I woke up last night, thinking I heard someone calling my name.

[MineralMan]

Shortly thereafter, I realized that someone actually was calling my name. The neighbors in the house behind ours were shouting my name. Alarmed, I got out of bed, put my pants on and went out the side door of the house to see what was the matter.

They told me that they had just seen someone going through the cars in my driveway. They had seen the lights come on in the cars. They told me they yelled at the person, who fled the area. They had called the police, who promised to drive by and see if they could see anyone prowling around the neighborhood.

I thanked them, locked the cars, and went back to bed. So, this morning, I went and looked in the car. There was nothing of value in either car, really, but I noticed that the small change in the center console cup holders was gone.

Looks like I'm going to have to start locking the car when I park it from now on. I'm guessing it was some kid, going from car to car, looking for stuff like that change. It's mildly disturbing, though.

[RKP5637]

1. You never know, anymore, who's roaming around. Some of my friends don't bother locking their

Last edited Mon Apr 10, 2017, 12:03 PM - Edit history (1)

cars up at familiar places. As I tell them, that's where some events happen. People trusting areas they are familiar with. At minimal, one obtains your registration, etc. Way way long ago I recall my father just locking his gas cards, etc. in the glove box. It was a more trusting era in some places.

[furtheradu]

2. Glad You & Yours are ok.

That is un-nerving, I know. Happy You have goood neighbors, too!

[MineralMan]

3. That's why I make a point of getting to know my neighbors.

We all keep an eye on things going on in the neighborhood. We have all exchanged phone numbers, too, but I guess the neighbors behind me couldn't find mine. That's OK, though. I'm a light sleeper, so I heard them right away.

[furtheradu]

6. I do, too!

When I moved to this place, about 8 months ago, I spotted some one acting suspiciously around neighbors' vehicle. Although the guy was about 5x my size, I turned on lights & made a bunch of noise, & he left quickly. I went to tell the neighbor, we called the popo, exchanged phone #s. She was kind of shocked I got involved. I was kinda shocked she was shocked. That's what neighbors do.

[Afromania]

4. I understand your disturbance

It feels like a mild violation to have somebody rifling through what is essentially an extension of your home(personal safe space). I find it amazing that there is anywhere left you can leave your car doors unlocked.

[MineralMan]

5. I never really think about locking my cars.

There is nothing in them worth stealing. I do lock up in parking lots if I've purchased something somewhere else, but not normally in my driveway. I guess I'll have to start doing that. It's a quiet neighborhood, but I suppose there are people everywhere with petty larceny on their minds.

I have a habit, mainly at fast food drive-throughs of dropping coins I get in change in the console cupholder. It's a pain to transfer them to my pocket when I'm sitting. Eventually, I take them out and drop them in a wooden box on my bedroom dresser. When there is over about $50 in that box, I'll take it to the bank and dump it in their coin counter.

I'm guessing that there are lots of people who do the same with change, so a kid looking for some cash could probably score pretty well in most neighborhoods.

Next time, whoever it was will find the doors locked.

[Afromania]

17. I keep change in the ashtray for parking meters

and have to make sure it's closed when I get out. As another poster stated it is a thing junkies(crackheads) tend to do. After having a number of things stolen out of my vehicles I stow away anything of value, that will fit, under the seats and double check the doors before walking away.

[spooky3]

30. A thief or pair of them will make rounds in an area

Where houses are fairly close together in an urban area. They aren't necessarily teens. They may not get much from any one car but in a short period of time they may get enough from multiple cars for them to do it.

Glad your neighbors took action.

[MineralMan]

32. We have a number of Nosy Parkers in the neighborhood.

I'm one of them. Not deliberately, but we have a 50's style picture window in our living room, and can see a good portion of the block when were in that room. We only close the curtains at night, so we do see a lot of what goes on in the neighborhood.

I've called the cops a few times when something suspicious was going on. I know all of my neighbors and what cars they drive, so a strange car catches my attention, as does unusual activity.

I've also been know to go out and stand on the front porch to keep an eye on people who are loitering in cars at the curb. That usually sends them on their way.

We're an unofficial Neighborhood Watch block.

[jeanmarc]

7. Probably a crackhead

I was a security guard to help through college and that's what crackheads do.

[MineralMan]

9. Could be, for sure.

I don't know. Whoever it was was gone by the time I went outside. He probably went over to the next street and kept doing it. I did see a police car go by shortly after that, but there was no chance they'd find the culprit.

It's really just a shruggable thing. I suppose I'll lock my cars from now on, but I'm not all that concerned, really.

[CountAllVotes]

31. They'll do anything for a $

Sheer desperation!

I live in an area that has a huge meth problem. The other night I was out and was approached by three different women.

One wanted to sell me some old DVDs.

The other was looking to sell some silver jewelry.

The final one was a very young woman/teenager that claimed to be homeless looking for some pennies! on that one.

Sad sad situation at best.

Soon you'll have to lock yourself up before they steal YOU as YOU might have some change or a dollar bill on you!

