Vehicle Break-ins

We've had a rash of nighttime vehicle break-ins in my neighborhood. It appears to be the same two guys. The crazy part is these guys have been caught on some form of a camera virtually every time. All the footage is just a little grainy to get a solid ID. Fortunately they have not hit my home. I have several cameras installed around my home, but I'm starting to realize just how useless they are. All I'm likely to get is a video of some breaking into my vehicle!

What wisdom does the OT have to reduce the risk of this type of crime?

Park in the garage.

Park in the garage.

Other than park in a secure garage not much.
Maybe think about improving your quality of camera surveillance.

https://texasfishingforum.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/13405558/1/people-from-california

3 car garage, but unfortunately I cannot get 2 vehicles and my boat in there, so one vehicle stays in the driveway.

We have had similar in Flower Mound. The obvious answer is park in your garage but I can't because my wife's car and my boat live there. The 2nd best alternative is what I did and that is bought a really good Clifford alarm with audible glass sensors. There is a red and blue flashing light in my cab when armed you can tap on the window with your key and it will chirp anything more and it goes off. Also has stickers on the back windows for Clifford. Thieves look mostly for unlocked cars anyway but they generally know not to mess with the ones that have alarms. BTW most factory alarms are pretty much only anti-theft not full alarms.

Also don't leave valuables in sight and for the love of God don't leave any firearms in your vehicle. It is unbelievable how many get stolen out of vehicles.

leave the doors wide open and a note telling them you already stole all your stuff.

problem solved.

rubber snake on a newly replaced dashboard

Bad guys hate light. If you can do it, light the driveway up. Plus it may help to get a better pic if needed.

seriously, get a good 4k camera and install so it is looking right at the vehicle.

put a dusk to dawn light next to it. they have solar lights now that will light up the whole drive, I use one at the lake place.

this is the one I put up, motion activated and lights up a lot of area, spread the lights out a little.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Defiant...CH=REC-_-PLP_Browse-_-NA-_-206795128-_-N

Lots of good advice above.

A loud barking dog is a great deterrent.

Everyone loves a loud barking dog, it's like being one with nature.

Baseball bat and Face Book.

I have a sign on my truck door that says. Astros Have Been Here. Never been broken into.

Second the bat, but what is done in the dark need not be shown in the light.

I put up a couple really bright motion detector lights a couple years ago. So far no problems.

Leave some valuables in the car leave the car unlocked wait in the bushes and blast their [censored]

Two words. Hou Ston

Same in our hood. This "car hopping" thing is a game a lot of high school thugs enjoy. They just try your doors. If they are open, they get in, rifle around your stuff, try to find something of value and steal it. I got them on camera too, but the Police Departments have so many petty theft cases, they don't have the manpower in a lot of cases to pursue these punk azz kids. Some libs will say, "Well you should leave your doors unlocked so these poor socio economically disadvantaged miscreants can make a living". There are those that say "Just lock your damn doors". Of all the thefts there are at most 1 occassion where they actually broke into the cars. Personally, I'd like to catch one, have a mask on and break a limb on them so they understand some repurcussions. You are going to get a mix of emotions on this one.

Addtionally like Hop and others said, Motion lights AND I recently bought a BLINK wireless camera that works great. I have a phone app that will alert me with a tone if any movement. I arm it at night so it wakes me up. For under $100 you can get these. My hardwire security system is "post event" without the alarm that is why I added the BLINK.

Get a camera, so you can relive the nightmare!!!!!???? No thanks.

Do EXACTLY what this guy suggested. Also, get the Clifford with the two-way paging remote with 1-mile range. Might also add the digital tilt sensor to cover the wheels from being stolen. Or add the proximity sensor to warn them when they get close, and full alarm when they get too close.

Rude Awakening alarm and a gun.

http://www.autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&title=Rude-Awakening&A=0957

5000 watt sound system and a looped recording of an m60 on long burst.

I like this. Or an aggravated Pit bull barking.

If they're just breaking in to steal stuff out of the car (and not the car itself), then I'd take everything out of the car and leave it unlocked. I had my truck broken into when I was in college and repairing the window & dash was way more expensive than the $100 pioneer radio they stole.

