure on certain professions to do things that humans aren't capable of, such as the grocery store worker who directed us to the wrong aisle or the drive-thru worker who messed up our order. Although errors can have significant impacts, they're all made by humans, who are inherently flawed by virtue of being human.

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-Codfish_Joe t1_ja2vhqo wrote

Isn't running a vehicle's plates like Step 1 when dealing with a vehicle?

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IntelligentMeal40 t1_ja2xszt wrote

Oh I remember your post thank you for the update. You live in Manchester right? I had the same issue when I lived in Portsmouth, not with a trailer, but with a guy who owned an Airbnb telling his Airbnb tenants they could park in a parking lot with spaces that were clearly labeled for the apartment building that was right there.

It was crazy because it was a car with Massachusetts plates in my Portsmouth New Hampshire parking space with the sign directly in front of the car that says resident parking only with the address that I lived at listed. The police wouldn’t help they said the landlord would have to have the car towed, it was on a weekend so the rental office was closed and the answering service was not helpful. I ended up sitting in my car and honking the horn until they came out to move their car. The second time that happened I looked up the tax bill and I tracked down the jerk who owned the place and I let him know that his tenants were parking in my parking space and also I believe at that time Airbnb was not even legal in Portsmouth so if it happened again I would be complaining to everyone in the city. It did not happen again.

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IntelligentMeal40 t1_ja2yfe9 wrote

Replying to Nowhere_X_Anywhere (#2,007,042)

This is off the rails nobody was asking the police to give this person the trailer owners phone number, the police could call them I’ve had the police show up at my house to tell me things because they found my address in the DMV database.

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pumpkin2291 t1_ja2ymer wrote

I’d definitely question that landlord and ask why they told this person to do that. Besides that it could’ve just been a total dick move, maybe there’s some confusion as to who actually owe your property that you should clear up. Haha watching MUR now and it’s on 😂

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SquirrellyDog2016 t1_ja31jh5 wrote

I followed your story after I saw it posted. Although it took a while, I'm glad this was resolved in a non-combative way. I wish more people were as kind, reasonable, and respectful as you are.

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Vequithan t1_ja36p6u wrote

Replying to MagicalPeanut (#2,018,161)

There’s a bit of a difference between sending someone to the wrong aisle because they got it wrong and just blatantly not doing what should have been a routine job by running the plates. That’d be like you deciding not to do your job because it’s an inconvenience to you. An unknown vehicle was parked on someone else’s property. It should be basic knowledge on any police officer to run the plates instead of shrugging shoulders and going “Welp idk, figure it out yourself”. It shouldn’t take a news reporter to do an officer’s job but here we are.

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Vequithan t1_ja37ozq wrote

Replying to IntelligentMeal40 (#2,022,627)

Shit, I deal with people using my apartment’s dumpster as their own dumping ground because why should they have to pay anything for the landfill? My neighbor called the cops after midnight because she saw people dumping a bunch of trash bags in our dumpster and also yelling. Cop arrived after they had left, dug through the trash a bit and managed to find mail WITH THEIR ADDRESS ON IT! Contacted them immediately and forced them to clean it all up (they did!). They absolutely can handle situations like OP’s on their own. And even then, an officer has every legal right to obtain information from the DMV for an illegally parked car on someone else’s property. This person’s response makes no sense either because OP wasn’t cut off on the road or any other reason they listed. This is totally within legal grounds to do at least a little legwork to help out a citizen they swore to protect and serve.

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