[OldHippieChick]

8. Old joke about folks who didn't lock their cars

in the church parking lot while they were in worship service. They all learned their lesson one fall when those who hadn't locked their cars went out after service to find their cars full of zucchini.

[MineralMan]

10. What a horror story that would be!

There's a cool joke I saw on a forum for tuba players about someone who left his tuba in his car to run into a store. When he came back, he discovered that someone had put another tuba in the car and fled.

[reflection]

23. I've always used a variation of that joke with people

who root for different sports teams than I do.

They'll proudly say "I like (X)," and I'll say "Oh man, I had a buddy who had two tickets to the (X) game and he put them on his dash while he ducked into the store. When he came back his window was smashed out."

And they always say something like "I guess so!" then I follow up with "yeah, and someone put two more tickets next to those two."

You can see the gears grinding in their heads for a few seconds...

[randr]

12. We have that expression here, you only lock your car to stop

people putting zucchini in it.

[KittyWampus]

21. True story, I used to garden for multiple wealthy people in the Hamptons. One house was rented

and I went one day when the renters were there. Obviously city people because I said "would you like some zucchini?" and they looked at me funny and said "what do you mean?".

In other words, it was clear they had never grown zucchini nor had zucchini foisted onto them before. LOLZ

I had to explain that I grew zucchini and had way too much and would they like some for their dinner.... FREE.

[NightWatcher]

11. Why would you not lock your door?

It takes half a second

[MineralMan]

14. Why would I? There's nothing in the car to steal, really.

Neither of my cars locks with a button on the key fob or key, either. You're right, of course. It would only take a second to lock the car, and another second to unlock it, but I have never seen any reason to do so.

After this incident, I'll probably remember to lock the cars up for a while. But, I'm equally likely to forget about doing it before long. My habit has always been to leave the car unlocked. I have gotten over leaving the keys in the car, though. Years ago, in California, someone stole my MG Midget from my driveway because the keys were left in it.

When I went out the front door, I noticed that the car was not there. Before I called the police, though, I looked up and down my street. Sure enough, it was a block away, along the curb. So I went down, started it and drove it back home. It ran very poorly when it was cold, and needed fiddling with the choke knob to get very far, until it warmed up and would run normally.

The thief, apparently, was not familiar with such a balky vehicle and abandoned it quickly. Sometimes, sloppy maintenance is a good thing, I guess. I never did get that cold start problem solved. Damned SU carburetors, anyway! I was used to it, so it didn't bother me much. But, I did stop leaving the keys in my cars after that.

[Freddie]

20. The best auto-theft prevention device

Is a manual transmission. Many stories of cars being stolen and then abandoned in a few blocks when the thief can't figure out how to drive the stick shift. Now many generations that never learned how (I can't and neither of my kids can)

[MineralMan]

33. Good point.

One time, I decided to use the valet parking at some place. Kid got in the car to park it and then got out and said he didn't know how to drive a manual transmission, but someone else would park it when they got back. I declined, and parked the thing myself.

[Orrex]

16. Yes, this baffles me.

Even in the ancient days of manually locking doors, I never left my car unlocked and can't think of a good reason to do so.

[JTFrog]

25. Only if it's a soft top.

I was very young and never even thought about the futility of locking it until someone ripped open the top (and the back seat) of my Catalina and stole a $50 boombox I had just won from a raffle at work. Car was never the same after. Was a long major hassle to get the top replaced and never got around to fixing the inside.

Last soft top car I ever owned.

[Sunlei]

13. last house I lived in, we noticed car inside light on. Went out with dogs & two teens? ran away fast

Ran away fast into the darkness. Two old dogs they woofed a little and didn't even chase them into the "darkness". They broke a side window to unlock the car.

Lots of 'teens' and 20ish people without steady income 'work' daily by committing petty crimes. They'll steal anything they can get their hands on & make a buck at pawn shops/street sales/craigs list sales/ebay sales shoplifted clothes/items.

Saddles,lawn gear, tool boxes, laptops, phones, bikes & 'used' guns galore at local pawn shops. plenty of similar on craigs list/ebay.

[MineralMan]

15. Yes, I suppose so.

One of the issues with always locking cars is that some thieves just break a window if the car's locked. My answer is to keep the interior of the car empty of any attractive things, and retain the car's stock radio, rather that installing an expensive one. So, my car burglar got away with a couple of bucks in change for his efforts. I hate coin change anyhow, so never mind.

[csziggy]

19. Someone broke a window to get into my husband's car while he was at work

And the car was in the parking lot for the business.

All that was stolen were some copied music CDs (I always made copies and kept the originals at home) and a little bit of change - a total value of about $20, including buying new CDRs to make more copies. It cost $400 to replace the window. Those copied CDs wouldn't play in a lot of the players of the time.

After that, my husband stopped locking his car at work. One other time it looked as if the car had been gone through, but nothing was stolen, not even the bootleg CDs.

On the other hand, I never lock my car or truck at home. In fact, I left the keys in my old Suburban for ten years but no one would steal it. We ended up driving it to death - at seventeen years old and over 350,000 miles the block cracked and replacing the engine would have cost twice what the truck was worth WITH a new or rebuilt engine IF we could have found one.

