Cars keyed at home, multiple occurrences

ShawnG said:

With all the increase in dog walking I'm finding more deposits in my front yard, all from people with pocket dogs.

I want to get a game camera, find out where they live and bring MY dogs to use their lawn. 

I have a Great Dane and a Bernese Mountain Dog. They brought this on themselves.

My in-laws have about 18 acres of working farmland that's surrounded by cookie cutter subdivisions. One of the neighbours was throwing dog crap from their backyard over the fence into the field even after being asked to stop. That's a bold game to play with a fellow who has pigs, cows, chickens and a tractor with a bucket. Unfortunately, my father-in-law is more mature than I.

John Welsh (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Floating Doc (Forum Supporter) :

Are you working from home? 

Can you fold all the seats and sleep in the wagon? That'll surprise them when you hop out of the car!

There's a topper on the truck, right next to the driveway.

I live on a cul-de-sac and the house can't be seen from the main road.  My HOA installed a street light, my neighbor and I have automatic light systems, and I have a series of solar power RIng cameras.  I still had a couple of kid hanging around (briefly) last year, but when one of the cameras lit up, they were gone.  Sorry about your damage, I hate vandalism.

Just a thought. Is it possible it is crittters? Do you use bacon scented cabin fresheners?

Our son in law worked for a company that had a fleet of pickup trucks with the beds removed and replaced with industrial units with doors and cabinet style openings. They had a rash of gas being siphoned out almost every night from the trucks to the tune of 50 or more gallons a night. Our son in law put one of his game cameras in one of the trucks and got full face pictures of the guy several nights in a row. Called the police and they immediately recognized the guy in the picture as a local with a long list of theft. They confronted him with the pictures and he confessed. Was selling gas out of his garage for half price. They prosecuted he went to jail for a short time but at least he didn't steal any more gas from them.

Crime of opportunity?

pirate said:

Was selling gas out of his garage for half price. They prosecuted he went to jail for a short time but at least he didn't steal any more gas from them.

Who buys half priced gas out of some guy's garage?

Sorry this is happening to you Doc. I have the Ring cameras, they have one that's a combo motion sensing light and camera that I've been pretty happy with. Install was very easy. There are some privacy concerns with them, so be aware before you buy in.

Regarding dog poop in yards.

I made up those signs that warn dog owners that I have put some poison on my lawn that will hurt there dog.  I then told a couple of dog walkers that I know (but were not the problem) about it saying I don't want there dog to get sick and knowing that the word will get around between dog walkers / owners. 

After a short period of time the couple of offending dog owners have stopped there dogs from taking dumps in my yard.  

I put the signs up 2-3 times a year now.  

Regarding electrifying a car with 40K volts. 

I may know someone that was the driver/security for a important persons daughter.  That person and there passenger may have got stuck in a crowd of people as they were trying to leave a concert.  That person may have put a taser to the frame rail of the car after telling the passenger to not touch anything metal in the car.  The crowd of people that were leaning on/over the car may have jumped away from the car really fast.   One may have been screaming that they had been bitten by a bee.  

This person I may know may have been so pleased with the above results that they might have then wired a taser to the frame of the car permanently that could be activated with a plastic switch on the dash. 

All of this may have been back before camera phones and the internet so plausible deniability was probably a thing back then.  

Now if you did this and hurt some one you would be in trouble.  

Only thing I can add is if you get cameras, make sure you get quality ones with good  night time quality. Nothing worse then taking a report and spending half a hour watching the video to only see some blurry "human" like figures that add no value to the report. If you have flood lights on motion lights it can wash out the cameras momentarily. Not usually a big deal. Some people set their cameras on motion but I've found if the sensitivity isn't set right it usually misses most of the incident. 
 

I general recommend good lighting and trimming any bushes or such that might obscure view from the street/neighbors as people generally don't want to be seen while committing crimes. 
 

if your friends with your neighbors I recommend talking to them about the issue as they might have cameras or seen some one in the area during the time. 

This isn't relevant to the topic at hand but I had a coworker get into some automatic deer sprinklers.  He had just moved into a subdivision with only a few houses built.  It was built in an area that use to be covered by forest and the animals had not yet been given the memo to leave.  The property developer setup a line of deer sprinklers along the edge.  My coworker got hit by a deer sprinkler on an evening walk and ran the wrong way towards another one.  He ended up trapped between the two, getting pelted by water every few seconds, with no obvious escape.  Again, not really relevant to the situation but if it became relevant, I wouldn't mind seeing a video.

