No Disc Posted April 30, 2005 Author Share Posted April 30, 2005 I lived 10 years in a townhome and was never robbed. We are going on about 1 1/4 years here at the new seclude single family home. Go figure. According to neighbor accross the street and previous owners, the area I am has been crime (break-in) free for over 20 years. Doger has been a wealth of information about crime prevention. Next time, if there is one, they won't have such an easy ******-n-grab. Tim No Disc - Sob. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Griffinator Posted April 30, 2005 Share Posted April 30, 2005 ---------------- On 4/30/2005 7:00:01 PM No Disc wrote: I lived 10 years in a townhome and was never robbed. We are going on about 1 1/4 years here at the new seclude single family home. Go figure. ---------------- Ironically, I live in a small house in a rather seedy section of town. My house is one block from a known crackhouse apartment complex, and four blocks removed from one of the roughest neighborhoods in the city. I don't lock my doors, nor my cars, and I've never had anyone even consider burglarizing my house. At any given time there is upwards of $10K worth of audio, computer, and recording gear and instruments in my house. I figure the easy answer is that professional burglars go for what they deem to be viable targets - a $50K house in the midst of the ghetto doesn't qualify as such, and the cars I drive are all over 10 years old and in fair-to-poor shape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwc Posted April 30, 2005 Share Posted April 30, 2005 Good thread. Sorry to hear of those who were taken advantage of. My neighborhood is very nice. In the last month, a guy in an Altima with his kid in the car has broke in to two of the houses in the neighborhood. Both home owners stated they didn't have their alarm on. Consider video surveilance. You may not realize how easy it is. If you have cable run throughout your house, you could put up cameras that would hook to you computer. Man, I would love to bust folks who take from others. jc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Disc Posted April 30, 2005 Author Share Posted April 30, 2005 Wireless video surveillance is already being planned. :-) Tim ---------------- On 4/30/2005 10:34:10 PM jwcullison wrote: Good thread. Sorry to hear of those who were taken advantage of. My neighborhood is very nice. In the last month, a guy in an Altima with his kid in the car has broke in to two of the houses in the neighborhood. Both home owners stated they didn't have their alarm on. Consider video surveilance. You may not realize how easy it is. If you have cable run throughout your house, you could put up cameras that would hook to you computer. Man, I would love to bust folks who take from others. jc ---------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jt1stcav Posted April 30, 2005 Share Posted April 30, 2005 I could never fully understand the reasoning behind not locking your house door. I'm not trying to start anything, Griff...just wondering why you choose not to. I live in the 'burbs in a nice part of town and I always lock my car and house doors (naturally when friends or family are over and we're coming and going during the course of a day grilling or having a party the door will be unlocked; any other time they're locked...period). About two years ago, my younger brother had bought one of these battery operated radio-controlled model airplanes. On his day off, he received it from UPS, commenced to putting it together, and went out to the 40 acre horse pasture that adjoins our backyard (we do live in the 'burbs that just so happens to be countryfied...it's very picturesque). Since our neighborhood has never been burglurized since developed in '75, my bro never thought about locking the front door as he took his model plane out back to fly it...it just never occured to him to do so since we all feel safe in this particular neighborhood. While he was out back flying his model airplane, a 16 year old punk kid was wandering through our neighborhood selling magazine subscriptions for his school band, and he came upon our house. He rang the bell but obviously got no answer. Instead of just walking off to the next house, he instead grabs the door handle, notices it's unlocked, and procedes to open the door! Guess he figures he'll just look around for something quick to steal while no one's home (and our cats all slept through this...they usually run and hide from strangers). My brother then comes back to the front, and as he walks up to the door notices that it's not closed all the way! That's when he realizes he should've locked the door, for he now knows there's someone in the house! Since we have no weapons in our home, he reaches for a baseball bat just inside the garage next to the door, and quietly walks through the house. As he reaches the back near our bedrooms, he noticed my bedroom door open (I always close my bedroom door when I go to work to keep the cats away from my