[MineralMan]

26. Yes. Broken windows are always a possibility,

especially if stuff worth stealing is clearly visible. I try not to have such items in my vehicles where they can be seen. With hatchbacks, though, that's a difficult thing to achieve. At home, though, there's nothing worth stealing in my cars. It's a tossup, really, whether to lock or not. I'm undecided, really.

[csziggy]

38. That evening about half dozen cars had windows broken out

Most did not have anything worth stealing, whether visible or not - according to the police who notified my husband of the break in.

The big problem was that employee parking was downstairs from the business, in a lot that mostly served a bar underneath the storefronts. And back then my husband worked nights, often on weekends. So his car would be there when the bar closed on weekends along with those of the people who worked at the bar and the 24 hour fast food restaurant across the customer parking from where he worked. The break ins on the cars was on a Saturday night and was discovered when one of the employees went out to leave.

The only thing we lost I miss was the nice CD case that his copies were in.

[hunter]

39. Where I live it's damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

There's glass in the street near my house right now where my neighbor's car was broken into. The police don't respond to stuff like that. They'll ask you to file a report on their web site, or in person at the police station; to them it's mostly a courtesy so you can get a police report for your insurance company, if you want. (I think most people have learned the insurance companies will get their money back when it's time to renew so it's not sensible to report the small stuff...)

I don't lock my car and I'll even leave the windows partly open if it's not going to rain, just to let the thieves know they don't have to break the windows. Replacing car windows is no fun, even if you pay someone else do it.

But then there are raccoons looking for food sometimes, maybe a dried up french fry on the floor under the seats. I don't leave the window open too much. It used to be worse when our kids lived at home and we'd frequently go on car trips, and then again when they started driving our cars themselves. They were always leaving evidence of fast food binges in the cars.

My wife locks her car but it's parked close to the house where the dogs can look after it. They make a huge fuss if they hear, smell, or see a stranger in the driveway, most especially raccoons...

[csziggy]

40. We've never had a problem at home, just at that one location in town

That's the only time either of us has had a vehicle broken into. My husband didn't have to make a police report - the police came up to the store where he was working overnight to see if his was one of the ones broken into. He didn't make an insurance claim - deductible was $500, window cost $400.

At home we worry more about trees blowing down on our vehicles than any break in! That, or a loose horse running into one. Right now my truck has horse bite marks on the hood - a horse dragged her teeth across and scraped the paint off in several stripes. I might get the truck painted - but it's eighteen years old and not really worth the cost.

I have said often that I never want to own a vehicle that would attract thieves. We buy used and drive them until they die. The last time I had my truck in for work, the garage washed it - I think they were embarrassed to have a yellow-green slightly fuzzy truck in their parking lot, especially when it's supposed to be white!

[BSdetect]

18. Insurance policies say lock your car even if garaged.

I think that is a common requirement

[MineralMan]

27. That's what they recommend, yes.

For me, keeping the car empty of anything valuable seems like the best practice. Getting your windows broken by someone is another risk. If there's nothing visible worth stealing, that risk goes down, of course, but even so, locking your car does invite a broken window. I'm really unsure what the best practice is in my own driveway.

A bigger risk is leaving a garage door opener in an unlocked car in a driveway. For homes with attached garages, that can lead to access to the home's interior. Again, though, burglars won't be deterred by a locked car if they can see the garage door clicker inside.

I don't have one in either car, for that reason. Our garage isn't attached, but there's stuff in their worth stealing, so I don't tempt fate by making access easy for a potential thief.

[Maeve]

22. We started locking our cars after some neighbor kids stole from them

Another neighbor caught one kid playing with a knife/multitool he swiped--we talked to the kid's parents and got it back only to have it taken again a few months later. (I know, 'fool me twice...')
And that was a kid from an otherwise good religious home...

[MineralMan]

28. Kids and druggies are responsible for most car

entries, I'm sure.

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

24. I've had that happen before.

Typically, I always lock our car doors, but occasionally I've forgotten. One of those times I found the door left open in the morning. I would never leave the car door wide open over night, so it was pretty obvious someone was trying to look for something to steal. No idea why they didn't bother to close the door afterward. I don't ever leave anything valuable it my car, so there was nothing to take. It it is usually teenagers looking for things like ipods, etc that are doing this in my area.

[Warpy]

29. I've always lived in lousy areas

Leaving anything unlocked is just not an option.

[Hoyt]

34. I have known people in high-crime areas who purposely left their car unlocked, figuring

it was better to let thieves in to see there is nothing there than to have their window broken to find out they wasted their time.

[MineralMan]

35. I can see how that would work, for sure.

[heaven05]

36. I had a friend

who some years back left his car running in a gas station as he ran inside to pick up something quick. Came out, car was gone. Too many opportunists out here to not secure, secure, secure....homes also, always.

[The Big Ragu]

37. Locks are for keeping other people honest

unless a crackhead breaks your windows.