I'm in Southern California visiting relatives, and last night my toyota avalon was invaded
but nothing was taken! [a camera, cell phone, 2 pistols] but everything was moved around
by coincidence[?], we had a power outage in the area, from around Midnight to 3am
I lock my car, as automatically as I put my seat belt on,
99% of the time; but it is possible it was left open
big mystery!
marc
Did they USE the camera or phone? Make a police report?
Was your wife looking to get the goods on you? Leaving a bugging device? Kids looking for gum or coins, or playing in the car?
Look on your cell phone or camera for a picture of someone with one of your pistols up their butt.
Don't they do that with toothbrushes? ;-)
----Android NewsGroup Reader----
camera & cell phone look totally unused; no wife or kids
if they just wanted to leave a bugging device, they wouldn't let me know they were obviously there; everything was moved around
marc
Not so. Did you look for a bugging device? By distracting you with the mess, they managed to make you assume there's no bugging device. Had they not made a mess while bugging your car, but accidentally knocked a single item out of place, you'd be suspicious and start looking around. Instead, you looked at the mess and posted in a.h.r, leaving the bugging device right where it is.
Could you move a little bit closer to the rear view mirror when you speak...you're breaking up.
----Android NewsGroup Reader----
Where are you, exactly? I want one of those pistols!
i had someone break into my truck once, but leave (expensive) stuff from a previous breakin. i guessed that they were interrupted when doing my truck and booked too soon. i managed to trace the other stuff's owners from a receipt conveniently left behind, and found that they had had their car broken into and torched that night also.
It seems odd to me that you would leave your cell phone in your car. Just like you automatically lock your car, I would think you would take your cell phone with you. Or, maybe it was a second cell phone.
Notwithstanding the above, maybe it was just someone (maybe a kid) who needed a place to sleep for a few hours (or get out of a storm if that's what knocked the power out), and who had no interest in stealing anything from you or anyone else. And, if your car was unlocked, that seemed like a good and easy place to crash out for a few hours.
To bad they didn't take the guns, and put a cap in your ass, take a picture of it, then call the cops on your phone. Only then, maybe you would learn a lesson.
Too bad your English teacher didn't kick your ass for not learning your lesson. Too bad you can't fix stupid.
Oh no, it's the netcop. To bad you can't blow me.
That happened to my uncle, who was driving down the road when the guy who had been sleeping in the back seat of the car woke up and politely asked to be let out. Spooked the daylights out of my uncle. Back then people didn't lock up their cars very often.
My dad once found a guy sleeping in his trunk.
Well, actually the guy was unconscious in the trunk. My dad had the trunk open while he was changing a flat in the front. Just as he was tightening the lugs nuts, he heard a crash, the car lurched forward and fell off the jack. He went to the back of the car to find a motorcycle lying on the ground and the unconscious driver in his trunk.
Turned out the guy was drunk, not badly injured, and under arrest when he woke up.
That sure trumps my story!
I don't know...I'd be pretty freaked out if I thought I was alone and guy started talking to me from the back seat. I don't know that I'd be able to keep it on the road.
Somebody wanted something from his car, and with no streetlights, picked the wrong car.
Locking cars is over rated. I've been broken into three times over 50 years of driving. Total loss is a quart of oil I had in the back seat of my Karmann Ghia. Other cars on the street that were locked had broken windows, pry marks and the like. My brother had his convertible top slashed for a pair of sunglasses.
A pro will take your car in seconds if he wants it. An amateur will do lots of damage. I don't leave valuables in the car.
You story ranks up there with the AFHV's video of a runner losing his ball cap and having it go flying through the air to land snugly on one of the racers coming up behind them. Sort of like doing a head/tails coin toss and having the coin land upright on its edge.
But my uncle *was* pretty spooked when he realized there was someone back there. He was going to work very early and the guy probably expected to be long gone before normal working hours.
Volkswagen's elegant little "sportscar" I learned how to drive a stick in Dad's Karmann Ghia. Who would have thunk you could make a Beetle beautiful?
Even the gear shift logo was impressive:
Some drugged out asshole in a Chevy Impala ran a stop sign and sent the poor KG to the junkyard and nearly sent us to the boneyard. Most collision outcomes are dictated by the laws of physics and a teeny KG was no match for a 60's full-sized Chevy driven by a speed-freak. You always have a soft spot in your heart for the car you first learned to drive in. We had a very long driveway and when my parents were sleeping I would drive it up and down the driveway until I could shift smoothly without stalling the engine.
Youch. That had to piss him off. I don't think I would ever lock a ragtop for just that reason. Too easy to gain entry with a boxcutter or a pocketknife. My cousins in Italy not only leave their cars unlocked, the leave the glovebox open to show that it's empty and there's nothing worth stealing. Over there the idiot car thieves break the windows anyway because they ASSume the car is locked. A grizzled old beat cop I knew laughed about the number of times rookie cops dislocated their shoulders or worse breaking down doors that weren't locked to begin with.
Around here thieves with flatbeds posing as repo men have stolen a number of vehicles. You're right. It's like the Internet. If a real pro wants your car or wants to hack into your PC, you can probably slow them down, but not stop them.
I had $1000 worth of damage done by idiots trying to steal my Immobiliser (tm) protected van. The engine turns but never "catches" without the RF embedded key. Even the tow truck guy who was hauling it to the dealer for me was fooled by the RF anti-theft device and kept trying to start the car with a screwdriver in the steering column. Even *I* was fooled by it because I bought the car used without a manual and never knew it had an anti-theft feature. I thought it was a burglar alarm. Thieves made a dirty mess out of the steering column trying to steal it, though. )-:
Amen.
That's the important bottom line. I'd certainly *never* leave a pistol or two in the car unless I had a very well-designed secret hiding place. A long time ago when I had a carry permit as a police reporter, lots of places I went forbade even permit holders from bringing a gun onto the premises.
So I spent countless hours cutting away dash board top supports and putting hinges and magnets on the underside of the dashboard of my LTD. I did it so I could keep my Beretta hidden in there when I went someplace where it wasn't welcome. The "trap" was a work of art and I could have stored a short-barrel shotgun in there because there was so much room. Ah, to regain the boundless energy of youth. I look at a lot of things I built in my 20's and wonder where I got the drive and ambition to do things like install "traps" into cars and build my own furniture. Poverty and youth, I guess.
I also had a very loud alarm powered independently of the main battery because I had a number of scanner radios, a CB radio and cameras I had to leave in the car when I was working so leaving it unlocked was not practical because the radios were all mounted on slide mounts so I could reconfigure easily - those were the days of crystal-controlled scanners, long before the Bearcat 101 arrived with frequency synthesis. Locking the car and setting the alarm was a necessity.
It was a "retired" state trooper car bought at auction with multiple whip antennas and rear deck brake lights. Sadly, in the '70s thieves became so bold they even began breaking into cop cars, real and not-so-real ones like mine. The days of the 429ci engines may be gone, but they're not forgotten.
Nowadays there are shops that specialize in installing secret compartments in cars.
If I had locked the car, nowadays, how easy is it to get into a car? There were no signs of forced entry.
how do locksmiths get into cars?
marc
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