Got Robbed!
 

Bad news...our home was burglarized!

The wife was at work, and I was just getting back from my ride when, as I approached my house, I saw a Sac. County Sheriff's car in front of my neighbor's house. He's been having some domestic issues --- his wife left him recently and they're in the midst of a messy divorce --- so my first impression was the cops had gotten called for that.

So I innocently hit the garage door opener, came into the garage, and as I put the key into the firedoor I noticed it was unlocked, which was strange. I was thinking well, maybe I forgot to lock it on my way out, and as I stepped into the kitchen, I looked across into our living room and saw the rear window had been broken, and the back slider was wide open! What the heck? Then I noticed my Orbea lying on the dining room floor (I had left it in the den), and it came to me..."I've been robbed!" Man, I can tell you, that is one terrible feeling! And in that same instant, I put it together why the cops were next door.

So, I went out and walked up to the squad car and told him I got robbed. My neighbor says, "Yeah, welcome to the party!"

He came over and we went through the entire house. They say you feel violated when this sort of thing happens, and it is definitely true. Like I said, they had my Orbea laying on the dining room floor, as if at first they were going to take it, but ended up not doing so, for whatever reason. Thank goodness, both my De Rosa and the Sports Tourer were also safe, as were my wife's bikes, and I had been on the Bianchi for my ride. So, the good news is, all they got was all my wife's jewelry {{looks over shoulder :twitchy:}} and not any of our 6 (7) bikes!

Turns out, the cops said there has been a rash of this in our general and surrounding neighborhood lately, all during the day, and usually in the morning right after everyone leaves for work. The insurance guy said he had 50 claims last month alone for the Sacramento area. They suspect it's a gang of local Russian kids. Brinks had a $99 Basic Install special going on, so we got one of those, along with some upgrades and an outside siren. Now, if any door or window is opened, or anyone moves in the house, it will go off.

The CSI guy said houses still get robbed even though they have alarms, so I've started locking up my bikes in the house with both cables and U-Locks. But just to be sure, I had some sections of heavy-duty tube steel cut at a local steel shop yesterday, and my father-in-law is going to weld them together this weekend for a mini bike rack of sorts for my garage. Which my wife is ecstatic over, as my bikes will finally be out of the house!

I'm going to bolt and epoxy the rack to the garage floor, and drill 1-inch holes into the top piece through which to pass the U-Locks, which I think will be about as much as I can do to make the bikes safe. :rolleyes:



John

And not a word about any similarly elaborate security precautions for (future) jewelry... :lol:

:thumb:

John,

We are glad your priorities are clear and well ordered:

1. Bikes
2. Bike Security
3. Bike Storage
4. Bike Preservation
5. Bike Well Being
6. House Security
7. Personal Safety
8. Wife's Jewelry

A man after my own heart. If the list were mine I'd have to add;

9. Wife's & Daughter's Shoes

Seroiusly, I'm glad you and your wife are safe and no one was home at the time. That's when things get dicey! Even our bikes are not worth our lives nor the type of serious injury such criminals can wrought.

Oh yeah, us too...I sometimes call my wife Imelda! :roflmao:

If they'd only gone for her shoes, coulda easily scored several hundred on the black market.



John

Agreed.

Right on

My condolences, dude. I know it's got to suck.

I worked for the Texas Department Of Criminal Justice for 11 years.

I hate a thief.

Thanks for the sentiments, guys.

My neighbor across the street says the same thing...do the Dirty Harry thing on them.

The wife still cries every day thinking about the stolen jewelry her late Mom gave her.

I dunno, maybe I'm too naive, but if the cops are right and this is indeed the work of these young foreign dudes, what amazes me is how someone that young (cops estimate 15-21 years old) can already be cold-hearted enough to break into another person's home in order to rob them, as well as unthankful enough to do this in a new country you've just emigrated to, for what --- one would assume --- is a grateful chance at a better life, and to (presumably) escape the bad place from which you just came.

I just can't relate. :rolleyes:

John

High school kids. Thay check in at school in the morning than make it back for rollcall/aliby. listed phone number plus name on mailbox equals just call and see if no one is home rob it. Bushes around the house make it easy to hide. No amount of locks will prevent a broken window. It realy does suck.

Agreed, but i have no such WW2 things, just crowbars and a couple knives

In the UK though you can get arrested/sent down for hurting a robber

There is a strong criminal protection movement in the U.S., as well.

