Need advice Bad neighbor stories

[76Ford]

so we had some new neighbors move in about a year ago, decent enough family by appearance. a father, mother, one early 20's girl, 17y/o boy, and a 12 year old boy. one day my dad walks outside the garage into our driveway and the 12 y/o is on his bike in our driveway. well he didn't say anything and he rolled off and we didn't think anything of it. then the next day we find out our cars have been broken into, we live in a ok neighborhood and my sisters car was the only one unlocked. gps gone, ipod gone. spare key(dont know why she kept it in her car) all gone. we knock on the door and talk to the parents and tell them what happened, Their mom says "oh no, danny(12y/o) wouldn't steal, his brother might though but danny wouldn't" ok then lets talk to the brother(17y/o)... no he didn't do it., turns out the kid cases out the cars for the brother to steal from. we told our neighbors down the street what happened. he said he's came outside to his open garage 3 times and seen the 17y/o snooping around uninvited, THREE TIMES. of course the police can't do anything. OK im done venting for now, any advice would be good. also feel free to post any similar stories

 

[Funderb]

lock your cars and set the alarms.

 

[Cougfan2]

Time for some security cameras from Radio Shack. We had some real scumbags living on the street behind us that would drive down into our culdesac park their pickup and turn the lights out. They would then look for any open garage doors. My neighbor across the street had walked in to his garage and hadn't turned the light on yet when he sees one of the yahoos creeping up his driveway. He happened to have a shotgun by the door into his garage so he waited until the guy had just stepped into the garage and turned the lights on. The guy liked to pissed himself.

My neighbor informed him that he knew these guys didn't know anybody in the neighborhood so there was no reason for them to be down there. Told him if he saw them in the neighborhood again they would be having a much more serious discussion! No problems after that.

 

[vicdotcom]

Call the police and file a report. If proof is needed, cant you track the GPS and find out where it is? I mean as long as its turned on, cant it be located pretty easy?

 

[Z-Michigan]

Do you have a dog? Do you want one? A good dog in the driveway would probably deter this kind of thing.

 

[chris in va]

Set a trap.

Rig an infrared game camera up so it can't be seen, and nobody will see it being hung up. Set out some 'valueables' in the driveway or open garage.

See what unfolds.

cant you track the GPS and find out where it is? I mean as long as its turned on, cant it be located pretty easy?

A GPS unit only receives a signal from the satellites. It doesn't transmit anything, unless it has Bluetooth and even then just very limited range...as in feet.

 

[76Ford]

i have an old laptop that doesn't work anymore and i'm going to strip the guts out of it and put a cell phone inside the computer. im going to leave my car unlocked with the laptop in the front seat. when they steal it the police should track the cell phone. thanks for the ideas.

 

[scrat]

you know what that sounds like a good idea you need to keep us informed on this. This sounds very interesting

 

[Armueller2001]

Screw the cell phone, they make GPS transmitters that you can put inside the laptop that you can track on your PC.

 

[springmom]

Repeat after me:

"I am not an undercover cop."

Forget baiting. You might possibly screw up what otherwise would have been a perfectly good arrest. Do the obvious...lock your cars, lock your garages, put motion detector lights around your house, and call the police and tell them what's been going on. LET THEM do their job. You do YOUR job and lock up your stuff.

Springmom

 

[rbernie]

of course the police can't do anything.

What does this mean? Did you report the theft of your property to the police and they refused to take a report?

 

[buzz_knox]

There was a pervert in Nashville who the police ignored. They couldn't do anything because they couldn't catch him in the act (didn't try hard either). So, the mother of the little girl he was harassing set up a camera and told the girl to go about her day normally, including taking the dog for a walk. When said pervert decided to take his "dog for a walk" in full view of the camera, the mother got the video, the cops got the evidence, and the guy got busted. Come to find out, he'd been doing it for years to various people. Too bad he got off on a pretrial diversion (but not before the tape was broadcast on every TV network in the area).

Live your life normally and do your best to guard your property. But, also set up the camera so that when the poor dears decide to take your property, you've got evidence for the cops or (in the likely event the cops do nothing) a trial court.

 

[buzz_knox]

What does this mean? Did you report the theft of your property to the police and they refused to take a report?

Depends on the area. Some departments aren't interested in wasting time and energy on crimes they can't solve. It's not hard to imagine that the departments might not be jumping for joy to do reports that will only bump up negative crime statistics.

 

[Bartkowski]

Try the cell phone laptop idea. Good luck with it all, hopefully you get your things back and the person responsible gets busted.

