Years ago, I wanted to wear a certain necklace and found it was missing. I then noticed that all my good stuff was gone (not that there was a whole lot) and the cheap stuff was still there. I have no idea when they were stolen. However, I have since heard about one or two people who will boldly walk in, take what they can put in their pockets and leave. They know all the hiding places and mine was a typical place. I have to admit that I rarely locked my doors back then.

 

 

My mother tells a similar story. We had just gotten home from vacation, but my middle brother did not go with us. He was in high school at the time & had other things going on. Mom came home & wanted to wear a specific pair of earrings. She could only find one. Turns out the brother had taken the other and pierced his own ear while we were gone. :lol:

Many years ago the hospital I worked for gave a saftey class for all employees. The one thing I remember is to NEVER leave ANYTHING in view in your car. It might just be an old sweat shirt, but thieves will do a lot of damage just to get it.

 

I have heard that a lot of thieves are looking for a circle / dot on the windshield, meaning that the owner has taken their GPS system down & stored it.

They also failed to look in the trunk, where there was a brand new set of golf clubs.

I think I can explain why.

 

Scenario: Late at night, you see a guy running down the street, carrying half a torn up dashboard and a nice set of golf clubs. Seem...oh, I don't know...suspicious?

We recently had a rash of car burglaries here in Ft. Mitchell. Mostly, people leaving their cars unlocked (which I do all the time), and thieves getting in and helping themselves. It went on for a number of weeks with a street getting hit almost every night.

 

Fortunately a good citizen noticed a suspicious car in the neighborhood early one morning and called the police. My husband got his gps back!

Maybe getting some tinted windows? They wouldn't be able to see in the car.

 

Doesn't matter. The neighbor has dark tint, and they got into his. They're definitely looking first, based on the moisture wiped off the window, but as long as they're unlocked, they're getting in.

My mom worked at a bank in downtown Newport. Has been through several bank robberies.

 

One they took the drive in window, which was a separate building away from the main bank, clerk hostage. Ended up police shot the bank robber who was holding onto the clerk across the street from the front door of the bank. Mom heard the shot, saw them both go down, blood splatter against the wall behind them, than the police get the clerk away who was uninjured.

 

I was on a trip driving my car when they came across WLW with the news report of the attempted bank robbery at my mom's bank and the shot. Didn't mention that the clerk was okay. I was very nervous till I could get to a telephone booth and get a hold of someone. (It was before cell phones were popular.)

 

Last one before she retired, for some reason she chased them out the door and across the street to where their car was parked. Wrote the license plate number down and gave it to the police when they arrived. Got an award and a slap on the wrist for that. Great job but don't do it again, we don't want you endangering yourself.

About 12 years ago someone knocked a window out of a bedroom in my house and stole two shot guns that my dad had left me in his will. Both were old guns and worth a lot to me for sentimental reasons.

The guns were worth quite a bit of money but some dope head probably sold them both for whatever a few pills would cost, probably about $40 for each one. :irked: I don't know whether to get mad at the addicts or the doctors who are prescribing narcotic pills like they are candy. Too many pills on the street and too many people hooked on them.

Saturday morning, January 13th 1996. I sat down in my living room, at the time, to put on my shoes and looked out my front window to my drive way. "Honey, where's the van?" The sheriff estimated it was already on a boat and headed to South America or Cuba by the time I reported it missing. Never saw it again, and never found out who took it. Since it was paid off, we had just reduced the insurance to save money and had no theft coverage. I've never made that mistake again.

 

Just before we moved to the current hacienda, I heard a loud noise in the Florida room one night, got up, grabbed my bat, and ran into a couple of guys trying to remove the sliding glass door leading into the kitchen. Either the ball bat or the fact that I was in my underwear, scared them off. A sheriff's deputy came out and dusted for prints, but the guys were wearing gloves.

 

My sister's house, which is right next door to my current home, was broken into in February while she was at work and the kids were at school. My father and Mrs. S were next door, but the houses are so far apart, they didn't notice anything. Sis had no dog, nor an alarm at the time. She has both now.

I woke up this morning and my garage door was open. I immediately went over it to see if anything was missing. We came in kind of late last night for us, 10pm and I must have forgotten to close it as we came in the house. Nothing was missing as far as I can tell, and there was a lot of stuff within easy grab-and-go reach. I guess we were lucky we live on a rural road with not a lot of traffic.

For the first time in my life, I'm living without an alarm system. Mainly because I'm renting.

 

All the houses we lived in when I was younger had alarm systems. They are worth every penny. It takes a very sophisticated criminal to get around one.

 

Funny story:

 

Years ago, we had some relatives visiting from Missouri. They were staying at my grandmas house. They decided to come visit us at my house, but we were gone to a ball game. We were very close with these relatives so they decided to go ahead and come in knowing we wouldn't care. They didn't know we had an alarm system. They also didn't know that when the alarm sounded, the police were notified. They came in and thought nothing of the alarm and decided to just hang around until we got home.

 

As we pulled into our driveway, the cops were putting them into the back of the cruiser. We identified them as family and they were released. The cops couldn't get over the fact that they were dispatched to a break in only to find two middle aged men sitting in the living room drinking a beer with an alarm screaming in the background acting as if nothing about the situation was unusual.

Had my car broken into twice several years ago. Once in KY around 1985, another time when I lived in FL around 1993. Both times, just lost some cassette tapes.

 

My work office was broken into when I lived in WV and I lost about $100 cash from my desk.

 

My wife was in my car when it was carjacked around 1995. Wife lept from the moving car as the dirtbag who stole it backed out. She was fine. Car was found, pretty much stripped about 24 hours later. That was the scariest one of all.

I've been a victim three times, all car break ins. The biggest loss was about $1300 of stereo equipment, actually almost caught the thieves, I ended up chasing them but their vehicle was a bit faster than my '88 Samari.