stereo system)...there the kid is hiding behind my door! My bro quickly goes through my doorway and swings the door away from the kid, baseball bat swinging high above his head, and yelling at the kid why he's in our house! The kid nearly pisses his pants and swears he just came inside looking to use the bathroom, and quickly makes a mad dash for the front door (my bro chases behind him with bat raised, but never swinging at him). Once the kid's down the street, my brother calls 911, and 10 minutes later the police arrive at our house getting the skinny. One of the cops see the kid down one of the side streets (guess he kept on going door to door instead of exiting our neighborhood completely), picks him up, and after my bro identifies him, gets him to confess that once he discovered the door unlocked, he'd look around to see what CDs and DVDs he could rip off, along with the PS2 and some video games we've got...guess he had no interest in my old fashioned vacuum tubes and horn speakers! Found out this kid's had prior convictions, so once again he went to jail. Since then my brother now locks the front door behind him whenever he's in the backyard and can't see the front. FWIW... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timmikid Posted May 1, 2005 Share Posted May 1, 2005 Another thing with the upgrade bug most of us have here! Don't just upgrade your set, but also your insurance!!! I am running behind too and today I plan to make a list of everything with estimated replacement value. Good thread, wake up call so to speak. I have been putting it off lately. Tim. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
customsteve01 Posted May 1, 2005 Share Posted May 1, 2005 Two months after we moved into our house, I'm at work and get a call from our alarm company that our alarm is going off and that they are calling the police to investigate. The house is 30 miles from work, I tell my boss I'm leaving and then rush home. I get there and the siren is still going off and the house apears all locked up and no sign of the police. I unlock the door and go inside look through the entire house and find nothing. I reset the alarm and notice that the glass brack sensor set off the alarm, a short time later the phone rings, its the alarm company asking if everything is allright. I tell them the password and ask if they know if the police have been there, they say they don't know. After hanging up with them I see a jar on the floor in the dining room, broken. well I figure the cats knocked it off and set off the alarm. I go get the vacume cleaner and a broom and start to clean up the mess. I am down on my hands and knees when I hear "hold it right there" I look up and it's a police woman with her holster unsnapped and hand on her gun. I say I'm the owner and show her my licence and some mail and she calms down alittle. I guess after that incident we got lax on setting the alarm when we leave. I mean if the cops are not going to show up anytime soon why bother. It was about 3 years later when we did get robbed and the alarm was not set. I do think if the alarm had been set the kids that broke into our house would have ran and we would not have lost anything. Ironicly they broke the window in the dining room where the glass break sensor was. I think alarms are a very good deterant, but don't think the cops will come running. Auto alarms are on the bottom of their priority list. Steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kev313 Posted May 1, 2005 Share Posted May 1, 2005 Good point about the insurance...anybody have any idea as to how much all this fancy home theater and stereo gear will push up rates? Probably time to start shopping around on this one. Insuring a home, car, and 3 motorcycles is getting a bit pricey! Cheaper tho' than trying to buy replacements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilbert Posted May 1, 2005 Share Posted May 1, 2005 Sorry for your loss Tim, but overall, you came out unscathed. I too, unfortunately, am familiar with that nasty feeling you get when a stranger has snooped throughout your home and stolen valubles. When it happened to me I had an alarm system, only it wasn't set at the time. One evening I thought I'd zip down to Blockbuster to return a video, only when I got back 30min. later, I found my back door had been picked. Someone had been watching me in the night, and knew exactly when I had gone. Moral of the story, always activate your alarm. Even if your just going to the convienence store, or blockbuster. Anyway, cheer up, because you are right. It could have been alot worse. Take care. I just didn't set it one night when I decided Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Disc Posted May 10, 2005 Author Share Posted May 10, 2005 One of my stolen items, a DVD player, turned up at a local pawn shop. I purchased it and matched the serial and it was mine. I notified the detective working the case. As it turns out, the guy who sold the player to the pawn shop also sold my neighbor