Earlier this week I experienced personal property theft at my home. Some industrious thief crawled under my car, which was parked right outside my apartment, and stole the catalytic converter. As I've learned, this is an all too frequent phenomenon. So after the theft happens, now what?
I'm actually grateful that the theft didn't occur inside my home. There's no worse feeling than the sense of violation when your home has been burgled. Whether inside or outside your home, there are crucial steps to take after a theft occurs:
1. Call the police. Obviously if the theft occurrs inside your home, the first thing you should do is make sure you are safe. If you question your safety at all, get the heck out of there and call the police. In my situation, since the theft occurred sometime overnight, I called the non-emergency police phone number to file a personal property theft report. There's probably nothing that can be done but it's helpful for the police to know that these crimes are happening in my neighborhood.
2. Contact the insurance company. After you've filed your police report, contact your insurance company. It's helpful to file a report first, as the insurance company may ask for the report number. You may have to meet a deductible and, in the case of auto insurance, you may have to take your vehicle to an approved mechanic so it's best to call your insurance agent before taking further steps.
3. Get to know your neighborhood watch. That nosy neighbor may seem annoying but oftentimes that's the one person who may see something untoward going down in your neighborhood. Consider joining your neighborhood watch and band together with your neighbors to help keep each other safe.
4. Protect yourself (and your belongings). It turns out that catalytic converter theft is quite common. The precious metals inside the converter can be sold for hundreds of dollars. I've since learned that there are aftermarket products for securing the converter to the car — of course, it's a little too late for that information. Whether it's your apartment or your car, look into alarms and other theft deterrents that can help keep protect your property.
5. Deal, breathe and move along. It's easy to feel completely violated when you've experienced theft. And it's easy to started muttering a "why me" or two as you're dealing with the consequences of the crime. Once the final piece of paperwork is filed and the damage repaired, make your best effort to get past it. Holding a grudge or feeling personally persecuted by a random act isn't going to help anyone.
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Get to know your neighborhood watch.
Unbelievable.
Another benefit of filing a police report - you may be eligible for restitution if your loss wasn't covered by insurance, even if they don't catch the perpetrator. My windshield was smashed last summer and the damage wasn't covered by my insurance company. However, I was refunded the full cost of the repair by a local victim's assistance fund.
stole the catalytic converter
Now I've heard it all.
I like the last one you had listed. Pretty much, keep calm. You're right, a lot of people go off getting angry and saying "This kind of stuff always happen to ME". newsflash, that kind stuff always happens. But now it happened to you. get over yourself and deal with the problem at hand. Helpful advice, all of it.
The link doesn't say, but is the catalytic converter a thing you can have replaced with a plastic one? There was a bout of repeat car-part thefts in my area and some body shops started replacing the parts with plastic ones that still worked and wouldn't be attractive to thieves.
This happened to my brother in law. Apparently, you can get serious money for these. He did get reimbursed by his insurance but what a drag.
Luckily, I live in a condo where we all have 2 car garages and per our HOA, we MUST park inside of our garages. Probably pisses off the thieves but good for us.
I came home a few weeks ago to find clear signs that someone had tried to break in. One of the steps I took to make the place more secure was to put screws in the upper track of the sliding glass door. This gets rid of the extra space so that no one can lift if up to unhook the lock, which is remarkably easy. (If you try lifting the handle upward or putting a flathead screwdriver under the frame you'll see what I mean.) This may be common knowledge but since I learned it relatively recently I thought I'd pass it along.
Two words/One movie: HOME ALONE
houseofthebonestorm.blogspot.com
Last year I left my purse in my car, under a coat, while I ran into my daughter's school to pick her up. 10 minutes later, I come out to find a smashed window and missing purse. The police told me that thieves target moms picking up kids at school and daycare--they watch them get out of their car without a purse. They also target gyms and hike-and-bike trails, watching people put their wallets, etc. in the trunk only to find window smashed and trunk popped when they get back. I never leave anything of value in my car anymore. Actually, before that incident, I usually didn't. I had to pay out of pocket to fix my window but my renter's insurance reimbursed me for the loss of my purse and it's contents: my iPad, smartphone, wallet, cosmetics, etc.
