I left my car doors unlocked over the holiday weekend and someone decided to rifle my glovebox. The theif stole, as far as I can tell..
Thieves is gonna be stupid and I better remember to lock my doors. Despite my driveway being well lit and 3 feet from my front door.
People are idiots.
they stole my old iphone 3gs that the kid played with that's worth all of $5, and left the cash that was sitting on top of it as well as my wallet in the door pocket. there was literally money sitting on top of the phone that they had to move out of the way to steal the phone, and they left the untraceable, simple to pretend you didn't steal it cash. super dumb.
Fueled by Caffeine wrote: I left my car doors unlocked over the holiday weekend and someone decided to rifle my glovebox. The theif stole, as far as I can tell.. 1. $2 LED flashlight 2. My owners manual (really? to a 2007 car, you gonna hock it on ebay?) 3. A suction cup mount for a 2005 vintage Magellan GPS, specific to that GPS, yes... Thieves is gonna be stupid and I better remember to lock my doors. Despite my driveway being well lit and 3 feet from my front door.
Every dollar counts when you're jonesin' real bad and need meth RIGHT NOW 
The suction cup mount might make a good hobo coathanger.
Atleast my window wasn't smashed. I started talking to people around here and it is very common. Some people in the perennial favorite areas don't even lock their car doors anymore. That reminds me of when I owned soft top jeeps. A locked door = a slashed roof.
When I had the LeMans ragtop people would rifle the glove compartment all the time. I never had anything but McDonald's napkins and other crap in it. Eventually I taped an index card to the inside that said "I'm smarter than that, and you should be too."
My index card says "Come in the house and meet Jesus!"
Last season someone slit the soft top on my Miata from one side to the other to get inside. What did they get? A 3 year old GPS unit.
Also, the doors were unlocked.
-John
Someone went through the wife's car the other night--we live in Chicago. I'm not sure if they broke in with a coat hanger or we left it unlocked. Car is such a mess anyways that we couldn't figure out if they took anything (another minor rant--probably the reason they went in it at all), but they didn't take any of the loose change, the $25 gas card, or any important stuff.
They also clearly didn't open the trunk--if they did, the first thing they would have seen was a bottle of Irish Cream and a sixer of Stella Artois.
Also in chicago area. If we leave our doors unlocked overnight our car cellphone chargers will be gone, nothing else. Change stays in the vehicle, iPass toll passes, really nice winter gloves in the glovebox, etc. It has happened twice in the last 2 years I think. Also seems to happen in the spring/summer, when it is not f-ing cold outside at night. Sucks for us because we invariably spend $30 or so to replace the charger, but sometimes I just have to smack myself on the forehead. How much can that used charger possibly be worth?
I think it is kids in the neighborhood, stealing as a prank or dare or something. Not any less dumb or despicable, but I don't actually think it is someone looking to profit.
Interesting MTN about the alcohol - we leave our beer on the back porch a good portion of the year because it stays cool and generally doesn't get cold enough to freeze the alcohol and explode the cans or bottles. I have never noticed anything stolen from there, but yet our car chargers disappear. I can tell you which one I WOULD have taken as a teenager.
Robbie wrote: Also in chicago area. If we leave our doors unlocked overnight our car cellphone chargers will be gone, nothing else. Change stays in the vehicle, iPass toll passes, really nice winter gloves in the glovebox, etc. It has happened twice in the last 2 years I think. Also seems to happen in the spring/summer, when it is not f-ing cold outside at night. Sucks for us because we invariably spend $30 or so to replace the charger, but sometimes I just have to smack myself on the forehead. How much can that used charger possibly be worth? I think it is kids in the neighborhood, stealing as a prank or dare or something. Not any less dumb or despicable, but I don't actually think it is someone looking to profit. Interesting MTN about the alcohol - we leave our beer on the back porch a good portion of the year because it stays cool and generally doesn't get cold enough to freeze the alcohol and explode the cans or bottles. I have never noticed anything stolen from there, but yet our car chargers disappear. I can tell you which one I WOULD have taken as a teenager.
Hmmm... Now I'm going to have to check for that. Not that you mention it, I think it is missing.
Only had a car broken into once. Kid took my cds. Didnt take the thousands of dollars in stereo littered through the car. Mom turned him in anyhow. One other time i could tell someone thought about it, but my windows were too dark to see if there wad any treats.
I had a stereo stolen our of a car in high school. In the country. On a Tuesday. Pissed me off something fierce. I screwed a bunch of single edged razor blades around the sides and back of the next head unit. I prayed to come out to the hooptie with the mats covered in blood. I was a vengeful kid.
Isn't the moral of the story here to lock your doors?
Ex-girlfriend left my 87 Cressida running in a bad neighborhood while she ran into a 7-11 to grab smokes. Predictably the car was stolen. I had given up hope (in the car) after a few weeks when a parking enforcement letter came in my mail. The city of Denver was threatening to put a boot on my car unless I paid the outstanding fees----- 3 of the 4 happened AFTER the car was stolen. On the ticket it listed the addresses of the offenses. I had a buddy drive me to the address--- and voila! There was my car! The battery was dead, and a bunch of the ex's stuff was missing from inside, but overall-- the car was fine. I had it towed home and then called the cops to let them know I had found my car.
"you should be a detective" the cop said........ yeah...or maybe you should do your job and cross reference parking tickets with stolen vehicles. It blew my mind that they didn't even bother to check. Seems the thief just wanted a ride home, and once there.... left the car unharmed.
