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Boy, 11, shot dead after playing doorbell-ringing prank in Houston, police say
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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Is someone ringing your doorbell alarming to you? Especially in a city like Houston. I get that in the country it is rare for people to be out and about. I also get that you might be scared if they ring the doorbell late at night, but that's what peepholes are for. Or Ring cameras. Or keeping the door closed and yelling, "Who is it?"
Yes, someone ringing my doorbell late at night and then running away before I can get to the door is alarming. I don't like it. Maybe you'd like it, but it disrupts my peace, wakes up my kids, and I don't like the feeling that someone is targeting me for their one-sided enjoyment. It's fucking creepy.
You could always have a switch for your door bell so that when the switch is off the bell doesn't ring. Just turn the doorbell off each night and enjoy some uninterrupted sleep.
Plus when the ding-dong-ditchers realize that the bell no longer rings they're likely to stop hitting your bell.
And that is the same rationale used by the guy who just shot and killed a kid. Maybe they are targeting you because they can see how mad you get over a simple and common prank.
It's not creepy. It's the most common prank done around the world by nearly every generation of kids. Or it was until people started killing kids for it.
Being an adult involves tolerating a lot of things without externally reacting in the moment. There’s always an incompetent boss we can’t call out, or an insufferable family member that we still have to be nice to, or a neighbor that we have to somehow share a wall/fence with. We still get annoyed about things, we just save it for appropriate times and places. For example, frustration about ding dong ditching, could be shared on a post about ding dong ditching.
It’s sad it needs to be said, but calmly expressing an opinion online ≠ going overboard IRL.