I got complacent . . . . .

[Ruger Rich]

I live on a dead end street, an HOA with about 50 homes. We bought the home new in 88 and raised our
kids here. It's always been a quite street where neighbors speak to each other and wave as they drive by.
Last Tuesday I had the garage door open and was unloading some things from my wife's car. It was
about 1:30 in the afternoon. We were planning on leaving at about 3 to take care of some business.
So when I got the unloading done I closed the garage door and locked it. However, I did not lock my
wife's car as we would soon be leaving. Middle of the day, folks out everywhere. And when we went
to leave some turd had gone through the car, glove box, console, etc. Stuff thrown everywhere. Only
thing taken was a first aid kit. And I should have mentioned the car was in the driveway. My point here
is I'd got too comfortable and let my guard down. Cheap reminder I'm thinking.

Read More

 

[Ura-Ki]

Very lucky!
Broad daylight, nice neighborhood, and good neighbors, and yet, baddy came to YOUR property and did his deal, says things are not as safe as you thought, and worse, that times have certainly changed for the worst!

We are having the same thing happen here, even with the massive homeless population relocated away from us, the crime has actually increased, and we liven in a very closed community, sort of like a HOA, only better ( And worse) in that nobody who shouldn't be here is allowed here! I see anyone who dosn't live here here after about 9:30 P.M. its game on, no excuses for anyone to be here, it's obvious they do not belong!

 

[Member 52301]

I live on a dead end street, an HOA with about 50 homes. We bought the home new in 88 and raised our
kids here. It's always been a quite street where neighbors speak to each other and wave as they drive by.
Last Tuesday I had the garage door open and was unloading some things from my wife's car. It was
about 1:30 in the afternoon. We were planning on leaving at about 3 to take care of some business.
So when I got the unloading done I closed the garage door and locked it. However, I did not lock my
wife's car as we would soon be leaving. Middle of the day, folks out everywhere. And when we went
to leave some turd had gone through the car, glove box, console, etc. Stuff thrown everywhere. Only
thing taken was a first aid kit. And I should have mentioned the car was in the driveway. My point here
is I'd got too comfortable and let my guard down. Cheap reminder I'm thinking.

I am really sorry that this happened to you and your wife.

Take care!

Cate

 

[bigbearbear]

You're being watched, one of your neighbors probably has a shiny new first aid kit now. They watched you from a window, saw that you return to the house and do a quick dash and grab. They are also pretty close by, close enough to be able to tell that you did not engage the alarm and lock on the car, which will usually give a Beep or small horn when you do. Good thing you didn't have anything more expensive or a gun in that car. The bad news is, they will be back.

I do have a recommendation for you if you plan to stay in your house. Get one of those wifi cameras (e.g. Wyze Cam v3) to monitor the front and any approaches to your house. If you do not have one, get a smart watch and pair it with your smart phone so that alerts from the cam will also alert your watch. Make it a habit to always wear your smart watch when you go outside. These new wifi camers can be configured for motion sensing and will send an alert to you.

This way, when someone approaches your house, you'll be alerted. I do this whenever I'm outside working on my yard, I don't want anyone or vehicle approaching my house without me knowing.

If you don't have a monitored alarm service like ADT, now's a good time to think about this too. They too have apps that can be linked to your smart phone and smart watch. So if your garage door or any other doors/windows is opened unexpectedly, you'll be notified, and if the alarm is armed, it will go off and the monitoring company can call the cops for you.

 

[SrMachoSolo]

^^ I doubt the neighbors, people who actually pay money to live somewhere, would watch for that kind of opportunity.

That's what this crime was, a crime of opportunity... by some scum (likely a drug addict) walking through 'hoods, looking for an easy target. They went round to many of the cars to see which was unlocked.

It happened to me. I parked my car in the driveway, about 1pm, didn't lock it because I was going to leave shortly after... come out to find the car had been gone through. The only thing they could steal was my usb charger.

I have cameras now, but even then the police aren't going to put much effort into "petty" crimes like this.

-Robert

 

[P7M13]

Cameras. Same happened to me. Live & learn.

 

[Camelfilter]

... Cheap reminder I'm thinking.

This!

As others mentioned, security system & cameras. Really simple to do & relatively inexpensive these days.

Simplisafe has a battery in the base station, so will run for a bit in an outage. Hooked up to a UPS even longer (days). Uses its own cellular phone card thing, so isn't reliant on cable/internet (does need internet for their cameras tho).

Neat simplisafe features: smoke detectors. Changed out the battery in one of the simplisafe smoke detectors last year, without disconnecting it from the base station first (thought that was the one "chirping")... monitoring center called us within a minute!

They also have water sensors, if you might have a need. We turn off the laundry faucets for vacations, so don't have those sensors.

Plus get a dog or few, if you can.

Criminals like "easy"...

 

[Certaindeaf]

I live on a dead end street, an HOA with about 50 homes. We bought the home new in 88 and raised our
kids here. It's always been a quite street where neighbors speak to each other and wave as they drive by.
Last Tuesday I had the garage door open and was unloading some things from my wife's car. It was
about 1:30 in the afternoon. We were planning on leaving at about 3 to take care of some business.
So when I got the unloading done I closed the garage door and locked it. However, I did not lock my
wife's car as we would soon be leaving. Middle of the day, folks out everywhere. And when we went
to leave some turd had gone through the car, glove box, console, etc. Stuff thrown everywhere. Only
thing taken was a first aid kit. And I should have mentioned the car was in the driveway. My point here
is I'd got too comfortable and let my guard down. Cheap reminder I'm thinking.

