This morning I found out someone broke into my car and stole some low value junk I had in my glovebox along with a jacket and other stuff. I was home all along and didn’t hear it happening. I am usually one to check twice that the car locks when I leave it, and if for whatever reason I don’t then it auto locks after a while.
Now I’m a bit clueless with this stuff so I’m wondering 1) how they opened it without triggering the alarm and 2) can I do anything to prevent this from happening again? Any contraption/device I can use ?
TIA
Put 2 mannequins in the front seats, have them positioned so one of them is giving the other road head. Ez fix
Not a super helpful response, but honestly I’d be glad they only opened it. At our old condo people repeatedly broke into my wife’s car by smashing the window to steal random shit worth nothing, especially compared to the cost of replacing the window.
I remember seeing articles about people leaving their doors open or windows down in places with lots of smash and grabs
Yes, I got that advice when travelling to Marseille, France. Take everything out of the car and leave the windows open.
I know someone with a soft topped convertible that does this after the roof got cut open once.
I just started leaving my car unlocked for this reason. There have been a few times over the years that I left it unlocked and someone rifled through my shit, but last week they smashed the window. It’s amazing what a mess it makes.
And move your car once in a while, or otherwise make it look like someone is paying attention to it.
I had a car stolen: ten year old cheap econobox, over 100k miles, nothing in the car. I suppose it could have been an impulse, or it could have been that I had to move the car for street cleaning, left it in a bad spot (unlighted, no foot traffic, under a bridge) and left it there so I wouldn’t have to move it again for next street cleaning - the perils of living in a city and going mostly car free but not entirely giving up your car. Anyhow, I came back a week later and it was gone
Police were useless but offered the opinion that stripped parts for a ten year old econobox were valuable
No, not really. And if you have those fancy „keyless entry“ thingies, you are even more at risk as they can catch / expand the signal and send it to the car to open it.
My vehicle is camouflaged inside. Even low value belongings are hidden under trash.
I’m gonna make the assumption you live in the United States.
Anyone who steals something from inside your car Are typically opportunistic. Yes, there are people who make a living out of stealing cars and they make a living out of stealing parts of cars, but those guys tend to target particular vehicles and Particular parts ….tend to…
You said the alarm didn’t go off are you sure you didn’t accidentally leave the car unlocked?
Ways to prevent theft from your car:
- Always lock it
- Always park under lights
- Don’t leave anything of any value in the car that’s visible from the outside. If you have to leave valuables in your car, put it in the trunk
- If you can park your car in a garage
- Even putting a car in a parking lot that has some degree of perimeter fencing will deter thieves.
- Make sure the doors and windows all work properly. This may be obvious, but if you have a missing window, it’s an easy access or if you have a door that doesn’t lock properly, etc. etc.
Ways to respond to theft from your car.
- Report it to your insurance company
- Report to the local police department
- If you live in an apartment building reported to the landlord
- If you have things like a third-party GPS or other equipment in the car, keep the serial numbers and descriptions of those things in a folder in your house. My car got broken into you once in the The thieves stole my GPS. They cleaned out my change. I’d left some jewelry in the car. They cleaned that out. I reported all the police with the serial number and amazingly they recovered the GPS.
Finally car alarms are a waste of time.
Park under a lot of light. That’s pretty much it. And either have it spotless, like new car clean or full of trash. That’s what I would have avoided in the, very far, past.
I’m not proud of some of my younger years, but some things happened and now I do things to help instead of hurt.
Don’t leave valuables in a car and people won’t break into it. Unfortunately that’s the best advice. Park where there’s good lighting. If you own the property where you park put up motion activated flood lights, but be mindful of your neighbors when you do.
stole low value stuff from inside glovebox
don’t leave valuables in cars and thy won’t break in!
Erm…… ok.
