Thief !

Last week I heard noise outside around 12:00 am, looked out front and saw a flatbed putting a car up. I thought it was weird, but didn't go out to check or anything. Thought maybe it was a repo or something. Told the landlady the next day and she brushed it off. She knows I don't like the people that moved in up the street a couple years ago. I thought it was something to do with them. " AHHH who cares just mind your own business ..." she told me.
I forgot about it and got back to work yesterday. I was looking for my reciprocating saw, couldn't find it and ended up just using a circular saw to bust out a window frame. Then yesterday I'm thinking, "Where did I put my plumbing toolbox?" It's an old Sears beat up toolbox heavy with plumbing tools. I called around and really got obsessed about where I left it. After a lot of thinking I had to conclude it got stolen somehow. I was starting to feel pretty bad. I was at work at the church house, and saw a cop going up my street. I got this urge to go and talk to the cop. I drove over to my place and waited for the guy. I flagged him down, and kind of apologetically told him I couldn't find my tool box. Too many weird people have been coming around hanging landscaping ads on the mailbox lately. Well the cop said he thought they had my toolbox!
Turns out last week a 23 year old homeless dirtbag walked right up to my truck in the driveway and took my toolboxes! He had parked his car in front of here and was loading it up with loot! They popped him when somebody came home and found him in their car!
The cop was really cool, despite a little interrogation at the police station, ( the detective said, "How come you just noticed your tools missing?" I told him "Because I'm an absent minded idiot, that's why.")
I guess detectives are trained to be suspicious of everybody.
The cops are pressing charges, hope the bastard does time! Even though I'm more relieved to know what happened than vengeful!

Dann757 wrote:The cops are pressing charges, hope the bastard does time! Even though I'm more relieved to know what happened than vengeful!

Are they giving you any grief over getting your tools back? Or do you have to wait until after the trial? Did you find the saw? We used on of those last fall to take down a metal garden shed. It was like cutting butter. I have noticed an increase of cars in our neighborhood, too. We are being a little more careful about locking the door and making sure the dogs are visible. It's sad. Lisa

I had a guy in broad daylight at a restaurant go thru my glovebox in my old truck...I saw from inside the restaurant my door was open, figured I just didn't close it all the way, when I went out, there were legs hanging out of floor....caught him in the act, trying to steal my tapes, CDs, anything of value to hock...he was in his 50's and drunk....Didn't press charges but scared the crap out of him and yelled at him in the parking lot....threatened to press charges...I was in a good mood...

Every time I lock the car at a shopping center, my wife tells me how she never locks it. Even if she has a bunch of purchases she has left on the seat while she shops somewhere else. So far no problems, I guess that's one advantage of living in Maine (but not the Massachusetts-look-alike part of Maine). I know it's only a matter of time, but try to tell her that. It's not worth the aggravation of arguing about it....

A few years ago my brother and his wife were sitting on the steps at night. This guy comes walking down the street and he starts looking in the back of my brothers truck, my brother is sitting 20 feet away.

He lets him go to see what he'll do and sure enough he opens the doors, that's when he went after him. I'm in the kitchen on my side and hear all this commotion around the back of the house because the guy tried to run, I come running out the back gate and brother has hold of this scrawny little guy who is screaming bloody murder. His wife had called the cops in the meantime, he's dropping screwdrivers and other stuff. We get him out front and he breaks Free... runs about 20 feet and splat! He tripped and did header into the sidewalk.

So now we have the cops on the way and have hold of this guy with big goose egg on his forehead that is bleeding. Course the cops ask what happened. He tripped! Uh huh the cop says.

They cuffed him and threw him the cruiser. While we're talking to the cops he's throwing stuff out the window, I guess they had the window down a little. Since the cruiser is on pavement you can hear it hitting the ground. We find out later when they got him to the the station he's got all kinds of stuff on his person. Change, sunglasses and other stuff you'd find in a car.

lowfog01 wrote:Are they giving you any grief over getting your tools back?

Lisa, everything worked out fine. I got the tools back. I didn't even realize the crook got my sawzall too. They did make me come back twice though. I dropped a few names so they were pretty cool. I've been hanging around this town for 20 years and have worked for previous mayor's family, etc. It was a little weird when they led me into this little interrogation room! The detective wanted me to describe the contents of my saw box
"What's in the saw box?"
" A saw."
"What else?"
" Uh, a screwdriver?"
I opened the box and verified my old beat up Craftsman saw and when I closed it it pinched the detective's finger hahahahah

There's three tough guy cops in there staring at me, I was honestly so happy to get my tools back I think they picked up on that. I know they have defined proceedures they have to follow.

I have the same saw.

Thanks Smitty, I've had a baseball bat right at the front garage doors for like 20 years now. What if I opened the door to dump some coal ashes right when that perp was in my truck... I better not think about it.

About 20-25 years ago we were building our place at the Delaware seashore. We'd buy the lumber etc during the week and then head down there Friday night, work all weekend long and return Sunday night around 10-11:00 P.M. This went on all summer long. We kept all the tools in the back of my Dad's truck. We're talking power saws, hand saws, drills, plumbing tools, elec. tools. You name it and we had it in there. He lives in the boonies so he never locked his truck at all. His house is 2/5 mile up thru the woods on a single lane ending at his garage. The house sits on a little knoll. He would stop on the way home within 25 miles from home and fill up both tanks. It was a real nice Chevy Silverado 1/2 ton with a cap.

