Robbery (mostly venting)

Owen

Photoshop Savant
I went out to my car today to make my nearly daily FedEx run and the driver's side door wasn't completely shut. I know I shut it last night -- and sure enough once I looked inside I saw (or rather didn't see) that my stereo had been ripped out of the dash. The morons also took my XM Radio, which is worthless to them since each unit has a unique serial number that I have now had permanently de-activated. Also gone is my Dell MP3 player, my leatherman, my maglite, and even a bag of change I keep around for toll booth/parking meter money. They even managed to find the AC/DC power inverter that I keep under the seat to power gear off of on the road. GRR!

I don't live in a shady neighborhood... pretty average middle class type of place. I've been so mad this evening that I haven't even been able to work on finalizing the edit for my current project. I'm just thankful I'm not in the middle of a shoot since I would likely have had grip gear and lights in the car. I never leave cameras / computers in there, but on late shoot nights with early morning calls the next day I do tend to leave grip stuff in there. I guess no more.

I've spent the last few hours mounting my old X10 wireless cameras around the house... not that it will do much good. It bothers me that some of the neighbors do see me loading all my gear when I head out to a shoot. We have one or two rental properties in the neighborhood that don't usually get the best types of folks as tenants...

The one thing they left in the car was a DVD for one of my movies. It's still in retail packaging with shrink-wrap. Is that supposed to be some kind of insult? ;)
 
Shady chracters have to steal from nicer places cuz nothing good to steal in their areas, i feel your pain
 
That really sucks. But try not to let a few bad apples change your attitude about the world or make you paranoid. And them leaving your DVD is not an insult. It shows they have no taste. Besides, petty thieves isn't really your target audience.

Good luck with finishing your final edit.
 
Sorry to hear! Sucks big time.

Owen said:
The one thing they left in the car was a DVD for one of my movies. It's still in retail packaging with shrink-wrap. Is that supposed to be some kind of insult? ;)

:)
 
That really sucks!

Well at least you don't live in the #1 most stolen auto capital of the nation...Modesto. We're ranked #1 in the nation plus we're pretty high up there when it comes to meth labs. It will happen everwhere no matter how good or bad your neighborhood is.

One of my cousins is locked up for auto theif and the other is locked up for attemepted murder. We live in a crazy world.


Sorry about your loss.
You might want to think about snakes in your car as security...

It beats to drive an old Ford Taurus.. :)
 
In the spirit of someone else's pain lightening yours. 6 years ago I had several thousand dollars of my sound gear and two thousand dollars worth of my SLR and lenses in my trunk when I went Xmas shopping at the mall. Big mistake. As I later learned mall parking lots at Xmas time are very popular with thieves (looking for bags of Xmas booty hopefully with receipt still in them).

Long story short, I just had liability on my 8 year old car and because I was not working my company's insurance wouldn't cover the lost. I ate the whole thing. Took me years before looking at the new gear didn't just bring back painful memories of the lost.

It will piss you off for awhile but the quicker you learn to just put it behind you the easier your life will be. Life is too short to let those things fester. Try to think of your lost as an asshole tax we all have to pay from time to time.

On the other side of it, keep an eye on ebay for your stuff for the next month. There is basically zero chance the police will ever get your stuff but you might get lucky doing a bit of detective work yourself.

LOL about your DVD. At least you have kept your sense of humor.

Good luck
 
That sucks wabbit! Yeah, I'm quite thankful that none of my income earning items are gone (cameras etc). It's mostly just disconcerting knowing that someone has been in your own car a mere twenty feet away from where you were sleeping. I only have liability as well, so I'm glad the car is still here!

Many thanks to everyone who jumped on board my late night vent session!
 
That just sucks. Few things piss me off more than thieves.

Brian Garfield was living in NYC. After an item was stolen from his car, he went to the police who basically told him they could do nothing to help him. He went home, stewed over it for sometime and then wrote a book that grew out of those feelings of violation... the name of the book... Death Wish.

Use those emotions you're feeling right now to your advantage.
 
Man sorry to hear about that. Thieves piss me off to no end. No respect for other people anymore. I had a rent house I was working on between renters, had all my tools in the garage (the renters tore it up pretty bad so had to do some major repairs). Thieves busted the door open and ripped off just about everything in there. Called the cops, made a report, came back next day and the mf's came back, broke in again and stole the lawnmower that they missed on the first run. Have recovered a few items from the police dept, but out about 2-3k in tools I have had to replace out of my pocket.
 
Remembered another one that didn't so much happen to me but I was witness to. I use to live in a complex in a really nice neighborhood. Overflow street parking for people with more then one car was on this dark windowless side of the building. For months thieves were coming around and breaking windows to just prowl the cars for whatever they could find. After a week no one kept anything of value in their cars but the theives kept breaking their windows just to check it out. Never happened to me but several of my neighbors had to replace their windows more then once. Finally everyone just started keeping their windows rolled down and/or doors unlocked.

After several months the thieves moved on to a new neighborhood.

No real moral to that story but that this stuff happens all the time. The good people vastly outnumber the bad but the bad have a way of touching all of us, be it a street thug or an Enron executive.

Cheers
 
haha, leaving your dvd huh?

Id watch DVXusers more often =)

Sucks it happened, everyones got shady people in their nieghborhood its just a matter of time before it happens to all.
 
I have too many theft stories in my own life to share here. Maybe I could make a Video about them...But...I HATE PEOPLE WHO STEAL more then anything!
I have had my wallet with $800 cash stolen, my car broken into 4 times, my garden hose stolen out of my front yard, My CD player, Amp, Change, etc all stolen. I now have a good Alarm system in my house along with night vision security cameras.
If you catch them, hold them until I get there! You can video tape me with your DVX beating the crap out of them and then we can sell the DVD on the black market!

Sorry dude, I can totaly relate!
 
In colonial times in England they sent thieves to Australia.. now we might say times were different .. they stole to feed their families etc. But I think this is a sign of current times... when free trade allows underpaid workers to take jobs in other countries... they outsource to third world countries where they can get away with paying pennies... I am by no means a socialist. But Im not pessimistic enough to say all thieves steal because they are drug addicts or just shite.

Mate I am really so sorry this happened to you.. I dont want to lose sight of that.

My message is simple..make sure you are insured in these times when more and more people are falling to the lower end of the scale.
 
Did you have any Insurance o any off those Items?

Boy o Boy, I know the feeling when you have your car jacked its not nice. Few years back it happened on my dads Merc, and they attacked it twice within 24 hours, first time round to steel the radio the next time round to steal the fascia (stereo), they used a crowbar to rip out the stereo and made it pointless to repair (had it sold in the end) :( as for the police well...(they said lets wait to see if they attack then we can place surveillance...)

Anyways, I know its not much help but in times like these always think, at least I'm safe, because we can replace stuff but we can't replace humans.
 
Yeah, that sucks bro.

This past spring, someone busted my passenger window with a rock and stole my ipod the ONE time i left it in my car. The cops never even came, I had to file a report and mail it in.
 
Back
Top