The Chaser Report - The Crimes They Are A-Changing

Episode Date: September 11, 2022

Andrew investigates the meanings of different criminal symbols being displayed across neighbourhood streets. Meanwhile Dom pitches how to improve the courteousness of his neighbourhood's criminal activity. Plus a note from our producer that isn't a producer note segment. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. Dom Knight here with Andrew Hanson. Sorry to cut you off like that, Dom. Producer Lachlan interrupting with a quick producer node before handing back to the guys. Just going to address the elephant in the room, which is that we will not be covering the death of the Queen in this episode of the Chaser Report. basically over the last couple of days the chaser have been inundated with responses to

our reaction to the queen's passing some people thought we were too soon making light of such a somber topic so on the podcast out of respect we will not be covering the death of her majesty the queen for 24 hours it's really the least we can do and hey if you don't like it you can always complain to the daily mail because Lord knows the last thing this podcast needs is more attention.

All right, that's enough from me. Back to the Dom and Andrew. Andrew, you've got some crime news for us today. Look, I do, Domy, it's a bit of crime. And this is a bit alarming. It's also a bit of a public service announcement, I feel, for you. And not you personally, Tommy, but you listen. You're listening.

Yeah, this is where you come. You've come to the Chase Report for important community service announcements. Well, this is really worrying, but somebody in Adelaide discovered that, In the morning, they woke up and discovered these strange, mysterious markings outside their house. And it painted onto their house, I should say, according to the news. And there was this kind of vertical lines, but there were also letters. These letters that had been painted outside their house. Somebody had painted NT, on the side of their house.

And they went online and they said, look, somebody's, you know, done this to my house. What does it mean? Should I be worried? Who's making these markings? Markings? Do we know who's... Is it the council? You know how? Occasionally the pavement, you know, the council will write some sort of weird letters on the pavement here in Sydney.

But I'd never seen an NT or an S. Well, maybe in Adelaide, the council just comes right up to your house and just paints in ugly letters right on the side of the building. But, you know, to help them with the bin collection or something like that. That's what I wondered at first. I mean, what do you, what would you guess? Oh, well, you think NT stands for. I mean, there's so many, so many possibilities. And someone from the Northern Territory.

Yeah, maybe Could be a possibility They might have just visited Yeah, and just to shame them Oh, the S, the S I presume in Adelaide Is serial killer Wouldn't it be? Well, it could be

It could be Because there was another house with an S on it I'd be worried myself If I had these letters I can tell you the answer, Domney I think they were nice guesses But you're incorrect They posted on Reddit

And a whole lot of people helped out By saying, yeah, yeah, yeah These things are painted on people's houses By burglars By burglars In order to If it's burglars it's burglars, does N-T mean

no television, perhaps? We've checked it out, there's no television. Or does it mean, very close, very close? Does it mean because Adelaide things are but old-fashioned, does it mean there's a computer there with Windows NT that you can steal? If you don't mind having a computer from 1991. It's a warning to other burglars. Don't bother with this house.

It's got a Windows NT computer. It's completely valueless. That means, I'll tell you what it is. It means no threat. No threat. No threat. Whereas S, if you've got S painted on your house, that means security. So burglars are saying to other burglars, this house has security,

whereas the NT houses represent no threat. Are we sure this is right? Because if this is the code, if this is the code, all you need to do in order to never be burgled is to go outside and just write S. Right outside your house. And why would burglars want to leave messages to other burglars? Yes, I'm not sure. I wouldn't have thought burglars would be so generous.

You'd think they'd sort of... It's like a message board to other burglars. It's passing on the information. That's very strange. And surely if they'd burgled... Maybe they'd have a lovely community. If they'd already been there and they'd taken all the valuables, what's the point of advising with their security or not?

Yeah, exactly. I know, unless it's... Maybe they're nicer than we thought, and that there's actually like a sort of good karma group on Facebook for burglars who were just trying to help each other out in difficult times. Maybe it's like. burglars, you know, a community lending library, right? So you just take what you need.

Yeah. It's like, rather than the books being on the outside, you just take the things room inside the house, but don't take more than you need in any one particular day. Well, I think the lending libraries are greatly like those, like those, you mean those street libraries? The street library, yeah, that's right. Is that what you're thinking? So they're just treating the house like, well, if there's multiple televisions, just take

one if you need it and then if you need another one, there'll be one for the next burglar. And why not bring it back when you're finished? I mean, this is the thing. I think a really nice burglar and a community-minded burglar would simply, you know, take the TV you know, watch or binge the series, you know, watch the last

season of medical soul or whatever and then return the television to the house when done. Wouldn't that be lovely if I once had a laptop stolen and it came back a year or two later the police managed to track it down somewhere at the point where it was basically scratched beyond all repair and not enormous use but I appreciated the thought that presumably some...

