Dan

Don't we all!

Yeah, this is pretty much what the cop who showed up told us. He also said it's especially bad when people leave guns in their unlocked cars. That becomes a major problem.

My wife was signed up for that, but she stopped paying attention to it as it was mostly just busy bodies complaining about every possible thing they could; things that were ultimately irrelevant to actual neighborhood safety.

General Zod

Yeah kinda like everything else on the internet. It's funny because someone posted the other day "Strangers at our door!" and they provided the ring video of a couple of Missionaries at the door. So yeah.. you gotta weed through it but overall I think it's helpful.

DaveNinja

Our neighborhood has people who walk through and check all the car doors every night looking for open ones with stuff to steal. I never leave anything in the cars anymore. Almost everyday someone is on NextDoor complaining about stuff stolen from their car.

General Zod

What does make me laugh are the people who post that someone broke into their car and stole their 3 laptops, 2 phones, family heirloom, gold bars, mint inverted airmail stamp, and dozens of bitcoins..

Who keeps all this crap in their car? Sheesh..

Noonan

Where TF do you live where that's considered even slightly normal? I'd quickly become Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino...

Troy Stiffler

To add to this: I once had my shop broken into. They passed by (literally) $1M+ worth of automation and process controls, and stole a $200 case of tools. And when they smashed the door glass, which was around $400 to fix. Fucking crackheads, man. Wish I had audio and video of them in there.

Noonan

They need their quick flip. Can't take the time to research and sell all that stuff when you need your next hit right now!

Dan

Definitely, and it's not like it's a new occurrence. Hell, back when I was 12-14-ish, my friends and I would walk around the neighborhood on our school lunch break. We never EVER stole anything from cars, but we DID occasionally pull on door handles just to see how many were unlocked. It was more than we expected. But this was the mid 90's.

Solid Snake?

VitiminJ

I think you'd be surprised.

We live in a new development, higher end homes, 1/4 acre lots, 175 homes. This has happened 3 times in the 5 years we've lived there. They look for cars that are unlocked and grab whatever they can. You'd be surprised what people leave in their cars too. GPS, cameras, laptops, wallets....

They come in the middle of the night. Typically someones dog will spook them away, but they'll hit 20-30 cars before someone see them and they run. Never been caught.

MarkitZero

One way to stop. Sit quietly on dark porch with a gun, leave nice car in driveway unlocked with some bait, wait and watch. Enter my car illegally, BLAMMO! See ya later, hope your friends pass the word to their deadbeat friends that the neighbors shoot to kill..or at least mame.

jjcool

Another way to stop. Lock your car.

andicus

Sure, but where's the killing in that?

General Zod

Yeah I think there's some stupid law that life > property so pretty sure that's "laying in wait" and it's totally against the law. Yeah.. I don't know what the world's coming to either when you can't blast them for trying to steal your pine tree air freshener.

Vibiana

That's one good thing about being a paranoid single woman who reads lots of true crime. I *never* leave my car or my house unlocked.

Nick Danger

No pawn shop is going to accept CNC equipment from a machine shop. "Uh, yeah, I don't need these anymore."

Norm de Plume

Kurt D

Can't believe it took this many posts to get to Auntie Mame! 😜

Kevin Phillips

That is no guarantee. The thief could use a screwdriver to pull out the lock, like they did once to get into my car. The repair shop was never able to get the door lock to stay fixed.

Norm de Plume

Hey, somebody had to do it. It was either that or this:

Kurt D

I think you made the right choice.

Abob Teff

It’s actually a bigger guarantee than you seem to think. Yes, a person can break into a locked car if he/she so desired. However these crimes are a crime of opportunity. You may think I am kidding, but there are “professional” criminal rings out there who are driving neighborhoods and trying car doors. If it is unlocked, they hit it. If it is locked, they move on. One of our local news channels (Champaign or Decatur, I can’t recall which) featured a story this week on a neighborhood that had been hit. Somebody’s doorbell camera caught footage of the car pulling up, a guy getting out and trying the doors on the car parked in the driveway, then getting back in his car and leaving because the doors were locked.

They are using this tactic because too many local-yokel police departments are chalking this up to mischievous kids. Sometimes it is, but more often it is not.

EDIT: Decatur http://www.wandtv.com/story/37541451...car-burglaries

TheDude

Absolutely. Sometimes the best deterrent to crime is the most obvious one. Locking your doors & not leaving anything valuable in sight in the car is going to decrease your chances of having your car broken into. Sure, it may still happen - but the likelyhood is less if you take these precautions.

jjcool

The local police department has been posting "tips" on their social media for the last few years. This year alone, in less than two months, they have "reminded' people to lock their cars numerous times. That isn't something anyone should need to be reminded to do.

Abob Teff

To be fair, I grew up in the middle-of-nowhere sticks and my wife grew up in the inner-city ghetto. I had never even heard of locking doors until we started dating. She still reminds me to this day, just not as often.