Steve_

Portable electronics, cash, jewelry, handguns, drugs.

SultanOfSwing

My gear. If that goes, a large chunk of my income (from gigs) is gone. I'm very careful not to be seen (or indeed heard) playing or moving them around though. Our garage is attached and I pack and unpack the car in there, out of sight.

They can have the bloody cat. They'd bring her back within two days anyway.

Nutmegger

There is one road in, one road out, posted with security alarm signs. One goes off, and a crook could be bottled up by a prompt response. I know responses aren't always prompt, but it should make a crook think twice. Plus, we give the dogs carte blanche to go bonkers whenever anyone comes to the house, so people know what awaits them!

WEBlue

People in my town are saying that addicts who used to beg, borrow or steal prescription drugs for their oxycodone (& related) highs now find that heroin is a lot cheaper and easy to switch to.

The break-ins near us didn't seem to net the thieves any great sums of money. They steal things like flat screen TVs, computers & printers, and the odd antique items. I don't think anyone around here has valuables like gems or jewelry, though I could be wrong...

Uncle_Bob

I actually had an attempted burglary just 3 weeks ago. Here is how it went ...

I have a 2 story home in a cul de sac surrounded by a 6 foot wall. It was about 9.45am on a Monday morning when i was half dressed for work (i work flex hours) when i heard the doorbell ring. I look out of my bedroom window down at the door and see a man semi smartly dressed with shirt and a tie. I wait for him to leave, he doesn't, he looks nervous and kept touching his face. I was wondering why he is waiting so long for an answer if he has to go door to door around the neighborhood. I waited then he rung the doorbell a second time. At which point i thought screw this i'm not waiting and carried on getting dressed.

When i get to the bottom of my stairs in a very open planned house i see that the man had jumped my side gate and was proceeding around the house looking down in each window checking for alarm sensors. At this point i'm on the spot, what to do? I could not remember where i'd left my cell phone. So i went out my patio doors and confronted him with foul language, to which he just kept saying sorry sir. I could have hit him or pushed him in my pool but I was not sure if he was armed. Eventually he ran away and jumped my 6 foot wall like he does it for a living.

Luckily for me i was home and the police officer said what i did was the right thing to do, although some people have told me i should have had a go.
I'm just glad i got rid of him before he broke a window. I think if i had taken the time to look for my phone and call 911 he would have started to break in. I didn't want to deal with the damage and explaining to my young boys that bad people are wanting to break into our house, so i'm glad he just ran off. This guy had some balls to try and pull this off because my house is so overlooked by other houses. But 9.30-10.30am is peak time for break ins apparently.

The thing that shocked us the most is that it could have easily been my wife asleep after a night shift. According to the security alarm guy the master bedroom is the first place burglars head for.

I now have a monitored house alarm with a camera i can view from my phone. It was a $99 install. Its a $36 a month expense ongoing now but we feel safer for it. I know some people just put the alarm company decal in their yard and stickers in their windows, you can buy them on ebay.

I thought about getting a gun too.

Pulaski

I have a big f***-off padlock through one of the holes in the rails on my garage door. They'd just turn our place upside down and find nothing to speak of. No portable electronics, no cash other than a bottle of foreign and/ or obsolete coins, plus about $20 of uncirculated $1 bills, a few bits of jewelry (value likely 00's, not 000's, in gold, no gems), and one $100 20 gauge shotgun from Walmart. The TV is a CRT we bought in 2002. Our home computer we bought around 2007, the printer cost us about $200 three years ago, but is an office-style brick that takes both arms to carry. Honestly, there is little a thief could take to sell. I have some boxed hifi components, but it's all 240v, and the CD player needs a new laser. Perhaps my tools are the most valuable and saleable things, but you're not going to run far with a compressor, so that leaves three nailers and a hammer drill.

We're at the end of a cul-de-sac at the far back of a one-entrance subdivision.

Hotscot

I was wondering what hifi you have. I'm looking at some new NAD stuff but may wait till we go home but I'm certainly a 2 channel aficionado.

Bob

They don't know that though....so they'll toss the place.

Shotgun is worth money on the dodge once they file off the number and they probably won't check to see if the sound system works or not...

Steve_

Yeah there's no cost/benefit analysis to burglary. The cost is zero unless you get caught or shot.

If they had any brains they wouldn't be doing burglaries to begin with.

Moonshadow_Girl

You realize that your cat allows you to live there and have the privilege of caring for her, right?

Pulaski

My amp and CD player are Marantz Ki-Signature components. I really want to get the CD player fixed this year as it's been boxed unused for the past 3-4 years.

SultanOfSwing

Privilege is a loose term, especially when it comes to having to actually, literally shovel shit for her

I honestly think our cat wants to kill me though. No joke.

Pulaski

It's true, all of it, but my point is that my primary concern is them making a mess, not them stealing stuff of value.
The shït is the easy bit. One of ours throws up very wet hairballs, and leaves, when he can get hold of them, and another is rapidly becoming incontinent through age, presumably. Both are now banished to the garage.

Nutmegger

When I say road, what I actually should say is single lane -- no room for vehicles to pass. I meet someone coming to the house when I'm going out, and the person at the least challenging part of the lane has to back up!

Hotscot

SNAP! I have the exact same in my garage. CD-63 Mk2 and PM 66K1 amp.

However I found that even a cheap Sony blu ray player had better detail these days than my beloved KI.