Look at the bright side, keyboard return keys are only like 99 cents.

 

[Alexx1401]

This!

As others mentioned, security system & cameras. Really simple to do & relatively inexpensive these days.

Simplisafe has a battery in the base station, so will run for a bit in an outage. Hooked up to a UPS even longer (days). Uses its own cellular phone card thing, so isn't reliant on cable/internet (does need internet for their cameras tho).

Neat simplisafe features: smoke detectors. Changed out the battery in one of the simplisafe smoke detectors last year, without disconnecting it from the base station first (thought that was the one "chirping")... monitoring center called us within a minute!

They also have water sensors, if you might have a need. We turn off the laundry faucets for vacations, so don't have those sensors.

Plus get a dog or few, if you can.

Criminals like "easy"...

Scum will 99.99% of the time go for the "low hanging fruit". Very easy now days to make it just hard enough that they will bother someone else.

 

[Flopsweat]

Look at the bright side, keyboard return keys are only like 99 cents.

The perils of writing your post offline in an editor...

 

[Jason999]

Cameras.

I hate to admit that they're a necessity, but they're not that expensive and at some point you'll wish you had one. I bet youd have liked to seen the face of your thief and been able to post it around the block.

I've motion activated flood lights, multiple locks, security system and a camera feed. Adding a pair of real cameras (and one dummy) has helped me feel secure in my area.

The price of our safety is eternal vigilance.

 

[Ruger Rich]

Follow up. I have ordered cameras. Should be here Tuesday. I already had motion sensor lights out front, but
they only work at night. I grew up in a different culture/time as I feel a few other members on here have as well. It's
just a sadness for me that I remember when folks were less squeezed, less drugs, and had a self respect.

 

[Jason999]

Times have changed, not for the better. The crazies are running the asylum.

Burying our head in the sand will just turn us into victims. Vigilance is part of life now.

 

[Alexx1401]

Follow up. I have ordered cameras. Should be here Tuesday. I already had motion sensor lights out front, but
they only work at night. I grew up in a different culture/time as I feel a few other members on here have as well. It's
just a sadness for me that I remember when folks were less squeezed, less drugs, and had a self respect.

Soon after you have them (cameras) you will wonder why you waited. The first time we got some was over a decade back. I had been looking at a couple. Wife kept poo pooing the idea. I was finally just going to order something. Then one day she forgot to lock her vehicle that was right in front of the house and some scum got in. Nothing was taken but they tossed stuff all over looking. Next day she announced she had ordered a MUCH better complete system than what I had been looking at with her poo pooing it
Now all these years later I just would never be without. So nice to be able to look any time day or night. Especially at night when in bed. Dogs say "something is out there", we can just look with our phones to see what it is.

 

[made in china]

Cameras. Same happened to me. Live & learn.

And then what?

 

[Jason999]

And then what?

Beer time.

 

[Siglvr]

And then what?

Wellllll......., if my example is any indication, you'll be watching squirrels, neighborhood cats and even dangling spiders as they send out "alert alert after alert". The good news is that if you hear a noise in the middle of the night, instead of confronting it, you can ease out of bed: scratch a body part or 2, check your phone - and then ignore the skunk in your driveway. Real skunk with black and white strip fur, not a felon in possession kind of skunk. Not a bad think to be aware of when it's time to let the pup out at 5 am when it's time to wake up for work.

Save the money you'll spend on hydrogen peroxide and put it into on cameras. The house will smell better too.

 

[nwwoodsman]

Wellllll......., if my example is any indication, you'll be watching squirrels, neighborhood cats and even dangling spiders as they send out "alert alert after alert". The good news is that if you hear a noise in the middle of the night, instead of confronting it, you can ease out of bed: scratch a body part or 2, check your phone - and then ignore the skunk in your driveway. Real skunk with black and white strip fur, not a felon in possession kind of skunk. Not a bad think to be aware of when it's time to let the pup out at 5 am when it's time to wake up for work.

Save the money you'll spend on hydrogen peroxide and put it into on cameras. The house will smell better too.

We had a bike stolen, car broke into and my dirty hiking boots stolen off our front porch. Put cameras up and now nothing but the bubblegum cat, deer and neighbors leaving for work show up on it. But, we live in a very small isolated town with very little police coverage. On the off chance someone doesn't notice or chooses to ignore the cameras and rips us off again, the odds are that we will be able to track them down. That makes sifting through the dancing spiders worth it.

 

[Flopsweat]

We had a bike stolen, car broke into and my dirty hiking boots stolen off our front porch. Put cameras up and now nothing but the bubblegum cat, deer and neighbors leaving for work show up on it. But, we live in a very small isolated town with very little police coverage. On the off chance someone doesn't notice or chooses to ignore the cameras and rips us off again, the odds are that we will be able to track them down. That makes sifting through the dancing spiders worth it.

Some of the modern cameras have software settings that can lower sensitivity in specific parts of the picture. So if you have a branch that's always moving the motion detection can ignore it. I don't know how much that helps you, but there may be other features that do.

 

[Alexx1401]

Some of the modern cameras have software settings that can lower sensitivity in specific parts of the picture. So if you have a branch that's always moving the motion detection can ignore it. I don't know how much that helps you, but there may be other features that do.

YEP, mine is many years old and a low end but it is programmable. Can set each of the 8 camera's to different sensitivity and set up zones that will trigger motion. Tech has come a LONG way on these.