Come Monday morning I get a phone call on my "car phone." Remember when they were mounted to the dash with the power module under the seat ? He started asking me if I "borrowed" his truck ? I reminded him that he called me on the phone in MY truck so why would I have his ?? It had all of the tools in it, 2 full tanks, and about $ 50.00 worth of change in the door pocket. It was gone!!! Cops were called, insurance called, etc. We were told by insurance to start going out and replace the tools keeping all of the receipts.

We got a phone call 2 days later telling us that they had located the truck in Tulsa, OK right near Oral Roberts University. Turns out that 2 "Righteous, Christian" kids had run away from home. They were walking along the road and happened to stumble across his driveway. Followed it and came upon the truck in the driveway with the keys in it. They coasted it downhill before starting it. They were headed to go see Mr. Roberts himself. They use the change in the door to refuel it. They were caught as they had just about run out of gas and were doing a "u" turn to get into the gas station.

All of the tools were still inside with the addition of the trash can we had filled that weekend. The Insurance just wanted us to get another truck and tools and they would sell the truck, etc down in Tulsa. No can do. Instead they paid for my Dad and Mom to fly to Tulsa, service the truck, and then all expenses to get it back home. Cost them a pretty penny but we got back everything. There were tools in there that we forgot that we had even taken along. He did let the trash down there!!!!!! It had been sitting in the OK sun for 3 weeks until he got there....

The 2 poor juveniles.............not a friggin' thing happened to them. We at least wanted them to pay the deductible. But as they were "so good" and as this was the first thing that they had done, not 1 damn thing was done to them.


Rick

Rick 386 wrote:There were tools in there that we forgot that we had even taken along.

I was thinking about that very subject a year or two back. If my house burned to the ground, I probably would forget thousands of dollars worth of stuff when it came to filing an insurance claim. So I finally took the advice I had read over and over: I went through the house and garage with my digital camera snapping pictures of every room from every angle. HOW many teacups were on that knick-knack shelf? HOW many snow shovels and gardening tools were in that corner? Just how valuable WAS that grandfather clock? Well, ldt's look at the pics....

Wood'nCoal wrote:I have the same saw.

And where were you last week around midnight?

Nothing fries my bacon worse then a thief. Every once in a while I will go into my local Home depot and have one of the employees tell me on the side that there have been tools stolen out of the back of contractors trucks again. I have a trailer full of tools and it is always locked so I figure I am ok, but how low do you have to be to steal from guys who are struggling to feed their families and you are taking their means to do that away from them. If I ever catch someone doing that I will be happy to help them fall down a few times before the cops show up!! I hope that it turns out to be some crack head and not another contractor just walking off with some other poor buggers tools!

Went fishing one fine day and parked in the boat launch parking lot to meet up with my buddy. I sat there for a few minutes then got out and locked up. As I walked to wards the back of my truck there was a young druggie looking fellow headed across the parking lot just behind my truck. When he saw me, he startled. I said "hI" and he agreed - he said 'hI' and continued on his way toward the other end of the parking lot ... that was empty. I should have picked up on this first hint.

I got my gear out from under the truck cap, locked up and headed on down to the launch. At the end of the day, I came back to my truck. put my stuff in the back and noticed a few things out of place. Called the police and the officer described him to me! We went to the kid's house but his mom said she hadn't seen him that day. I was not surprised He broke into the cap and got into the cab thru the slider, stole my complete 1/2 & 3/4" drive Proto socket set, breaker bars and all, a very good motorcycle rain suit, couple of mag flashlights and a few of other strange things. I scrounged around in the weeds and found my largest flash light - the batteries were dead so he chucked it. Police officer opened the porta-johns and remarked 'why where there boot marks on the seat facing forward toward the door?' I looked it over and said that's were he was casing the lot from. He stood on top of the seat so he could look out of the vent and see the traffic. I had taken my time getting out of the truck and he must not have known it until I surprised him - he wasn't expecting to see me near my truck!

I learned a lesson, keep an eye on the johns when they face a parking lot! If there's only a couple, I always check them now. Might look a little strange in the process, but strange looks are a lot cheaper to deal with than loosing all that stuff!

Heh, when I lived in Colorado I caught a guy jacking the stereo system out of my Neon. He took $400 work of equipment, mainly my sub. I grabbed a four point tire iron that was close at hand and threw it through the rear window of his white Lincoln from the late 1970's. When I called the cops I was told tough (censored) by them. I then proceeded to write a nasty letter to the county stating that I pay my taxes and therefore pay their salaries and the next time I called for assistance if a squad car wasn't at my house they'd have a body to contend with as well.

Well, needless to say the county and state didn't take kindly to my letter and I had the county prosecutor, the county sheriff department as well as a detective from the local PD and the state PD doing an investigation on me. At the end of it all I never got my stuff back but I did end up installing a video surveillance system at my house that went "active" anytime something moved near my house. It recorded everything. The camera even followed "targets" for some time. It would automatically switch from "normal" to "low light" and even had a thermal mode. Any time anything happened around my house and surrounding area the police would knock on my door and ask for the DVD from my camera. I'd even get a partol car parked in my driveway once a week at night.

I probably shouldn't of written the letter. But man, did I get some special treatment from the town and police after the fact. In fact one of my DVDs helped catch a dude who was breaking into homes via the window.