In reply to ojannen :

I'm quite familiar with the motion activated water sprinklers. That's a great idea, but my driveway is so short that it would go off from every car, bike, or walker.

  I have the indoors version of this sitting behind the back tires of the WRX right now. It's called a ssscat, a motion activated can of compressed air. 

Motion-activated pepper spray? How about Nair (assuming you can rig it to spray from above)? I mean, I'd prefer a motion-activated flamethrower or shotgun, but those might have some issues if I'm honest.

If any one of my vehicles was repeatedly vandalized, you best be sure I wouldnt be sleeping in the back of anything. I'd be up...waiting.  Rage is a powerful stimulant.

In reply to dean1484 :

Hypothetically, how would this work? It seems like it would just ground out. 
Interesting. 
hypothetically. 

I picked up an Arlo Pro 2 package last night. No activity recorded, and the cars appear untouched. I'll confirm after the dew burns off.

What a waste of my time and money, though. I'm postponing putting a timing belt and axles in the Subaru until I get working again, but I spent about the same amount on the video system.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

Yes, cameras.  

I had some stuff go missing, minor stuff but I am 100 feet off the road, with good visibility. Thevies had big balls. 

The police were not interested, but before the lack of interest they asked if I had cameras.  Then suggested I put some up. Got the feeling if I had cameras and something to show them they would have come by to do a report. 

After their disinterest, I asked they run a cruiser by every so often to give the thieves something to think about. Have not seen on since reporting 2 years ago. 

Did finally get a couple cameras up from the dvr I bought shortly after , 2 more to go. 

I'll echo that getting a camera with good night picture capture is huge.

They're also ridiculously easy to sell used.

I can't help but wonder if it isn't something else, like animals as previously suggested. 
 

but hopefully Doc will chime in with some answers soon!

spandak said:

In reply to dean1484 :

Hypothetically, how would this work? It seems like it would just ground out. 
Interesting. 
hypothetically. 

I really don't know. It did however work very well. 

Update: another quiet night.

One thing that I didn't initially consider is that we're about 200 feet from the elementary school. While my kids have aged out from there, my wife had been working there in aftercare until the schools closed. I'm not going to mention it to her, but it's possible that she was the target.

The changes that I made, along with cameras, include hanging two signs warning of video surveillance, changing the very bright LED motion light to activate by motion instead of dusk to dawn, and moving the low output solar operated motion camera to the end of the driveway behind the cars. It's a hammer store POS, but I also moved the solar panel to where it gets full sun for most of the day; hopefully it's going to be brighter after a couple of days.

I'm also still parking the Lancer in front of the house. If I park in the driveway it has to be in back of another car, putting it very close to the end of the driveway. It's no further from the street when parked in front of the house, but it is right in front of the house. 

This whole thing has just compounded my frustration about my cars. My autocross car is just sitting and I have a set of rivals with one event on them sitting in the garage.

After years of wishing, I have finally acquired a WRX wagon that I can't drive (with 157k miles and 16 years on the original timing belt, I'm not planning to even start it again until after it's changed). We still have money coming in, but that's going to end, so only essential spending for a while.

ShawnG said:

 

With all the increase in dog walking I'm finding more deposits in my front yard, all from people with pocket dogs.

From my observation, people with pocket dogs somehow don't consider them to be animals.  Or maybe they just consider themselves to be above little things like laws or common courtesy.  Every time I see someone carrying one of those berking things through the grocery store or into a restaurant, I want to drop kick it into last week and go Bakersfield Chimp on the owner.

[edit]  Got so incensed by that that I forgot to include my condolences to the original poster.  When I am Supreme Dictator, vandalism will be punished harshly.  Very harshly.

Seeing no pictures allows me to ask the following:

Does anyone else in the household drive this car?

Do they ever drive on roads where bushes and branches crowd the road? Long and light lines down the length of the car "could be" just that. OTOH, if it's obvious that it can't be that, then never mind.

I wouldn't hang the signs as I'd want them to do it again. Now you'll never know. 

kb58 said:

Seeing no pictures allows me to ask the following:

Does anyone else in the household drive this car?

Do they ever drive on roads where bushes and branches crowd the road? Long and light lines down the length of the car "could be" just that. OTOH, if it's obvious that it can't be that, then never mind.

No, both of them are just sitting, and the WRX isn't even registered yet. Plus, they're not all long scratches along the side of the car. The tailgate on the WRX got particular attention, and a spot on the fender has an  upside down V.

One of spots on the lancer probably took several minutes of persistent effort, in an area I could cover with my hand.