Todd's Take: Someone Drove Thru My Yard, My Kid Knows Who

A few weeks ago, I came home to quite the surprise. Tire marks through my front yard!

My wife and I were out of town overnight to celebrate my birthday and my son and stepson were home when the incident occurred. They subsequently went outside to see what the ruckus was. Upon returning home, I asked them what they did/didn't see. My son told me that he didn't actually witness the accident but could identify the driver as a former student at the school he attends.

My question to you is, now what should I do?

There is clearly damage to my lawn and the retaining wall on the edge of my property. Because I have underground sprinklers, I will not know until spring time when the irrigation water gets turned on again to know whether or not my pipes and or sprinkler heads have been damaged.

Part of me says that it was an accident -- it was the first snowfall of this winter -- but the other part of me thinks that when damaging property, there is a certain amount of accountability that should come in to play.

Enough time has lapsed (there's no more snow on the ground) to probably not even think about reporting it to the police, even if just to get a case file number. Also, I don't like accusing people for something I don't, necessarily, have proof of them doing -- even though my son was an eyewitness.

What would you do? Heck, I'm not even sure if the retaining wall is my property or the city's. I do know my yard got pretty tore up.