The front hood of a Mercedes-Benz car worth over 600,000 yuan was scratched and "disfigured." Photographed by Li Haiyong.
Yesterday morning, in the De'an residential area at No.2 Xiaxing Street, Andemen, Nanjing City, a resident came downstairs to get his car and found that the car body had been maliciously scratched with a hard object. Even more unacceptable was that as the owners within the community checked their cars, they discovered that a total of 9 vehicles were scratched to varying degrees. Moreover, two sedans parked at the entrance of the underground garage deep inside the community were also vandalized. Currently, the Yuhuatai District police of the Nanjing Public Security Bureau have already begun an investigation.
Eleven cars suffered damage.
At around 8 o'clock yesterday morning, after receiving a tip from a citizen, the reporter rushed to the scene and found that a Mazda 6 sedan parked furthest inside had not only had its front hood completely scratched in a spiral pattern but also its right side from front to back. Even the trunk was marked with a large "X". Since these scratches penetrated down to the car's primer, the owner would have no choice but to repaint the entire car at the 4S shop. While the police were investigating and collecting evidence here, another resident surnamed Liang ran over to inform the investigating officers that his Mercedes-Benz parked in the underground garage had also been scratched. Following the police to the entrance of the underground garage, Mr. Liang said, "This car cost me over 600,000 yuan, and with just a few swipes, I will need to spend over 10,000 yuan on repairs!" The police measured the length of the scratch on the front hood of the Mercedes-Benz, which was over 90 centimeters long.
Property management suspects it was done by a resident.
Mr. Wang, the manager of the Yadiana Property Management, stated that since the community was handed over for use in September 2004, they had discovered that all the surveillance equipment within the community was non-functional. With the bankruptcy of the developer, although they wanted to rebuild the surveillance system, the investment of over 100,000 yuan left them at a loss as to where to start. So, what kind of person could cause such trouble within the community? Mr. Wang, the property manager, expressed that most of the cars damaged this time belonged to residents of Building No. 2, and the perpetrator went from scratching cars in Building No. 2 to scratching cars at the entrance of the underground garage, passing other parking lots and luxurious cars along the way, including one worth over 2 million yuan, yet he did not touch any of them. Therefore, this malicious car-scratcher was not an ordinary anti-wealth individual but rather targeted the residents of Building No. 2 specifically. For this reason, Mr. Wang, the property manager, analyzed that the person who maliciously scratched the cars should be a resident of the community.
Compensation claims for the car owners become a difficult issue.
Many car owners sought answers from the property management, but Mr. Wang, the property manager, believed that the 100 yuan per vehicle per month parking fee they collected was merely a management fee, so they did not bear the responsibility for compensating the scratched vehicles. The car owners could only seek compensation from the person who scratched the cars. Lawyer Yang Chaojiang from a law firm in Nanjing believed that whether the property management has an obligation to compensate depends on whether there is an agreement between the property management and the community owners. If there is an agreement in the contract, then the property management should bear corresponding responsibility. By our newspaper reporter, Li Haiyong.
(Informant: Mr. Chen)