In just one night eight homes have been ruined, and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage caused - the kind of damage not seen since people had to tear down their own homes after the recent Queensland floods.

This damage has been caused by a kiddie crime wave that's sweeping the nation.

Day or night, children are going out on rampages, with vandalism, theft, and even killing.

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One fourteen-year-old boy allegedly stabbed and killed 40-year-old mother Rosa Mercuri after she gave chase when a group of children threw eggs at her home.

Thirteen-year-old Brodie is the flip side. On Saturday night he was somewhere someone else thought he shouldn't have been, and although Brodie denies breaking into a garage, the garage's owner saw it differently, dishing out rough justice.

Brodie spent four days in hospital and his mother Leanne now wants charges laid against the youth who beat her son.

“If he was caught breaking in, as far as I'm concerned the police should have been notified and given descriptions. I do know police act straight away on break and enters,” she said.

But Brodie may not be the only juvenile soon to be dealt with in a vigilante-style fashion.

A 22-home housing estate at Hervey Bay, north of Brisbane, has now been attacked by vandals more than a dozen times - the homes haven't even been lived in, and in some cases almost need to be completely rebuilt.

“Just the windows alone are thousands of dollars as we've had to replace them five times. It’s like they go into a frenzy,” Jan Hinds from Campbell Homes said.

According to Jan as soon as they fix the damage, vandals return.

Jan and some of the tradesmen that have worked on the homes are now patrolling the estate, hoping to catch the children responsible.

“We've got to catch them. Can't let scumbags come in and wreck stuff,” said Leon, who did the concreting on the homes.

Leon wants justice and answers. “It’s absolute madness. Where are the parents?” he asked.

Conway has bought into the estate, and he too now does random patrols, hoping to catch the criminals.

“It’s shocking to you and me because, by and large, I'm assuming you and I hold the traditional values of our society. But these kids often do see themselves as victims who are acting out, to get a fair deal, to get revenge,” said clinical forensic psychologist Dr Bob Montgomery.

Dr Montgomery says what we are seeing is often a predisposition to delinquency, a foundation for the criminal, laid in infancy. This kind of destruction is about identity, and leaving their mark.

“A lot of these crimes are really (based on) ‘you hurt me, you don't care for me, so I'm going to hurt you, and if you’re too big or too powerful for me to hurt you, I'll hurt something that represents you’,” he said.

Jan is calling on the vandals’ friends and their parents to do the right thing. “If you see it, dob your kid in, if you know it is them, because really they deserve to be punished for what they're doing,” she said.