DMajor

In our small town (southern Ontario) there appears to be an increase in petty crimes.
It might be down to the fact that we're at home more since Covid and are reading more social media.
There seems to be tons of garage break ins, car theft, trailer theft, stuff pinched from your doorstep, bikes stolen in town etc.
Has anyone else noticed an increase in their area?
I've titled it 'petty crime' but it's not petty if you have to replace a $2k lawn mower

Hurlabrick

Yes, quite a lot of 'garage' and 'car' crime (people leaving cars unlocked on the drive and getting them rifled) - even in our pleasant leafy suburb of London.

I have photographed 'down at heel' cars slowly driving around taking photos and spoken to the police about them (they created a report and asked for the photos). Fortunately our study faces onto the main road. I think our prominent ADT sign and CCTV cameras are something of a deterrent.

Danny B

Yes it happens here as well.
Not many cases of thieves coming into your home, but lots of car thefts, people nicking your winter tires, utility trailers etc.

I once saw a bloke on my security camera checking my car door handles at 4am.

dbd33

I haven't seen any crimes but the local media is full of complaints about the wave of petty crime.

BristolUK

Does it seem like there's an increase based on your reading of the local newspaper or local radio news?

It might just be how people exaggerate/like to be negative and you might get the same crime heard by several people and they all repeat it or different parts of it, making it sound like several crimes.

I don't use FB so I don't see that sort of comparison but the local paper doesn't make things look worse.

Try the local police site notices. They can be informative as to outbreaks and patterns.

scrubbedexpat091

Our area of Vancouver was just filled with petty crime, lots of car break in, bike theft, vandalism, and such, and the people doing such crimes are getting more and more brazen as well. The VPD crime map for the area we lived also indicated increase in petty crimes over the last couple of years consistent with people in the neighborhood observing. Mostly people need to make quick bucks to buy drugs.

Our area of West Kelowna seems pretty okay, less visible issues at least, but can't say for sure yet how the crime is.

Chilliwck is a pretty active petty crime city, one guy puts his home security videos on you tube, but Chilliwack is the arm pit of the lower mainland.....

MillieF

Yes, lots more of it. People seem to be wandering around watching people on a constant basis. My neighbour was broken into the other day and she had only popped out for a regular hour yoga class. I’m really “happy” that all of my son’s classes are online And therefore he’s home during the daytime. There are also issues because the places where our homeless population spend their day (library and various drop in centres) are very limited in their timings so they have nowhere to go, and this is just set to get worse as it gets colder. I am only five minutes away from down town but I wouldn’t go near it at night for all the tea in China. Lots of skirmish/mugging problems at night, and young men riding small bikes on the pavement very close and making me feel uncomfortable. That being said this is Fredericton... I lived in Stratford E15 for many years, a long time ago - Pre madness days - and on a good day in full sunlight you could be mugged, and I was battered by a complete stranger and left unconscious in the road, and I still have no idea why. So I’m doing much better now!

Siouxie

Yes.
I had a knock at the door last week - a young man standing there said 'could I get your name please?' - asked him why, he said he wanted to check the name and address on a parcel he had just removed from a woman 3 streets away. It was a package I was waiting for from Amazon -- it had been delivered earlier in the day (no signature requirement) before I was around (the doorbell doesn't work, I didn't hear a knock), - she had seen it and come to the doorstep and taken it - I live on a main road, not some sidestreet, she was brave! He said she had about 6 packages and had dropped one or two as she walked towards a vehicle - he had picked them up trying to help and noticed that they had different names and address's on them, so got his g/f to wait with the woman while he checked the nearest addresss.. which happened to be mine.

Ironically she had stolen the doorbell camera that someone bought for me to 'guard' my front door and alert my phone if someone came to the house!

Piff Poff

There has been a huge increase here and not just petty either.

scrubbedexpat091

This news story popped up today about Vancouver, apparently in first 1/2 of 2020 overall property crime is down 12% due to less cars downtown so less break in's, but break in's at commercial premises is up 47%.

Violent crime is up 5%, most of the increases in just 3 areas, Strathcona, downtown and Yaletown with Strathcona seeing calls about weapons up 50% and calls about break in's up 68% in that area. This area also has a large homeless camp, and homeless and drug use has been increasing, so not really surprised crime is increasing along with it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...rime-1.5728664

Piff Poff

There has been a huge increase here and not just petty either.

J-A-UK

Take this as a definitive answer or not - I am a security professional and manager of a provincial company. We work for all the major retailers across Ontario ........

Retail stores have been way more difficult to steal from, Security at every door (many are the under cover / cctv guys in uniform) who will recognize the habituals lining up - The organized retail criminal that may take a week to travel across the province collecting merchandise from their pawns have been having a hard time and the drug money is not so fluid.
Canadian Tires were closed for a long period, Best Buy did not permit customers in the store so the power tools and lap tops were not hitting the black market in the "normal" volumes.
We (the security industry) has noticed the switch to residential targets - Amazon has seen a massive upturn in business and of course it's the very same items being delivered to your door - The chance of getting caught lifting a box from your door step is way less than the chance of getting caught stealing from retailers.

Unlocked cars, Open garages, Unlocked trailers all easy targets - Bikes, tools, lawn mowers, ATVs, winter rims and tires, trailers (utility, travel trailers, boats) easy pickings

LOCK YOUR STUFF UP - is a great deterrent to most of these individuals

DMajor

Yes, this is the type of crime that's big in our town right now.
With everybody ordering stuff online there's a huge increase in deliveries and most parcels as you say don't require a signature.
It seems we've made it so easy for the criminals, they don't have to go to the malls with all the cctv, just nick stuff off your doorstep.
We have the RING installed and it works ok but obviously there are some black spots hidden away.
As I write this my partner tells me of another trailer stolen in town last night, it seems they just turned up at 3am and hooked on and left

DMajor

Would you say this is the biggest crime right now?
Very worrying if it is, not much more we can do when we're away from the house

DMajor

Mostly on the local facebook groups.
It could be that people are exaggerating but all the reports are from different locations so hard to tell.