stolen goods at another pawn shop. The guy was picked up on unrelated charges 9 days ago. He's denying everything, other than being in possession of stolen goods. Turns out he's a heroin addict and selling the stolen goods to support his habit. I got my money back today from the pawn shop owner. Teh police will be trying to match finger prints taken from my place to pin the guy at the scene of the crime. No Disc - Tim Lesson from this. Always leave your heroin out in the open so they will leave your audio gear alone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrot Posted May 10, 2005 Share Posted May 10, 2005 We can hope that the police torture him until he reveals where your SACD player is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael hurd Posted May 10, 2005 Share Posted May 10, 2005 Good for the thief, maybe he will have his turn to be "violated", this time, in prison! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitece Posted May 10, 2005 Share Posted May 10, 2005 I'm glad I read this thread. I'm moving on Sunday and I've purchased some new gear for a home theater I'm going to build. This is stuff is brand new and still in boxes. I'm really worried that the movers will take note of some of this stuff and schedule a "return appointment." Maybe I'm being paranoid but I'm definitely going to stash the gear at my in-laws and move it in myself. Maybe alarms shouldn't set off a siren; maybe a few thousand volts would discourage the skunks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Robinson Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 ---------------- On 5/10/2005 11:11:57 PM bitece wrote: I'm really worried that the movers will take note of some of this stuff and schedule a "return appointment." ---------------- As I told Tim privately, I'm very sorry for his invasion of privacy and property. I've been hit a few times over the years and it's always awful. The "hangover" from having a bad guy in your home lasts a while. I'm moving in July. Last weekend, prior to the painters coming in, I packed up all my beloved tube gear and stowed them in a private stash that will go into the trunk of my car for the trip down. No way is a moving company going to touch these. I could deal with losing a mass production piece, but not one-of-a-kind, hand-built amps. Or AVVT and RCA vintage tubes. I'd be sick if they were accidentally drop-kicked ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodog Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 ---------------- On 4/30/2005 11:08:29 PM jt1stcav wrote: gets him to confess that once he discovered the door unlocked, he'd look around to see what CDs and DVDs he could rip off, along with the PS2 and some video games we've got...guess he had no interest in my old fashioned vacuum tubes and horn speakers! ---------------- I just had a mental image of this kid running down the street with a Cornwall under each arm. LOL! Cornwalls, Khorns, LaScalas, Belles... pretty much built in theft protection! (I know this isn't true... but few grab and run thieves are gonna take 'em). Woo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dodger Posted May 12, 2005 Share Posted May 12, 2005 As a couple of posts mentioned Insurance, it really does not cost that much more to cover evrything. The Insurance Companies want at least 80%, I have 100 % with a $100.00 deductible. I have Liberty Mutual, Replacement Cost. Break-down We do get a discount for alarms, fire extinguisher on each floor, smoke/fire detectors, deadbolts. Also discount for having both cars insured with them. House assessed at $50,000.00 Because of Gumwood trim, leaded glass, actual plaster, and due to age real 2x4s, Detached 1 1/2 car garage. If the house completely burned, to replace $124,000.00, contents are insured for $90,000.00 Cost per year $565.00. At this point I am hard pressed to recommend Monitored alarms. The number of companies that have to dial 11 digits to check to see if it's an accidental trip. If not, They need a 10 digit number (plus the 1) to reach your emergency services. My City is stretched thin for Officers due to retirements and call ups for Iraq. But try dialing 11 digits, let it ring 4 times, hang up, dial a second number of 11 digits, while you are on the phone the info is being transmitted. But, if there is a higher priority call, yours will have to wait. You can't blame the alarm company, you can't blame the Police - prioroty - husband beating wife or house break-in where do you send the Officers you have, keeping in mind a Domestic requires two cars because of the number of times both have turned on the Officers or you have a group to disperse. Then if you don't have the 80% the insurance companies start deducting how much they will pay. I do not mean to embarass him, but Dr Who is going to School - the cost of his text books plus computer, clothing - every semester he's gets drilled in costs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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