But that's a break-in done in order to steal something rather than an act of mindless vandalism. The motivation behind theft is easier to understand than vandalism.

Somebody once pulled the rear window wiper off my old Renault Clio a few years ago, when I was living in a flat in Southampton, although actually I wasn't that annoyed about it because it was an old, cheap little car and the general appearance of it hadn't been spoiled apart from the rear wiper being missing. I was actually a little bemused because I wondered why someone would want to vandalise an old bog-standard Clio (1991), it was an innocuous car that I can't imagine anyone would be jealous of, when at the time there was a convertible Mercedes CLK parked on the road opposite it and the vandal had completely ignored it! Perhaps he was drunk or something. Anyway I soon replaced the wiper, the time when my mother reversed into my Clio putting big dent in the side doors spoiled the car a lot more! I was very pissed off at her sheer clumsiness, she just reversed without even looking (my mum can be pretty dopey at times, and you know women drivers ) but I got over it but the dent never got fixed, it would have cost too much considering how little the car was worth.

Also I once noticed a four inch scratch beneath the wing mirror (not very noticeable because from most angles the wing mirror blocked it out), when I worked at the Ordnance Survey headquarters in Southampton I had to park in one of the housing streets nearby because there was no parking provided and I understand that this annoyed local residents, so perhaps it was some spiteful person who lived on that road. Again I wasn't that bothered.