RE: What would you do....

RE: What would you do.... (Full Version)

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TheHeretic -> RE: What would you do.... (1/2/2013 7:17:39 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Baroana These are apartment garages. There is no ventilation or electricity, and nothing should be running inside. I don't regret opening it to check. If someone was in fact inside breathing CO, then waiting for an extended period would be fatal. While waiting a few minutes, say by going in and throwing your TV dinner in the microwave (whatever), and then coming back out to check, would have saved a false report to the police. If I was the neighbor, I'd be reporting your violation of my garage to the management, so they could put it on file about you. Just hope she doesn't decide to report that something valuable was missing from the garage, after your unauthorized entry.

punisher440 -> RE: What would you do.... (1/2/2013 7:39:32 PM)
Baroana,I would have been concerned myself...and would have checked the garage too.I guess being raised in a rural area where you know your neighbors and check up on anything strange you see is much different than living in a city.I have had a deputy pull up and make sure everything is ok because my carport light that is on every night burned out one time.Another deputy stopped and made sure my widowed cousin was ok because there was a strange vehicle in the driveway[her son from another state...lol].

littlewonder -> RE: What would you do.... (1/2/2013 7:48:25 PM)
Yes, living in a city is very much different from rural areas. When I lived in a rural area, I was walking along a road around 5am, going to a local park for a walk and some fresh air. I liked going when the place was empty and quiet. All of a sudden a police car zoomed up along side me asking me if everything was ok. I kept walking, looked at him, smiling and said yes, I'm fine. He seemed to still be concerned and continued to slowly trail along beside my, asked me again if I was sure and where was I going, and I once again smiled and said yes I'm perfectly fine and just going for a walk in the park. Finally he just looked at me with this puzzled look and drove away. I just thought it was really weird. Here in the city and any other cities I've ever lived in, you can walk anywhere at any time of day or night and no one even blinks an eye. You don't have cops pulling up to you unless you look like a known suspect for something which apparently I do since one pulled me over while walking once here in Baltimore and once I got to the car he realized it wasn't the girl he was looking for and told me I looked like another woman in the city and I should be careful....niiiiice hahaha. Most in the cities just have better things to do with their time such as looking for criminals or running after calls.

Aynne88 -> RE: What would you do.... (1/2/2013 7:49:00 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic quote: ORIGINAL: Baroana These are apartment garages. There is no ventilation or electricity, and nothing should be running inside. I don't regret opening it to check. If someone was in fact inside breathing CO, then waiting for an extended period would be fatal. While waiting a few minutes, say by going in and throwing your TV dinner in the microwave (whatever), and then coming back out to check, would have saved a false report to the police. If I was the neighbor, I'd be reporting your violation of my garage to the management, so they could put it on file about you. Just hope she doesn't decide to report that something valuable was missing from the garage, after your unauthorized entry. Yep me too. I have a remote starter for my truck, I start it in the garage, sometimes the door is cracked sometimes it isn't, it was 5 degrees this morning in Maine, and windy. I'd be a little irked if someone came poking around, opening my garage and calling 911.

calamitysandra -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 1:35:18 AM)
I think that I would most likely have done the same thing as you did, Baroana. There is a fine line between being a good neighbour and a nosy one, and I do not think that this crosses into nosy territory. If there had been an accident and somebody died inside that garage, people would be questioning why nobody helped.

NuevaVida -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 6:58:53 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: calamitysandra If there had been an accident and somebody died inside that garage, people would be questioning why nobody helped. Exactly. So I'd rather err on the side of pissing off a neighbor. And what poise said - it's just not healthy to do that. I remember years and years ago (I'm dating myself here), family station wagons had windows that opened all the way in the very back, where there were seats. They stopped making them like that because it was found that too much carbon monoxide was entering the car by way of that back window, from the exhaust pipe below. Even while the car was moving. I'm not a safety police or anything, but that's just not a risk I'd be willing to take. And, if you live in a community of close-knit homes like that, you can kiss your privacy goodbye. It's just the way things are. Personally, I'd rather have someone do what Baroana did if they heard my car running in my garage. It's nice to know that people care. We've become such a "mind your own business" society that nobody wants to get involved for fear of pissing someone off.