Well, it might have been a nice burglary had just, you know, enjoyed it for a little while, done their uni assignments or whatever and just giving it back. I'd like to live in a society like this, Donnie, where, you know, if somebody does really need, say, an appliance, just for the day, they could pop in or smash into your house and take your coffee machine, for example,

and go and make themselves a latte, and then just bring it back the next morning. Absolutely. I mean, if someone uses, I don't know, a deadly weapon or something, You know, people will just dump them in rivers or something. Don't do that. Just return it. Yeah.

As though it were from a library. Street library style, but just sort of house library. It's kind of like an appliance. Your house is basically an appliance library. Maybe I'll act on this. If I just put all the valuable things in our house outside the house, with a little note saying take what you need and return it, will never be burgled.

Presumably you could put NT on our house. Yeah, you'll be borrowed from. You'll be borrowed from. I think it's a good idea. I had some ideas, Dommy. I want to run you through. some ideas for some other sort of acronyms that you could paint

on different types of houses as well. What other things could you write on houses? If you're going to be labelling people like that. Yeah, well I think C.L. Cat lady. You know, maybe she's. So sometimes the urine of the cats also Well, that gives it a way.

You can write CL in cat urine. You could really want it to. Yeah. What is another one for you? SPH. Scorepot here. Every neighborhood needs to to know, you know, where you can do that. That's very, very good.

A big SPH, big SPH on that house. Don't you remember, there was always the theory, and this is what this whole story reminded me of, that where there were a pair of shoes thrown over the electricity wire, that meant it was a drug meetup. Do you remember that theory? Yeah, well, I thought there were about 500 theories for what the shoes mean. That was the most common one I've heard. That's one of them.

It made me think, you know, they weren't really thinking about. that whether the police would know where the drug meetups were. I think scorepot here has a similar problem. Wouldn't you put don't score pot here? D-S-P-H. Oh, that everyone would know that's the place where you go and get the drugs except for. That's true.

Everyone except the police would realize. And whereas the policemen would walk on by, oh, nothing to see here, boys. This is not the house where we score pot. The Chaser Report, news you know you can't try. Here's another one for you That I'd like to run by you Which I think could be useful

It's simply NN N Nosey neighbour Oh see Just just warn people Nosey neighbour is good When you said NN I thought it was going to be no NBN Which basically means that it was an MBN Most houses with the NBN

No that's a default setting down You don't need to write Noisy neighbour is good Well nosy neighbour you know Especially for people who are house hunting for example Like it's a does a favour to somebody who might be thinking of renting, you know, but if you've got a nosy neighbour in that, you know, next door, you'd want to know about this before you live in.

Well, actually, that reminds me when I first moved, because I live very near Charles when he's not over in America, Calabanic around. And quite seriously, when I first moved into the neighbourhood, he took great delight in walking me down the street and pointing out where all the swingers were. To this house, that house, that's where the swingers are. So maybe the S, the S could mean, there's actually apparently quite a few. The S could be swingers, or maybe people get confused with the security. Maybe you need another logo, S-H-Swingers here or something, or swimming.

Swingers welcome, just to let everyone know that's where the sex parties are, or SP for sex parties. Because it'll be an awkward thing otherwise. If there wasn't a label of some kind, you'd knock on a door in your bondage gear thinking it might be a house where there was an option. Well, and discover it's not. It'd be easier if there was a labelling system. Sounds like on your street, that'd be unlikely. Sounds like you could knock on them every second door and they'd be a swing as back.

We need a system for our door telling them not to come, not to come in. Yeah, just DCI. Don't come in. Don't come in. Yeah, yes, that's right, in many respects. Yeah, well, this is a good system. I mean, it might lead a little bit to judgment and labelling,

but in some respects it saves time, doesn't it? I think it's very handy, it would save a lot of time. I've got another one for you, which may be useful to some. people. This one is HACA. H-A. H-A-H-A-H-A-H-A-A.

H-A-RDA as featured on a current affair. All right. I mean, that might be obvious, too, because usually the front yard is piled up high. Well, actually, you could also just label ACA.

If anyone worked, if someone in the house worked on ACA, and that would mean you're morally justified in going through their bins. Yeah, that's right, and putting your foot in the door. You could just, any time you saw them coming out, you could just put your foot in the door and ask them difficult questions.

And they wouldn't be able to an angry question poke a microphone through there absolutely yeah yeah why won't you talk to me he's one for the times

for you dummy a timely one yeah I think this could be this should actually be painted on a lot of a lot of homes that are popping up in Australia

is UNB ugly new build oh I think that's anything built in the last five years is hideous right you know it's almost like

developers are sort of having a competition at the moment to see who can build the ugliest house in Australian history and there should be a warning I think just painted on the side of these houses I mean you could also tell by looking at them

in that case I suppose Oh true true yeah well okay Fair enough yeah I'll take your point Could yes okay Could we perhaps just have a W W for woke Meaning that if you got into a conversation with them Firstly you'd know to mind your pronouns

And secondly you'd know that the conversation might go for a very, very long time. Yes, yes, and be very difficult with you unable to feel that you can say anything at all. I guess in a similar vein, should we write CR outside Craig Rucastel's house? Just so that everyone around knows that, you know, there'll be some endless conversation about straws, weren't there? Yeah, some painful environmental lecture. That's a great idea. I think any house that Craig Roocastle lives in should come with a warning.

