Yeah, Pittsburgh pisses me off sometimes. The constant construction, the meat heads on the southside. Sometimes I want to fight the entire city.

Bad idea. If anyone gets hurt by booby traps, even if they are thieves, you will end up on the losing end of a liability lawsuit. Even worse, you might kill a kid who wanders in because he doesn't know better, or a cop investigating a 911 call due to something like a short-circuit in your phone making it dial numbers at random.

Your best bet is to put in a couple of motion-sensitive cameras, or alarms but don't do anything that could hurt someone automatically. The chance for error is a lot higher and the consequences are a lot more severe than the crime you are trying to prevent.

Exactly..... Traps are a horrible idea and expose you to a great deal of liability. Courts do NOT like spring-guns or related traps. It's black letter law. (I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, no attorney-client relationship is established here, etc.) That said, bad, bad idea.

I actually want to get a place in the flats on the South Side, but I really don't know how long I would be able to tolerate all the drunken frat boys.

Sweet. I have a ton of VHS movies to unload. Looks like I'll be heading down there this weekend. Thanks.

I worry about my collection sometimes and man I feel for you. If I had my collection stolen or destroyed I'd be devistated and far from being able to recover the loss. I'm thinking of building a vault for my DVDs sort of like a walk-in humidor. Every wall will be shelved and it'll have a door with a deadbolt.

I keep my DVD Profiler updated weekly plus regular pics just for this reason.

Damn dude, glad I live at home out in bumfuck country with no grudges. Two weeks ago I threw a party that got out of hand and because my college is in the same town as my hs, my parties become knowledge of 17 year olds looking for booze. Well, somebody jacked my Scarface Platinum Edition DVD. Ironically, they left a lot of much more valuable DVDs. The assholes just wanted Scarface apparently. F-king fake thugs who put their hoods up and act all tough when they wouldn't know one pistol from the next. I guess I'm dumb to leave my PowerTowers out when I have parties.

UPDATE************************************************

Well, I found out where my dvd's got sold to. The police officer handling my breake in case met up with me and went to the store.

Ridiculous happenings.

After I was there I told the owner how i had rare dvd's. He said, well, they most likely all came through here. I told him about my rare oop army of darkness limited edition. Without pause he opened up a drawer and pulled it out and said, is this it? I was like, that's exactly it. And he said, take it it's yours.

Most likely all came through there my ass. He knows they did. Secondly He said it would take about 4 weeks to get all my dvd's back. and I would have to pay 3 to 4 dollars for each dvd. And like 10+ for the seasons and more expensive ones. YES. HE RECIEVED STOLEN PROPERTY AND IS MAKING ME PAY FOR MY OWN PERSONAL STUFF. I WILL TAKE HIM TO COURT IF ANYTHING BEFORE I BREAK DOWN AND PAY. But he said this after the cop left.

4 weeks? making me pay for my stolen property. I LUAGHED.... At least progress was made.

The only reason I found out where they were sold to is because I had a demo reel in my collection that noone would have had. It showed up at the store and he put it on the shelf. dumb!!!

I'm going to buy a black light marker and initial all of my dvd's. That way there wont be any visible markings on it to bring down the value. Plus it will be cool if I got them stolen again and I show up at a store that bought them and pull out a black light and you see my initials.

Anyways, just thought I would share. At least I got my OOP rare Army of Darkness back.

^ don't places like that require a driver's license now? Were the people caught and arrested yet?

Good to hear you at least have a lead, but that store owner is ridiculous if he thinks you're going to pay for them. I'd call the cops on him if he tries any of that crap.

If it was a legit place they would. Not if it was a shady pawn shop.

Pittsburgh? Crime? No, say it ain't so!

But seriously, sucks what happened.

they're supposed to, but I've just learned the CD Game Exchange up here in upper north west DC is inconsistent on this fact... that kind of bugs me.

That's a great idea!

Well, I guess an ordinance says in the city burrough you have to take id's and info. But outside of the city which dormont is, you don't have to. Then again i hear that at a certain dollar ammount you are supposed to. Either way the store is a piece of crap. It's like an illegal pawn shop. I will get those dvd's back. and i'm not going to pay for one.

Also, can anyone verify for me that all slim PS2's serial numbers start with PK -

I gave him the upc number of my ps2 slim but i didn't have the serial number. And he was trying to play it like every ps2 slim started with PK on the serial number on the system. If you have any ps2 slims could you guys please check and let me know. thanks.

Also, I'm buying renters insurance. probably for like 10,000. If anyone rents an apartment, you should do the same. effin crooks man. ridiculous.

I bought renter's insurance within the first month of moving in.
Here's hoping I never have to use it.

you should up the coverage to more than $10,000 if you can. I'm paying around $6 a month for $40,000 for my renters insurance.

yea, Let me stress this. BUY RENTERS INSURANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Jayderek said, it's only $6 a month whcih is very LITTLE for some peace of mind. You insure you car right? Then why not those things that are of value in your rental place. You don't even own it. How many people have keys to your front door now? Several I am sure. I know when I lived in my old apartment they could walk in at anytime as long as they had an excuse. Sorry, but no thanks. I have a home that I have insurance on and have more than enough.

Who do you go through, if you don't mind me asking? I have about the same coverage, and pay about $35 a month.

good renters insurance is essential.

My wife and I roughly $70 PER YEAR for our renter's insurance ($35K of coverage, I think).

Well worth it, in my opinion.

This is some good info coming off of this thread for people who weren't familiar with renters insurance, etc.

Just learning from this thread***************

Get renters insurance, it's cheap and well worth it.

Take pictures and document your dvd collection or anything else of value. The more proof you have the better it holds up with the insurance and they wont give you as much of a hard time.

www.dvdspot.com is what I use, I'm going to do a heavy update.

I go through State Farm. I also have my car insurance through them, so I do get a multi- discount.

the $35 you're paying does seem high, but I suppose it could be alot of different factors (where your apt. is located, age of the complex, etc).

I would say the odds are better right before you move, if your landlord is showing your apartment off to people. I would imagine a lot of would-be thieves set up appointments, check out spaces, and then break in hoping that, if they're really lucky, the valuable stuff will already be boxed. On top of that, a common tactic is to rob from a house by using a moving van. If you're already known to be moving, it would be an even better tactic.

I was robbed shortly after moving in to a new building, and I never got it back. I have replaced 90% or more, including all the rare stuff and then some, but, unfortunately, I have had no oppurtunity to get my 'Natural Born Killers' disc re-signed by Oliver Stone. (Don't really care that much; it was more an excuse to get close and talk for a minute.)