I know how bad it feels to be burglarized. Many years we lived in a second story condo, facing a busy street about two miles away from a police substation. We were away for a long weekend. When I came home and tried to open the door it was locked from inside with the night latch. I broke it in, and found that they had broken our glass door. Gone was some diamond/gold jewelry and a few other misc. things. The only reason they didn't get more was we had a double key deadbolt on the front door, so they could only go out the way they went in.

It was a long time before either of us slept through the night.

While keeping the Constitution in mind, it is sad that it seems that criminals have more rights than victims do.

Get a dog :)

Perhaps you could post guard dog signs outside and have this inside... the thieves may laugh themselves to death. :D

http://curiousanimals.net/wp-content...g-in-shoes.jpg

John E and Rabid,
Maybe in your neck of the woods they have rights, but not in Florida.
Check out the "Castle Doctrine"

Why is it Russian kids?

John,

That is a bummer. It's so sad there are people in our society that steal from others, and having been the victim of a burglery several years ago, I know the sense of personal violation you must be feeling. I hope the authorities are able to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

jfblodi, I'm so sorry to learn of your loss.

By chance, was your wife's jewelery in your bedroom dresser drawer?

An alarm tech told me that's the first place they go -- even with an alarm. Bedroom dressers and closets are where everybody keeps their "easily carried, easily sold" money and jewelry. Thieves can be in and out with the most valuable stuff in a few minutes. A great (Hollywood) example is a scene in the movie L.I.E.

And the Home Office wonders why violent crime -- particularly home invasions -- has doubled since handguns were banned...

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/hosb0206.pdf
see page 78

and keeps increasing
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb0108.pdf
see page 8

and according to the Brit press has trebled
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/t...name_page.html

or quadrupled
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2328368.ece

... a fact Toronto mayor Cottontop the Half Wit refuses to acknowledge in his campaign to deflect attention away from his failure to address violent gang crime.

thieves are dirtbags.

Only works if your home, which the OP wasn't.
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(who has his gun safe bolted through the wall AND the floor).

30 years in Military/law enforcement/PS security have taught me that people are mostly scumbags. Homegrown maggots would have done the same thing, and then taken umbrage if caught and processed.
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It was on top of the dresser, in the jewelery box.


Well, according to what the CSI guy told me, it is apparently due to already catching some of them who follow the same MO:

Most of this is occurring in the early going-to-work hours.

You'll notice several of these young guys walking around your neighborhood, in backpacks and hooded sweatshirts. What they're doing is keeping an eye out for anyone who is pulling out of their driveway or garage heading off to work. They're looking for both you AND your wife, or ALL of the vehicles at your house to leave.

Then, one of them will usually knock on your front door, with a handy excuse at the ready if someone should still happen to be at home and answer the door. When no one answers, they signal another one of them, and they're over your fence and into the back/side yard. Now, when you look back at these guys that you had just seen walking down the street a few seconds ago, 2-4 of them have disappeared, and only one of them is left outside. And he's on his cellphone, and milling around across the street, or standing on a nearby streetcorner, trying to look innocent, but is acting as lookout for the others.

If anyone should happen to come home, or drive up to your house, the kid out front on the cellphone tips off the ones inside, and they instantly go out your back door, and over your back or side fence.

They said that usually 2 of them do each house at a time...they think they probably got my next door neighbor's and mine at the same time. Right after I left my house for my ride that morning, he left to go up to the store, and was gone for only 30 minutes. I guess they like doing 2 for 1s.

These guys are NOT going after the big, obvious stuff, but instead stuff small enough to fit into their backpacks: cash, jewelry, laptops, MP3s, watches, cameras, camcorders, video playstations, etc. They say they're only in your house 3-5 minutes, maybe 7-8 minutes max, and then they're gone. Which is why I am now leaving my bikes U-Locked up inside...just that much more time for them to have to spend trying to break through the locks, and hoping they just won't want to waste that much time.

And it's just like wavy said, they concentrate on the Master Bedroom. You come home to find both front and back doors unlocked/opened, so they can escape either way if needed.

My neighbor was going to work early and saw a couple of them he knows from up the street loitering on the nearby corner early in the morning, with a new black F-150 nearby with the motor running. He drove by and looked at the dudes, and they proceeded to look down and turn their faces away immediately. Unfortunately, he didn't get suspicious or put any of this together until later.

The CSI guy said it was a good idea to install Brinks or someone similar, AND to have them install an outside alarm in order to scare them off, and to alert the neighbors.

Sorry for the long post, but I just hope this helps some of you guys (and gals) out there. :)

John

If you are Randy Johnson you keep a bucket of baseballs by the bed:D

And do keep them locked up while you're not home. I had a good friend get shot and killed by burglars with his own shotgun when he walked in his front door.