I'm sorry, tweet this week, Andrew. about his new e-bike and the wonderful benefits his e-bike. Didn't we used to make fun of people like that back in the day? Isn't that what we used to do? I've got 100 kilometres on the e-bike now. It's fantastic.

Once upon a time. Well, you should take it up with him, Dommy. You should answer that tweet. I won't take it up with him. I'll simply label his house as a public service. Well, yeah. Label his house, CR and maybe E-B. Maybe write E-B on his e-bike for him.

Actually, that's genuinely a concern. I mean, if you just mention the word, when you're, you know, doing a radio show or something, if you mention the word e-bike, everyone will ring just to tell you, you'll get inundated. I mean, it's a dinner party. It's like if you've gone vegan or something. You just cannot. That's the end of the conversation.

That's an hour. It is. It's a big thing. But it goes up hills. Yeah, that's the difference with an e-bike to a normal bike, isn't it? It goes up a hill. Yeah, the thing that makes you fit, you don't do. Well, that sounds rather good for me.

But it kind of doesn't, my problem with an e-bike is you still have to sort. sort of be fit enough to bother sitting on a bike and doing the balancing and all that sort of stuff and you kind of have to move your legs anybody. So I feel that they sit in this sort of uncanny valley between a vehicle for healthy

people and a vehicle for lazy slobs like you and me. I agree. I completely agree. I can't see the point of them whatsoever because the thing about bikes are not for anyone. They're incredibly dangerous. Almost everyone who rides a bike regularly, including our good friend Charles, who had entirely shattered his elbow,

admittedly while cycling drunkenly after Yomcha with Sam Dostieri that's another story He was CUI wasn't he cycling under the influence Yes which we should probably put on his house as well Or just under the influence

It's probably right of his house CU something Charles under the influence We could combine the original NT With CU And I think we'd have a very good thing To ride on his house No but look

This is the thing I don't understand about ebikes Is that surely if you're going to risk getting killed while riding a bike you want to actually get fit because everyone says oh e-barks are great because you get to work and you haven't sweat it all through your shirt because you haven't gotten fit

you've just risked dying for no health benefits I mean I would do that for nothing yeah yeah I would do that because I'm a lazy slob but then I wouldn't live any longer my death would be inevitable I wouldn't be getting fitter and I wouldn't be avoiding getting hit by car I'm worried about you know electrifying all because

there are electric scooters as well what's next an electric horse and then that's what that's what I'm working worried that people are going to start riding. Some sort of electric horse that's got a battery in it to make it gallop even faster. Has your child, or a few of your children got trikes, tricycles? Well, we haven't bought one for my daughter yet. Yep.

I think the electric trike, that's got to be. That's got to be a shock. It's the electric trike for toddlers. That's a brilliant idea. Suddenly they press a button and they're just zooming across the upper hill and into traffic. Great idea. A great speed. Yes, yes.

I like that. Because, you know, there's scooters. I don't understand the deal with those electric scooters because every, you know, J.B. Hi-Fi or whatever, it's full of these Segway or whatever they are, the nine bot or whatever they're called, those electric scooters, which are apparently illegal in most places. Certainly in Sydney, you can't actually ride them anywhere. So I don't know who's buying them.

What's the point of them? Yeah, I think they're the people who don't realize they're illegal, who are the people you see on those annoying bloody electric scooters that knock you over on the bloody footpath. Are they imagining that the police will come, but they'll be so fast on their scooters? they'll get away. I think they might

and they might get away. Yeah, exactly. And the police will be so, so busy reading the Do Not Score Pot Here house as well, I can imagine. The electric scooter would whizz on by and not be noticed at all. Surely the burglards have another code

for a house with a police officer in it. What are you going to suggest, Tommy? Maybe police officer inside go away or PIG. That is disgraceful. That is a disgrace to our, to our police force, Donnie, and I expect you to apologise immediately. I apologize.

And I worry that, yes, that you don't want the police to write something outside your house. You know, arrest for no reason. No, you'd never see that happening. I've got one last one for you, Domney. One last one that I think could be painted on every single house in the country, this one. Oh, yeah.

Ultimately. H-N-U-S-C-A. Oh, that's a house. No-one. Yeah, this stands for House No-one-U-U-U-S-E-S-E. 60 can afford. Or as it will soon become known, a house. Thank you very much, Andrew.

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