My license plate was stolen a few months ago. Was probably used to steal gas afterwards!
My husband made a pretty big mistake a few months ago by leaving his backpack in plain view in the back seat of his car parked right outside of our apartment building - his reasoning at the time was that it didnt contain anything of value in it , just a note pad, book etc.and the pack was itself very old - of course this rationale does not stand up to the thieves perspective. We woke to find a very large chunk of concrete had made its way through his passengers side window - bag gone. We were out 250 dollars on the window repair , and the use of the car for most of the day:( We both drive very old - ugly cars and are usually proud of our frugality when it comes to autos but this just goes to show everyone every where is a potential target , especially when prudent safety precautions are not heeded. In the end we decided that our cars were more likely to be targeted for these kind of smash and grab tactics than actual auto theft so we started emptying our cars of anything of value religiously every day and leaving the doors unlocked. That way we hope that when a thief decides to peruse our cars for valuables he will choose the door handle and not the window - saving us at least that expense.
I just THOUGHT I'd heard it all.
In the city in which I work, the latest theft trend is stealing copper piping & wiring from under vacant houses. On a recent Friday, a property owner called us in a panic. He had just handed over the keys to a family only to discover they had no water or power. The lease was effective that day so his options were limited. He didn't want to pay us overtime for a weekend job so he called his jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none handyman and skipped the permit.
I'm guessing the thieves were local & watched the handyman working all afternoon & well into the night replacing the copper piping...with more copper. Next morning, it was all gone along with the new wiriing. We went back the following Monday & replaced the missing copper with pvc but the owner ended up paying over twice our OT rate. This practice is so prevalent here, the scrap metal places require two forms of ID and video all transactions. A sign of the times...and the current economy....
TIP: The owner had now added the crawl space access door to the house's alarm system. Something a homeowner might want to consider. (The padlock didn't even slow down the thieves - hello bolt cutters).
My mother (who lives alone in a decent part of a Dallas suburb) had her home broken into while she was out, thankfully. The thief(s) went through her home office, going through drawers with electronics manuals, probably looking for small gadgets or a personal safe or something like that.
They also went through her jewelry box and emptied it. It didn't hold anything of extreme value, but more sentimental value. The weirdest part was they went into her master bedroom closet top shelf and threw her scarves and winter stuff all over her bedroom. Just really bizarre.
She was really distressed about it, obviously, but called and filed a police report and then tangled with insurance. Insurance paid for her locks to be changed (and upgraded, for her rear patio french doors which were kind of flimsy). My brother-in-law went and slept on her couch with a baseball bat for her peace of mind for a couple of days. Scary.
Get to know your neighborhood watch.
Unbelievable.
Wow clace, I wish I was as exquisitely attuned and senstive as you.
Clace, if you're angry over the mention of the neighborhood watch because of the Trayvon tragedy, it's worth keeping in mind that the local neighborhood watch groups have disavowed the shooter and the vast majority of them do NOT want their members handling guns or engaging in vigilantism. They're supposed to do nothing but watch (hence the name) and call the cops in emergencies.
If you happen to live in an area with responsible, non-crazy neighborhood watch, it's actually a good idea to talk to them about keeping an eye on your house for a while, because thieves sometimes prefer to hit the same place twice. They know your house, are familiar or comfortable with the area, and also know you've probably replaced everything within a month or two. Having someone else keep an eye on the place when you're not around isn't such a bad idea.
We saw this sort of theft, specifically catalytic converters, in corporate parking lots in Palo Alto, CA. When you have a new one put on there is a way for them to be mounted more securely than they come off the auto assembly line, so that a thief can't get them off as easily (they can't cut-and-run), they won't risk the extra time needed to disassemble the mount to get your catalytic converter - when a thief sees it they move on to a vehicle without the extra mount.
Adding...
Neighborhood watches have done a lot of great work over the years, Zimmerman is not a poster boy for the neighborhood watch system, he's a poster boy for 'a danger to the community'.