LizDeluxe -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 8:17:14 AM)
It's actually illegal to leave a car unattended in this fashion in many jurisdictions. An idling vehicle adds to pollution and it's a great tip off to a car thief. The police report that there are actually car thieves who target high density areas in the winter - often apartments with outdoor parking - looking for nice cars with the tell tale exhaust fumes. Leaving one idling in closed garage (while also not terribly clever) might also be illegal in your jurisdiction. Having said all of that... I'm guessing that you did not know the woman who owned the vehicle even thought her garage was adjacent to your own based on your description of the story. Had I been the woman in question I would have been more than a little creeped out to find my garage open with a strange man standing there. There's a very fine line between good intentions and someone interested in stealing my car or worse.

ResidentSadist -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 9:42:47 AM)
In Detroit, they steal the car.

Baroana -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 10:17:18 AM)
Mid day fast reply to everybody. I have never suspected myself of doing anything wrong with regard to this incident. I am no less convinced of that now. What I was interested in finding out here is whether I had done anything weird. If anyone should be reported for anything, it is my neighbor. What she did was dangerous to herself and others. These are not private garages, and no there is nothing valuable inside. These are spaces rented out for a car to be stored and nothing else. There is neither room for any other items nor is there security, for storage, because no garage is entirely an island to itself. Many of the garages do not even have individual interior walls. Most are four cars wide and shared by four tenants. Mine happens to be in a section where someone a long time ago put up some particle board and other random materials between the stalls. At the top there is about a 3 foot ceiling space where my garage is unseparated from the ones next to it. Thus, my goodly neighbor running her car for several minutes in her closed garage carried the inevitable result of leaking carbon monoxide into my garage and other garages. In other words, I could have died in my own garage thanks to her. So could any child or animal that happened to be around for whatever reason.

cordeliasub -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 10:33:15 AM)
I probably would have alerted someone as well. If they then decided to make a stink because my CONCERN for their well being ticked them off....well, that says way more about them than it does about me, so bring it on ;) Lordy, what kind of world do we live in where people are mad that you are concerned about them - sheesh.

kalikshama -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 11:01:37 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: NuevaVida quote: ORIGINAL: calamitysandra If there had been an accident and somebody died inside that garage, people would be questioning why nobody helped. Exactly. So I'd rather err on the side of pissing off a neighbor. Me too. Baroana - how much time elapsed between you hearing the car running and calling it in?

LadyPact -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 11:18:52 AM)
I live in the land of auto-start. We keep a garage door opener in the house for this very reason. Sometimes the garage door opens and sometimes it doesn't. Living here, I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it. Nobody sits in their car in thirty below for the fifteen minutes to warm it up before leaving the house. It's also very common for somebody to start the vehicle for a while during long weekends, like over the holidays. As a side note, auto-start automatically shuts off after fifteen minutes. Our truck has it. Our car doesn't. My other half now has a new record of time spent forgetting to shut the car off. Twenty-two hours. Yesterday, we bought him an egg timer to sit on his desk.

Baroana -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 11:24:47 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: kalikshama quote: ORIGINAL: NuevaVida quote: ORIGINAL: calamitysandra If there had been an accident and somebody died inside that garage, people would be questioning why nobody helped. Exactly. So I'd rather err on the side of pissing off a neighbor. Me too. Baroana - how much time elapsed between you hearing the car running and calling it in? Not terribly long. I came home to find it already running and I did not know how long it had been going for. That's why I figured I had better open up that garage just to make sure no one is dying in there. What compounded my concern was the discovery of a whole bunch of damage on the front of the car. That turned out to just be coincidence. Again, this is not like going on to somebody's own separate lot, where I have no business being, and then hearing something weird in the garage. This isn't her garage so much as it is OUR garage. We may enter through different doors, but we share some of the same space inside.

