Oh sweetie, I feel your pain. About a week ago we left our garage door open over night by accident. Next time I went looking for the powerdrill guess what? Yep- gone. along with a few other hand-held powertools. Now granted, we did

leave the garage door open- pretty much an open invite to would-be thieves. But it still sucks knowing someone was in our house basically shopping.

We're starting to form a neighborhood coalition to see what we can do to help prevent that and other stuff- like the tagging (swastikas on a elementary school playground- are they serious?) and litter.

You can only do what you can to make your home secure without making it into a minimum-security prison. Good Luck!!!!

While living in east Bakersfield a few years back. I had a problem with someone breaking into my house. Before the break ins I would get these hang up calls. One day it dawned on me, the thief was calling my house first to see if anyone was home. I took my car downtown and parked it near the bus terminal then took the city bus back home. I sat in the dark and waited. Sure enough my phone started ringing off the hook. A few minutes later I heard the window above my head (I was sitting in the dark in the backroom of my house with a big fat whifflebat) being opened. As soon as the guy stuck his fat head into my window I hit him full swing with the whifflebat. He flew backwards and landed on his ass. His stupid friend stuck his head through the window and I gave him the same. I yelled out the window at them, "Next time it will be a real bat assholes" Thus ending my days of being robbed by teenage punks. About three weeks later they decided it would be a good idea to rob old Mrs Garcia whose grandson had just gotten paroled from prison. She was away at the doctors, so they decided to just go in through an open window. Her grandson heard them come in through the window, when they were all the way inside he beat the living daylights out of them and called the cops to come and get them out of the coat closet he locked them into while waiting for the cops to show up. I laughed and pointed at them as the cops hauled them off. Thieves suck! Sounds like you have a bad case of tweeker thieves.

Oh my god sister I nearly pissed myself laughing!

Yeah, thieves suck!  Granted it's just about all junk in my garage but someone keeps kicking in my back gate and rifling through stuff or just stomping through my yard out the front.  Also had some punk kids tag my garage, then go into it and throw a bunch of nails around and break my fat blue christmas bulb lights.  I was able to ID those bastards, after my daughter and brother went back there when they heard a noise and said, "Hey, get out of the garage!"  They came out throwing lights at her feet and shouting, "F'in white kids!"  One goes to school with my daughter, so when the police came hours later they asked if I wanted to press charges, I didn't that time, but the officer went to his school the next day, pulled him out of class and gave him a lecture.    His football was in my backyard the other day, so obviously he learned a lesson and didn't bother to kick the gate in to retrieve it, instead my daughter nicely went across the alley and returned it to his little brother who was home, without so much as a thank you. 

A bike was stolen from my mom's back yard again the other day, she lives in a nice neighborhood, and notices whenever something is missing it's after some gardener comes through and leaves cards on the doors - he's basically checking out your stuff as he walks up.  All of her camping gear was stolen last year out of the garage while she was home napping and left the door open.  It's awful!  Seriously, get a life, get a job, buy your own stuff!  I work hard for mine and it's not like we can just go out and replace it.

I'm so paranoid now I keep our bikes in the house, so I have a freakin living room full of bikes.  When company comes over we move them to the sunroom or stash them in our bedrooms.