I'd rather them come up, open the doors, realize there's nothing there, and then leave than break a window, damage your door, tear up other things in your car, etc.

Ring makes great security lights with cameras . A little expensive but you can get Security monitoring for $100.00/year and that’s good price ! The floodlight camera is the best cause it puts out the most light and you have a siren you can set off and monitor from your mobile phone too .

https://shop.ring.com/products/floodlight-cam

Remember the third "S" stands for "shut up" not "show off". That's what the idiots in CA forgot.

Leave it in a dark area and set a trap by each door. Put the end of the chain under the tire

I have Ring products and have been happy with them. I get an alert on my phone when one of the motion sensors are set off.

The best one is the one in the link i gave but get the wired not the battery one . Drilled a hole through the wall just above the garage door and wired an extention cord to in place of the original cord and ran it to a plug in the garage . Works great !

That is what I do. Blink cams are fairly cheap and take really good video.

Here is the thing with video, if the police dont already have an idea who the suspects are, the video is not so helpful.

How many times has pretty good video been taking of people robbing 7-11s and in some cases shooting clerks and they never solved the caper?

Your semi good home video of some punks although it seems like a hot lead at first, really only comes in handy after they caught the guys through other means.

This is correct. I actually have two cameras out front, one pointed directly at my truck. Both are 4K. At night the video still isn't that great, and even if I did get a good clean look at the face of the thieves, I doubt the cops would do much of anything with it.

And also lock your [censored]. I monitor Next Door and we have had several "break ins" in cars lately. All of them were left unlocked.

Which kicked off a heated debate about if the cars were even "broken into" if the doors were left open... Nextdoor folks argue more than the Off topic folks I tell you what...

wire the vehicle with 220 - 221, whatevah!

"The Club"

Solder razor blades and fish hooks onto the back of the radio.

I've always wanted to wire a "kill switch" in my car, just like they have on boats.
Anyone ever wire one in?

That has already been mentioned Captain Redundant. Do you ever actually read a thread?

A friend's Dad has his truck stolen out of the driveway in a nice neighborhood in North Dallas. A month after insurance replaced it DPD found the truck, or what was left of it.
We ran the wires and rigged a kill switch hidden at the back of the console on his new truck and went ahead and did my friend's truck as well.

Cool, seems like a pretty easy and effective total theft prevention method.

Sleep in your car

I've got ring cameras at front and back doors primarily to shut up my wife yapping and hopefully be a small deterrent to thieves.....problem is the thugs around here all wear hoodies and the cameras are not gonna show their face very well nor are the police going to do anything unless they kill somebody...

That is exactly the way it has been in Flower Mound there are all kinds of camera picks of these thieves but nothing good enough to get them arrested since they are normally covered up with hoodies.

Yes. I read the whole thing. And yes, its worth mentioning again because almost all home burglaries and half of auto burglarizes happen because people did not lock their [censored]. So it bears repeating.

Setup a sting operation. Amazon has a lot of very tiny gps trackers.

Well, you have a good point there, hence my humble apology at calling you Captain Redundant. It does have a nice ring to it though?

Lots of that going everywhere now. It’s all the freaks that moved here from blue states ...

Common event here. They are walking the streets with backpacks at about 2am. Some nights they get on a half dozen or more Ring Cams.

No, that stuff has been happening for decades. I knew a guy in high school who was a well-known car stereo thief. He even went to a party at a schoolmates house, and stole a stereo from a car parked in the garage.

Josh my co-worker just had the whole first floor of his apartment parking garage get broken into. He didn’t even have anything in his Jeep. All doors shut to the garage including where you drive in. Just put a sign in the glass it’s open, help yourself.

Nice neighborhoods are where thieves go to steal stuff because people have valuables.

We use them in our race cars. Just a two way toggle switch

Lots of light, car pretty much emptied of valuables, if they are breaking windows, leave it unlocked. Other than using a garage your only options are, building another area to securely store your car or move....
We moved years ago from the city for this very reason. Got tired of watching the recordings of brazen idiots door checking our cars at 2 am on the cameras
Good luck

Not sure how a #3 would help, I've caught my hand before, no biggie.

How about putting your cameras down on a level that catches their face not the top of the head. Maybe put one at ground level pointing up to see them while they are looking down to avoid your roof cams.