Home Break-ins on the rise (WIBC report)

[AllenM]

One of my employees just bought an existing home in Avon. Signed the papers for it last Tuesday.He went in to cleanup, paint and what not on Saturday and someone had broke in Friday night and stole all the copper plumbing they could get their hands on, even took the kitchen sink.
It's just stupid.

 

[DRob]

Stolen stuff

Home invasions while the home is occupied are scary stuff. However, catalytic convertors, truck tail gates, steering columns (for the airbags), and metal to be sold for scrap have been common targets for a long time now. All of those have something in common. It takes a thief to steal them and another one to buy them. Don't forget the crook who will buy your stolen stuff. He may be working at the junk yard or body shop right around the corner.

 

[AllenM]

Don't forget the crook who will buy your stolen stuff. He may be working at the junk yard or body shop right around the corner.

AHHHHHHHHH

 

[Double T]

A close friend of my sister in law had a meth head break in, at 3pm and beat her and her husband up. Nothing was taken, but the middle aged woman and her husband were hurt pretty badly.

The guy got a dislocated shoulder from the girl...

 

[Denny347]

Just a helpful note, MOST burglaries happen in the day during the week. That is the time we catch most of our burglars. A nosy neighbor is worth more than any alarm. I have a retiree that lives across the street from me. He likes to sit in his garage and watch the traffic go by. I like that he sits out there. Get to know your neighbors.

 

[t_star]

My father's house was broken into not to long ago. He was really lucky in that no one was home, and an off-duty officer happened to drive by as the low-life POS's were walking out with loaded arms. Called in the towns cops, and they are now facing federal charges. Everything was recovered, but unfortunately is still in police custody. I have to do some digging in IN laws/codes to see what can be done about getting his property back.
I guarantee if someone comes into my home when I'm around, they will NOT be leaving in the condition they came in.

 

[IndyBeerman]

Add to that a plan on how to conduct yourself during a home invasion.

A month or so ago, in Bedford no less, an occupant answered a knock on his door at 5:00 AM. He was overwhelmed by three armed thugs and robbed.

If it would have been me, I probably would have answered the door too thinking it might be a neighbor.

No longer though!

First things first, my neighbors have my cell and home phone numbers, we have made calls to the homes on each side of us if we see something suspicious.

If anyone knocks on my door at 5am the first thing I do will be looking out the laundry room window, if I don't know them, then it's a wait and see thing.

I wait till they leave and see where they are heading to, if they don't leave and decide to try and come in, a 911 call is made and I take up a tactical position.

I've had to do this twice in the almost seven years I've lived here because of the somewhat rural setting we live in.

 

[J_Wales]

Come for gold and silver;

Leave with lead.

 

[lovemachine]

Just a helpful note, MOST burglaries happen in the day during the week. That is the time we catch most of our burglars. A nosy neighbor is worth more than any alarm. I have a retiree that lives across the street from me. He likes to sit in his garage and watch the traffic go by. I like that he sits out there. Get to know your neighbors.

That's funny. Theres an older woman who lives right across the street from me. She does the exact samething. Just sits out in her garage in a lawn chair, and stares at everything.

A couple weeks ago, I wasn't able to go home for lunch. She stopped by that evening and asked me if I was alright, since I didn't go home for lunch.

She knows about everything that goes on in my lil neighborhood.

 

[jjlaughner]

They are already burglarizing cars in driveways that are unlocked, so they must be thinking that homes are left unlocked as well...

Yup lady across the street from me left her car unlocked and it was stolen just about a month ago... When they recoved the car a couple weeks later all her stuff was removed from the car and they found a shotgun in the trunk and a paper plate on it... Another neighbor didn't lock her car and had a laptop stolen, and a friend had an ipod stolen out of her.

We never have the windows open, just for these reasons... everything stays locked with the exception of leaving the front screen door open occasionally during the day if I'm home and in the livingroom. I've also added motion lights out back and a timer for the front lights that are on every night to deter people from nosing in the vehicles. Next step will be a couple camera's, mainly because it's hard to see the vehicles from the Master Bedroom and I'm OCD about closing the garage door and always end up going downstairs to check it in the middle of the night...
We are up by the pyramids, so it's not a real bad area, but there have been increases in activity that we've been hearing about...

 

[maxmayhem]

Stealing Catalytic Converters...great home business till you get a cap in your asphalt

 

[srad]

I live in a nice, REAL nice neighborhood in Elkhart East/Bristol.

Was in my garage right before midnight tonight, funny enough working on a detail strip & clean on an old shotgun. Had the side door of the garage open & heard some noise coming from the driveway.

Walked to our privacy fence & peered over it and saw two guys rummaging through my son's car, both front doors open.

I had told my son to go to bed about a half-hour before seeing it's a school night (he was working on an assigned project with a friend & told him enough is enough GO TO BED!); so I thought, "What the heck is he doing out here rummaging through his car instead of sleeping?", and "Why the heck is Ben still here?"

So, looking over the fence I said, "HEY what are you guys doing?". Nothing. Said it a bit louder, "HEY WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING?" and two black kids pop out of my son's car (he's not black) with spooked looks on their faces. A couple of expletives fly & they ran out of my driveway to a waiting car and tore down the street.

Boy I wish I hadn't jumped to an assumption of who was in the car. The guys were too fast for me and a head start didn't help any.

Called 911, took a drive around the neighborhood to see if I could spot their car, & by the time I got back (10 min) two County Sheriff patrol cars were already scouting the streets.