I've never suffered a vehicular break in, despite living in a kinda-rough neighborhood in a big city, but I also keep my car interiors virtually spotless. My friends whose interiors look like garbage cans seem to get broken into every week, on the other hand. I see posts about it on Facebook all the time. In many cases, I think the criminal perception is along the lines of either "there's probably some valuable stuff hiding in all this garbage," or maybe "if this person doesn't care enough to keep their car from looking like a garbage pail, they probably don't care much about their other valuables either."
Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Atleast my window wasn't smashed. I started talking to people around here and it is very common. Some people in the perennial favorite areas don't even lock their car doors anymore. That reminds me of when I owned soft top jeeps. A locked door = a slashed roof.
My cousin had the top on his convertible slashed twice. Both times the doors weren't even locked.
I had a car stolen when I was 17.
Got off work and had plans to meet up with a girl at the movie theater. The movie she was seeing was a late show that would have put me home past curfew, so I was just planning to hang out with her before the movie started then head for home when she went inside. So seeing as I was not planning on letting my car out of eyesight at the time I arrived, I left it unlocked with the windows down and the keys in the ignition. Well lo and behold, said girl ends up talking me into buying a ticket to go in and watch half the movie with her.
So halfway through the movie I walk out of the theater to find my (former) parking spot empty. Uh oh. First assumption was one of my friends must have driven by, seen it, and moved it but it soon dawned on me that none of my friends could drive stick. So I go back into the theater, because cell phone stolen along with car, and make a series of embarrassing phone calls to my parents and the police explaining the situation and my own stupidity for leaving the car so ripe for the picking.
I ended up lucking out, as the car turned up about 3 days later in the next county over. Family came home from vacation to find a random Volvo in the driveway and called the police. Pretty much everything had been jettisoned out of the glove box and center console, and it may have been driven through a field at some point during the adventure judging by the amount of mud collected, but was otherwise no worse for wear. Needless to say, I'm pretty anal about locking doors now.
I once caught someone as they were leaning in from the open passenger side door (passenger side was toward the front yard/driver side on the street), digging through my glovebox. My car was parked on the street directly in front of my house. It was around midnight, I was shutting the house down for bed, I come through the front room, which had already been dark for some minutes, and my eye catches light and movement through window. I think, 'that sumbitch is in my car!!!'. So, mobile in pocket: check. L.L. Bean leather sole slippers already on: check. I head for the side door near the back of the house, where I can exit the house unseen and unheard. I grab the holstered S220 and clip into my strong-side waistband, and grab the 6 foot hickory quarterstaff that resides by the side door. I walk with my best deer stalking silence down the side of the house and ease up behind and slightly to the side of the guy going through my glove box contents. I determine that he appears well-nourished, and therefore not a random homeless guy. I make a full-circle verticle woodcutter's swing with the staff and send 3 pounds of hickory crashing into the middle of the guys back. The guy screams and his legs go limp while his back goes stiff. Just as he backs out enough for his head to clear the B pillar I thrust the staff into his left temple, the follow up with with a half-circle swing the back of his head. He is out like a lightswitch. I drag him to the corner of our street (about 75 feet) and leave him there. I then back my car into the driveway, right up to the garage door, and go to bed. He hasn't been seen by anyone in the neighborhood since. I have a special hard spot in my heart for thieves.
^^ Wow, either you really assaulted a dude to unconsciousness & and left him injured and bleeding in the street, or you're lying on the internet about having done so in the hopes of selling your macho-tough-guy image to people who don't give a E36 M3. Hope you're proud of yourself.
In reply to WildScotsRacing:
That's exactly how you deal with that kind of problem! 
It would have been difficult for me not to accidentally back over him in the process of moving my car...
I left the side door on the van open the other night. Presumably I hit the button while the fob was in my pocket - I guess that's one downfall for power doors. No signs that anyone had been inside, fortunately. Now I make it a point to lock it when I put away my keys at night.
In reply to WildScotsRacing:
I think you might have crippled and/or killed a guy over the contents of your glove compartment.
That or my sarcasm detector is busted, I hope that.
petegossett wrote: In reply to WildScotsRacing: That's exactly how you wind up in the pokey!
FTFY 
In reply to Jay:
Jay, I just happened to have left my Form DD-214 in the glovebox, and THAT is a piece of paper worth more than it's weight in gold. There was nothing "tough guy" about what I did; I never intended to give him a chance to explain himself, or give him a "fair fight" (fair fights are for sanctioned sporting events). That individual KNEW before he ever opened my car door that what he was doing was wrong, decided he didn't care, and proceeded anyway. I had no desire to involve the police, because that scenario has unpredictable consequences in these times, nor did I want him to be able to identify me visually for the same reasons. I hold my all of my personal property, expensive or not, to be of equal value which I will defend with "extreme prejudice". Right or wrong, I view most theft as equally egregious regardless of the monetary value. No, I did not "leave him bleeding in the street" because none of those three strikes opened his skin, but I'm quite sure it took him a week or so before it quit hurting. And, NO, I'm not going to lay into someone physically for swiping a quarter off my desk, so don't even go there. Just don't steal from me, and we can get along.
Kenny_McCormic wrote: In reply to WildScotsRacing: I think you might have crippled and/or killed a guy over the contents of your glove compartment.
Yeah? And...?
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