LizDeluxe -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 11:25:18 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Baroana I don't want to spoil the suspense by giving too much away, nor do I want to taint people's answers, which I am genuinely interested in. But just so no one calls the cops right now, I'll share that the incident is over and no one is hurt. You cloak the question in secrecy. You finally spill all of the details that people need to make an informed comment on Page 2. Then you take issue with the comments up to that point. Shrug. [8\|]

AthenaSurrenders -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 11:26:54 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: LizDeluxe It's actually illegal to leave a car unattended in this fashion in many jurisdictions. An idling vehicle adds to pollution and it's a great tip off to a car thief. The police report that there are actually car thieves who target high density areas in the winter - often apartments with outdoor parking - looking for nice cars with the tell tale exhaust fumes. Leaving one idling in closed garage (while also not terribly clever) might also be illegal in your jurisdiction. When I was a police dispatcher (UK) we typically had 5-7 cars stolen on each frosty morning in the medium-sized town I covered. Always people who started the car running and left it to warm up and defrost while they went back inside. I don't know what I'd do in the situation described, but probably the same as you Baroana. I'm surprised that some people disagree with what you did though. Ultimately, if these are interconnected garages and this person was filling it up with carbon monoxide, she had no room for complaint. Added to that is the whole 'I'd rather risk pissing someone off than risk leaving someone to die'.

Baroana -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 5:05:29 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic I'm not big on random acts of sticking my nose into other people's business at any opportunity. If it continued for an extended period, I'd call the manager, but simply hearing something running in someone else's garage isn't going to hit that level. It could easily be an air compressor, kicking on to maintain the pressure in the tank (and yes, I know someone who had the cops show up at their door, precisely because some ignorant busybody assumed they were hearing a suicide attempt). Yeah, that'll teach the ignorant busybody to call the cops about a suspected suicide attempt. Man, what a jerk!

Baroana -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 5:58:23 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic quote: ORIGINAL: Baroana These are apartment garages. There is no ventilation or electricity, and nothing should be running inside. I don't regret opening it to check. If someone was in fact inside breathing CO, then waiting for an extended period would be fatal. While waiting a few minutes, say by going in and throwing your TV dinner in the microwave (whatever), and then coming back out to check, would have saved a false report to the police. If I was the neighbor, I'd be reporting your violation of my garage to the management, so they could put it on file about you. Just hope she doesn't decide to report that something valuable was missing from the garage, after your unauthorized entry. Gee that's funny, because I had it in mind to turn my neighbor in to the management for what she'd done. There probably are a half dozen or so reasons why it was legal for me to open that garage door. On the other hand, my neighbor violated the law in several ways. For one thing, it is indeed illegal in New Jersey to leave a vehicle idling, even if it's not in a closed space. Tort-wise, she created a nuisance and technically committed battery. Moreover, if injury or death resulted from what she did with her car, then she would be on the hook criminally.

LookieNoNookie -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 6:14:02 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Baroana If you heard a car running in a closed garage? Let's say it's in a row of single car garages in an apartment complex. I'd rush in like an emergency, life safety and all...do the honorable thing, natch.... I'd see if it was a Lexus or a BMW and then get the passenger in their stupor to sign it over. No sense in breaking a damned garage door down because of it.

Aynne88 -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 6:35:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: AthenaSurrenders quote: ORIGINAL: LizDeluxe It's actually illegal to leave a car unattended in this fashion in many jurisdictions. An idling vehicle adds to pollution and it's a great tip off to a car thief. The police report that there are actually car thieves who target high density areas in the winter - often apartments with outdoor parking - looking for nice cars with the tell tale exhaust fumes. Leaving one idling in closed garage (while also not terribly clever) might also be illegal in your jurisdiction. When I was a police dispatcher (UK) we typically had 5-7 cars stolen on each frosty morning in the medium-sized town I covered. Always people who started the car running and left it to warm up and defrost while they went back inside. I don't know what I'd do in the situation described, but probably the same as you Baroana. I'm surprised that some people disagree with what you did though. Ultimately, if these are interconnected garages and this person was filling it up with carbon monoxide, she had no room for complaint. Added to that is the whole 'I'd rather risk pissing someone off than risk leaving someone to die'. Auto car starters do their job while keeping the vehicle safely locked, I have to click the "open" button to get in and of course, without the keys no one is stealing it.

kalikshama -> RE: What would you do.... (1/3/2013 6:51:20 PM)
quote: When I was a police dispatcher (UK) we typically had 5-7 cars stolen on each frosty morning in the medium-sized town I covered. Always people who started the car running and left it to warm up and defrost while they went back inside. Thank for posting this. I will be more diligent about using my second key to lock my car when I let it warm up.

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