Time to get some security lights and covert game cameras.

 

[88GT]

I reinforced my front door with one of those strike plates and laid down something in the window tracks so they could not easily be opened. However, I still worry about someone breaking a window. How common of an occurrence is that?

Surprisingly, not very, at least not in my experience. The one common element of most criminals is that they seem to be fixated on the normal mode of entry: the door. Years ago I had a vacant home listed for sale. Twice during the listing, breech was made through the door. One of those times they took the time to jimmy and pry the steel lining of the door off so they could use the crowbar on the lock mechanism.

On either side of the door: large, low (about 18" from the porch floor" single-pane glass windows. Seems like a no-brainer to me, but I don't make it habit to break into homes so I might be missing something.

Cats are easily removed with the right tools. And apparently so are entire trucks.

I've been the victim of four separate acts of theft in the last 18 months or so. Current tally is one catalytic converter system, a pile of scrap metal hidden out of sight and well up on the property, a two-week old a/c unit, and a 2006 F350. It's only a matter of time before someone decides he wants something inside the home. And I hope he has enough time between his fateful decision and mine to make it right with the Creator.

 

[Fireburnzero1]

this is true

Had someone try to break in to my home at 4am 2 weeks ago. Almost would have like to see my bulldog tear them apart. My neighbor across the street had his house robbed while he was out of town and my neighbor next to him had his catalytic converter stolen off his truck last week. I live on the westside of indy in a near Ricks Boatyard.

 

[Cherryspringer]

Break in

My doors are unlocked and the keys are in the truck.

 

[Magnum]

Until a month ago I worked at an office/warehouse around 65th and binford and someone cut the lines and took an entire AC unit. The tech that came out told me that the old school way to retrieve the copper lines is to gut it, but now a lot of thieves are stealing them to actually use and they take the whole thing. The reason for this is that the type of refrigerant used in home systems has changed (EPA regulation) so if your compressor goes bad, you have to buy one that operates on the new refrigerant. You can't just change the unit though, you have to change the evaporator (or something else inside if not that) along with it, so it doubles the cost. The simple solution is to steal an old unit since they aren't available for sale anywhere. He said he got called out to a house, and the guy took him to the garage, pointed to 8 units all with their lines cut, and he asked "will any of these work?" The HVAC tech said "I can't help you" and left. I have to say, I respect that guy a lot for that.

Before that I worked at a corporate office over on the west side around Keystone and 86th street, and cats were being stolen in broad daylight from office buildings. Thieves were targeting Honda CR-V's, Toyota RAV4's and other vehicles that provide plenty of clearance and leave the cat protruding down.

What burns me up is that when I go to replace someone's bad catalytic converter, I cannot buy one outside of the dealership. Junk yards cut them off and do God knows what with them, wtf. I cannot believe that you can't at least buy them used, I actually blame regulation for creating that theft market in the first place. If you could get them all day long for next to nothing off of used cars theft would go down marginally.

 

[gunman41mag]

I got a feeling lead poisoning will be on the rise also

 

[TTravis]

Sunday night / Monday Morning Labor Day weekend, my daughter was returning home from visiting friends at around half past midnight. I was watching a movie. My daughter told me about a strange car parked across from our driveway. We live in the Plainfield/Mooresville area in the country. I grabbed my flashlight and pistol and we drove out to the end of our driveway. I could see an old beat up Dodge Caravan with no rear seats. I shined my light around and could see a Visa card on the floorboard. I immediately called 911 and reported an abandoned car, read them the plate number, and verified the car description. They told me a deputy would be sent out. Where we live, it can take 30 to 45 minutes for the Sheriff's deputy to show up and we do not live in any town limits. We backed the car up the driveway and sat in the dark waiting for deputy to show up. A few minutes later a couple young scrawny looking white guys came walking up the road from the direction of a vacant farm house which is for sale. They were caring something. I took my 3 cell mag light and held it over my left shoulder to have a ready club and shined them up. I had my other hand in my pocket on the handle of my pistol. The guys were startled and tried to tell me that they went to a friends home to pick up a radiator. looked inside a box they were carrying and could see that they had an air-conditioning coil. I figured that they just broke into the farm house. Knowing that a deputy was on the way, I tried to stall them for as long as I could asking what was wrong with their car and if they wanted help. They tried to get me to go to the house to get jumper cables but I just kept delaying until they had enough of me and took off.

The deputy showed up. He went to the farm house and sure enough, they broke into the side door and ripped apart the AC unit in the basement and took the coil. The outside AC unit was long many months ago. After clearing the house, the deputy told me that the plates belonged to an address in Beech Grove.

I have not heard anything more about this and probably won't. I did not feel it was my duty to try to detain them even though I was armed and capable. I hope the police are able to use the information I provided to eventually make an arrest.

I did inform the deputy that I was armed and he was cool with that, especially since he had to clear that house all alone.

I did not realize just how big the problem of metal theft is. Looking back, I now realize that the back of the van was basically empty. This guy was probably driving to homes for sale and stealing AC units. It is obvious not that this van has been loaded with scrap metal many times and probably made several trips to the scrap yard.

I did not need to use my pistol, but I was glad I had it ready.

 

[tgallmey]

It's going to get very bad very soon. I know of a car lot that keeps getting catalytic converters stolen from his cars. They are coming for anything they can move fast. They don't care if they get very little out of it. As long as they get something.

Good thing I dont have any Catalytic Converters

 

[iMac]

Don't forget about leaving your garage door openers in your car! If someone breaks in your car they have instant access to your home.