 

[76Ford]

by the cops can't do anything i mean we filed a report and we gave them the serial numbers of the items but they can't arrest or charge the neighbor unless he is caught in the act

 

[hso]

Cameras. Lock your car. Ask the cops to stop by the neighbors and ask to look through the kids' rooms.

Forget the laptop/cell phone. If you intentionally tempt Little Johnny into stealing in such an obvious manner you could find yourself with no case.

 

[crashbuell]

Buy a dog. I have a pit/rott mix that I rescued from the pound. He's about 4-5 years old, 65 pounds, and freakishly strong. Buddy's an excellent family dog, but really excels at guard duty. His chain will reach halfway up our drive way, and his philosopy is, "if you don't live here, you don't belong here. Go away." Solicitors and other door-to-door folks pull into the driveway, see Buddy, back out and leave. I have no doubt that Buddy would severely injure anyone who would try to walk past him to my door, but the main thing is that he barks at ANYTHING. The deterrent factor that Buddy provides is worth his weight in gold.

 

[Brian Dale]

So, the mother of the little girl he was harassing set up a camera and told the girl to go about her day normally, including taking the dog for a walk.

She used her daughter as bait for the pervert? Please, everyone, don't ever do that.

Keep the cars locked. Keep the house locked. Keep the garage locked. Lights, cameras and dogs are good.

If the police (who have your serial numbers) ask to look through the kids' rooms and the parents give their consent, then the parents might be in for an awakening.

 

[KelVarnson]

Good luck on the cell phone laptop tracking thing. I don't think the cell phone providers will do it without a court order.

Surveillance cameras are great. If you already have a PC with a webcam, I recommend this software (and I've tried MANY): www.gotchanow.com

If you have high-speed Internet and a wired or wireless network, Panasonic makes some really great network cams with built-in image motion sensing and IR motion sensing, and they don't require a PC to be on (they are stand-alone).

My cameras paid for themselves in one day, when I busted a painting contractor for cheating on his hours. You should have seen his face when he saw the printouts of the time-tagged images of his boys coming and going.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Lock up your stuff. Harden your perimeter, install motion sensor lighting, fences, cameras, etc. Get a dog.

Write off your losses, you don't really know who did what, and since you turned in the serial numbers perhaps some link can be established. Unless that happens, let it go.

Traps are a bad idea overall.

lpl/nc

 

[JWarren]

I am with everyone that says the following:

- Cameras.
- Lock Cars.
- Lock Garages.
- Get ready to file a police report.

And one that wasn't mentioned: At least for a little while, lower your homeowners and car insurance deductibles.

If you make it harder to get it, he will either not bother you, or he will break something that you'll be repairing.

Sounds like these two boys are in for either a colorful future as cell-mates, or a very short life in a castle doctrine/defense of property state.


-- John

 

[ilcylic]

Cameras are good, and relatively cheap. My friends and I had a setup to watch the front door of our house (screened in porch, camera over the front door) back in '98, running on an old 386 with a cheapo web-cam, I can only presume it's gotten even easier and cheaper in the last 10 years.

No need to constantly record, most recording software has motion sensing capabilities.

Just like defending a fortress, set up multiple locations with interlocking "fields of fire", as it were, to make sure anyone tampering with one camera will get caught on another one. (Ours, being behind security door, didn't have this issue.)

Last: Sorry to hear your stuff got stolen, that always hacks me off. Best of luck.

 

[buzz_knox]

She used her daughter as bait for the pervert? Please, everyone, don't ever do that.

No, she didn't. What she did was to have her and her daughter live their lives as they normally did, while monitoring what was going on. The perv lived across the street and the cops couldn't (or given the guy's position, may not have wanted to) do anything.

In the video, the girl walks the dog on the street immediately in front of her own house. The perv gets up from breakfast with his family and somehow loses his bathrobe between the breakfast area in the kitchen window and the garage, where he proceeds to attempt to "impress" the girl with his self-entertainment.

We never could figure out if he was more upset about the fact the TV stations aired the tape, or that they only had to use a tiny blue dot to do so.

 

[ilbob]

1. lock car doors.
2. add car alarm.
3. camera is maybe a good idea, but 1 and 2 first.

 

[FerFAL]

Cars have locks. Those are devices to keep such cars locked.
A camera outside isn't a bad idea.
How about locking your car and setting the camera in that direction.
If the kid "brakes" into our car an you have it on video, you just have to turn it over to the police.

FerFAL