The Things (like condoms) Some People in China Throw Out Of High-Rise Apartments That Smash Other Things (like car windshields)

In case you’ve been wondering, yes, if thrown from a high enough floor in a high-rise, a used condom can smash a car windshield. This happened on November 5th in Jiande, Zhejiang province.

Though the item being thrown and the unexpected force it built up during the fall is not exactly standard fare in China, it is not uncommon for people to thrown all types of garbage from the windows of their apartments.

I know this because I once had an apartment on the ground floor of a building. I had a little yard in front and I thought that it was oh so quaint until I became aware of the fact that the people living in the six or so floors above me had no qualms about throwing their trash/ accidentally dropping things off of their balconies. I could sit on my porch and watch the plastic bottles, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, potted plants, and clothing fall from the sky above. I initially thought that I had some particularly scummy or clumsy neighbors, until a Chinese friend mentioned:

“Us Chinese don’t like living on the ground floor because we think it is not secure . . . and things fall from the houses above.”

Though I probably had no reason to complain, as at least knives have never fallen down into my yard, or this:

Well, at least this probably isn’t as bad as the guy in Guangzhou who had a used sanitary napkin fall out of an apartment window and hit him on the head. And at least the guy who had his windshield busted resorted to calling the police rather than attacking the perpetrators with a knife.

Generally, things falling/ being thrown from apartment windows is only a routine sanitation issue until items are dropped from the top floors of high buildings. Then, as this video shows, even used condoms can become lethal. Imagine going out that way.

Now for the price can anyone do the physics and tell us what floor it was dropped from?