LEWISTON — In the area around outer College Street, they’re throwing eggs, rocks and whatever they can get their hands on.

On Sabattus Street, Halloween decorations are disappearing from yards.

In neighborhoods in between, it’s more of the same: pranks, vandalism and thefts, night after night as the pumpkin-colored holiday approaches.

“It was the middle of the night,” said Robert Boulet, who lives in the outer College Street area. “Maybe midnight or 1 o’clock. Something hit the house: bing and bam! It made so much noise, it was like a shot. It woke us both up.”

Boulet gets around with the help of a wheelchair. In the morning, he went outside to have a look and, what do you know? There was raw egg frozen on the side of his house.

“You’ve got to take the siding right off,” Boulet said. “They’re ruining our houses.”

Frustrated, he wheeled up and down the neighborhood, talking to others who reside there. A white house across the street was hit by something greasy — oil-soaked rags, perhaps — and the widow who lives there had to go out into the cold with buckets and sponges.

“It took her an hour and a half to get it off,” Boulet said.

Other neighbors, six in all, reported similar vandalism. It happened on Stetson Road, on Hogan Road and up and down College Street. The eggs and other items are believed to have been hurled from passing cars.

“Some people are afraid to talk about it,” Boulet said. “But not me.”

A few miles away on Sabattus Street, the Rousseau family went all out this year to decorate for Halloween.

“We don’t have a lot of money,” Arlene Rousseau wrote in a letter to the Sun Journal, “but we like to decorate for the neighboring kids.”

Strangers have been stopping in front of their house to take photos. Parents bring their kids out to look at the decor, which included a big skeleton dangling next to the driveway not far from the makeshift cemetery.

“My husband took a lot of time to assemble all this,” Rousseau wrote. “We do not have children in our home; this is for the neighborhood.”

It didn’t last long.

“As you might have guessed, someone stole the skeleton from our yard,” Rousseau wrote. “We can’t afford to replace it. I hope the person that took it enjoys the fact that they stole from not only us, but from the kids, too.”

In Lewiston, police patrols have been extra heavy lately, thanks to a rash of burglaries over the course of the summer. Now the officers, uniformed and plainclothes alike — are keeping their eyes out for vandals and thieves, as well.

It’s the same in Auburn, according to police there. And while it’s true that Halloween may inspire some people to do mischief, police say the earlier darkness may play a part as well.

For Boulet, it’s infuriating. For the Rousseau family, thieves put a damper on a holiday meant for ghoulish fun. The adults are out money and time, while the children might miss out on the best part of the season.

“How can people be so inconsiderate and spiteful?” Arline Rousseau wondered. “We had several other things we wanted to do for the kids, but are now afraid to.”

The Rousseau home, near St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, was still decked out Wednesday night. There’s the inflatable ghost and the hearse driver. There’s the giant Tigger, the witch stuck to the side of the house, and giant cat’s eyes staring out from the second floor.

When Gary Rousseau first noticed the skeleton was missing — along with the sign with its bloody, dripping letters — his instinct was to give up on all of it.

“I was so mad,” he said. “My first thought was to take it all down. But then I thought, why do that to the kids?”

So the rest of the decorations stayed up, providing an air of delightful horror on that end of Sabattus Street. How much of it will survive the rest of the season remains to be seen.

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