Some residents in Attard woke up on Tuesday to find a scene that residents of places like Swieqi and Paceville have been ineffectually complaining about for years. They found their house façades and apertures splattered with eggs thrown indiscriminately by hooligans in costumes "celebrating" Halloween.

I shall not go into the merits of this festivity, imported from an alien culture and reduced to basic rituals that make little or no sense to us, but are repeated because we are the media's children, but suffering wanton damage perpetrated in its name is not something that should be allowed to go on unchecked.

The damage to some of the Maltese stone façades runs into the hundreds of liri as the egg liquid seeps into the very texture of the stone, and it needs expert scraping to be removed. Considering that some of the stone façades have yellowed with age, and the scraping will leave a whiter patch, which becomes an eyesore, the façade sometimes needs to be redone entirely.

And all because gangs of louts in costume and masks are allowed to roam our streets unchecked by the authorities, vandalising private property. Many of them did not even go through the "trick or treat" ritual ... they just threw eggs at all the house-fronts in the street.

We are rightly made to pay stiff fines for littering. And yet, these louts are allowed to go scot free (the police and warden presence in the streets of Attard on Halloween night was zilch!) even though they wreak havoc to private property. One policeman, faced with the anger of a couple who chased after the louts who had just spattered their façade, laughed off the charge, saying that the kids were only after a bit of fun.

And then we are shocked by acts of vandalism on national monuments. Through official inaction we are nurturing these vandals and telling them that damage to property is all right.

Do we have to take the law into our own hands next year if this happens again? I hope not. I hope that there will be a public outcry about the inefficiency of our law agencies to protect our homes from vandals. I am hoping that mine will not be the only letter on this subject and that the pressure will make the authorities do their job next time around.

If no outcry is forthcoming, then we deserve all we get, and the louts may be allowed to have their fun.