Two trees on the Rindge town common were draped with toilet paper on Saturday night, in a scaled-down version of what is typically a Halloween prank.
“The toilet papering was not to the extent that it normally is,” Rindge Police Chief Dan Anair said Monday, referring to what has become an annual Halloween nuisance where the common is often covered in toilet paper, along with other criminal mischief.
Anair said he has rarely seen the common hit by vandals outside of the weeks leading up to Halloween.
“It’s not the typical time,” he said.
Police were alerted to the vandalism on Saturday night at around 10:30 p.m., but did not catch the perpetrator or perpetrators.
Halloween vandalism in Rindge is often accompanied by other incidents, including tire fires, and in past years, setting fire to toilet paper in the road, or furniture in the road all over town. Anair said this incident appears to be just toilet papering. Police did respond to a tire fire the week prior, on Thursday at 11:28 p.m. on Hampshire Road, but Anair said that may be unrelated, as tire fires continue to be a common occurrence in town; he said police respond to tire fires in Rindge “at least weekly.”