Nails in tyres

[Dr_Gonzo]

For the last 2 years or so my mother and I seem to be getting a stupid amount of nails in our tyres. We've both had about 5 or 6 nails, always in the rear driver's side tyre. I don't live there but my car is normally there until quite late most weekends. One weekend last year I stayed there for a few days to look after the house and what do I find but a nail in my rear tyre. The circumstantial evidence points to it being one of her neighbours. He's a grumpy, spitful old man and he's a crazy as a loon. His drive is next to ours so it wouldn't be that hard for him to quickly put a nail under the rear tyre as he's walking past. Also, our other neightbours are: new young family, 90 year old lady, 80 year old couple, vacant house, new young family so it's unlikely that it's any of them.

I've just had another nail in my tyre that pierced the side wall meaning a had to get it replaced and my mum's just today found one in hers. I really don't know how we can solve this other than getting CCTV, which I think we're going to do. Can anyone recommend a fairly cheap but useable CCTV solution so we can catch this ahole in the act?

The Doctor

[maxrider]

No, but I'll be interested to see how this goes as I've regularly had identical chipboard screws in my tyres at the rate of about 2 or 3 a year for the past 4 years.

Always the same size, always screwed fully in at right angles so they normally cause a slow puncture, but sometimes so close to the side wall the tyre's fked. Wonderful if I had a long motorway journey without noticing!

With my tyres at £130 a pop it's slightly beginning to piss me off, you have my sympathy

[kambites]

Are you sure you didn't pick up the nail when driving? Sounds far more likely to me.

[paulmurr]

Laptop + small webcam in an upstairs window should suffice?

[hman]

paulmurr said:

Laptop + small webcam in an upstairs window should suffice?

or you could borrow a shotgun and go next door to poke it up the nose of the old bd. you know its him!

If the OB next door has a car then try nailing all his tyres at once (although the chipboard screws seem like quite a sure fire way, fit them with a cordless drill, then remove them allowing the tyre to deflate- try directly through the sidewalls!)

[Torquey]

Try parking the car in the other way around. (e.g reverse it into the drive).
Not sure it will prove anything but if it happens again to the tyre closest to his drive then it would hint at being him

[Holst]

Torquey said:

Try parking the car in the other way around. (e.g reverse it into the drive).
Not sure it will prove anything but if it happens again to the tyre closest to his drive then it would hint at being him

Good suggestion.
Very sneaky

[carl_w]

I had this a while back. I discovered that the large public long-stay car park I used while I was at work was used for car boot sales at the weekends. And since I always parked in roughly the same space, I reckon it was where the 'nails and screws' guy set up his pitch.

Started parking in another bit of the car park and no further problems.

[ultegra]

If it's letting tyres down that you want to achieve then a pair of side cutters will sever a valve stem in a heartbeat. You could do all 4 wheels inside 20 seconds if you had your Reeboks on.

[Dr_Gonzo]

kambites said:

Are you sure you didn't pick up the nail when driving? Sounds far more likely to me.

Thing is, no one else I know ever gets nails in their tyres (or so infrequently it's not worth mentioning). It's also always in the same tyre. We don't live anywhere near a builders yard or any other place where nails could come from. Neither of us drive near any of these places either. We had 2 nails, one in each car parked at my mums, this month alone. We've also had one at least every 3 months over the past 2 years. We also had a case where, on discovering the flat with the nail in it, I changed the tyre on my mum's car whilst it was on her drive. The OB next door is always window-twitching so he was almost certainly watching this. The new tyre had ANOTHER nail it in with a few days.




Note to admin: I think this should be in P&P because I'm actually asking for CCTV advice

Edited by Dr_Gonzo on Wednesday 12th November 16:37

[rallycross]

paulmurr said:

Laptop + small webcam in an upstairs window should suffice?

+1

I would say its 99.9% impossible for this to be accidental, same tyre etc has to be deliberate (kids?)

get an old pc and set up a cam will cost you very little