Eco-vandalism?

This morning when I woke up to get Riley out of bed (~7:45), I heard this "gushing" sound. It was the sound of someone taking a shower in your house when you are in another room. I thought maybe a toilet handle needed to be jiggled, but after checking them, that was not it. It seemed to be coming from outside, so I walked downstairs. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, it sounded like it was coming from the kitchen. My immediate thought was, "is there a gas leak?!" but there was no smell. I walked through the kitchen a few times trying to figure out what it was. Was is behind the fridge to the left? Was it below the sink to the right? I couldn't figure it out, so I looked out the kitchen window and the neighbor's driveway was full of water. Crap. I went outside and the spigot was on/open.

When I came in, Becca was downstairs and asked, "did you figure out what that sound was? I woke up last night and couldn't figure out what it was." That was at 2:00 am! So the water had been running for at least 5 3/4 hours. At least I know that it was less than 8 hours because it wasn't on when we went to sleep (oh, what a relief!). What stinks is that in Austin, they take the average of the two highest months water use in the winter for your "wastewater" level for the rest of the year (because the water you use to water your lawn in the summer doesn't go down the drain).

Why does weird stuff happen to us in this house? It already seems like we are the vortex of trash collection for the neighborhood. There is always a can or a candy wrapper blowing into our lawn and because of some weird wind patterns, our front door (leaves like to collect there too). A couple weeks ago, our mailbox was knocked off. A couple months ago, a red paintball splat was on some of the brick on the front of the house (then one day, it was mysteriously gone). And who goes around and opens someone's spigot in the middle of the night? This morning as I left I looked at everyone's side yard to see if it had happened to them. Nope, just us. Eco-vandals? Probably just a bunch of kids up to no good.