Car Break In and Theft

[magg1es.livejournal.com]

My roommate on Orchard Street in Somerville (two streets over from Davis) got her car broken into.

Apparently this has been a string of events, so just reminding you guys to set your alarms, don't leave things out in clear view, and report any incidents that do happen!

Comments

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

Whereabouts on Orchard?

[ron_newman]

Was the car parked on the street or in a driveway?

[jenaflynn.livejournal.com]

The 90-100 Block

Edit: This was my car that it happened to.

[jenaflynn.livejournal.com]

Street, right in front of the house.

[ron_newman]

As someone who likes peace and quiet at night, I would prefer that people not use car alarms. At least not the ones that make noise and honk the horn. All they do is wake people up when someone inevitably taps the car bumper while parallel parking, or when the wind blows.

[srakkt.livejournal.com]

Holy mackerel, that's just 'round the corner from us. I'm sorry that this has happened to you, but thanks for alerting the neighborhood.

[ron_newman]

Sorry to hear that, especially as it's just a block from me, too.

[teko.livejournal.com]

There was a string of car break-ins on the same block about a year and a half ago; at least three cars on the block had their car radios stolen -- including myself.

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

I recently had my bike stolen from the community basement of our building in this area, too.. Unfortunately, extreme vigilence is needed in this area.

[ron_newman]

Was it locked, and if so, with what kind of lock?

My bike is U-locked to a metal rack in the basement of my large brick apartment building, so your post concerns me, especially if you happen to live at 18 Day Street.

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

It was a kryptonite cable lock. Probably one of the less reliable ones so I have to take some blame. I haven't been riding much at all since I moved here but I was hoping to again someday.

I'm not in your building but I think we are under the same management company. Truth be told, I expected a higher level of decorum from the people in my complex, especially considering the ridiculous rent rate they are charging. Damn september rent cycle.

You know the drill, lock it up and register it, also get renter's insurance.

Re: Hmmm

[anyee.livejournal.com]

I'd say 100% of the time I hear a car alarm, my first thought is not: "Oh noes! It's being broken into!". My first thought is "Will someone shut that damn thing off?"

So many alarms go off for no good reason that most people, like myself, are desensitized to it. Your example is a statistical anomaly. Most times, we hope someone breaks into the alarm-going-off car and rips the alarm out.

[ron_newman]

ActionVest manages my building and two others within a block of mine. I've been pretty happy with them. I doubt that someone else in your building stole the bike, but the thief may have tailgated a legitimate resident through the front door.

If it was a Kryptonite lock, and you still have the broken lock, you may be covered by Kryptonite's insurance policy.

Re: Hmmm

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

yeah, agreed with the person above. when i lived in a large complex and heard a car alarm? i put a pillow over my head and prayed someone would turn the fucking thing off.

Re: Hmmm

[ron_newman]

+10

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

i used to live in one of the actionvest buildings on orchard. the front door often didn't click shut if someone didn't pull it shut behind them... so it was easy sometimes for a non-resident to get into the building. only thefts i recall, though, were when someone was scaling the fire escape during the day and looking into people's apartments while they were at work, and taking their laptops. oh, and the time my car was broken into right out front, because i was an idiot and left my cell phone in the car in plain view.

Re: Hmmm

[kpht.livejournal.com]

More presumably, we've all heard 1,000 false alarms in the past 10 years and 0 actual thefts. Cry wolf, etc.

Re: Hmmm

[ron_newman]

Wanting car alarms to be banned is not being "deensitized to others". On the contrary, it's being very sensitive to other people's need to sleep.

Re: Hmmm

[ron_newman]

If that were true here, people wouldn't react the way you're seeing in this thread.

Re: Hmmm

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

nah, i liked my neighbors in that place quite a bit actually.

instead it's that every time in my life i've bothered to look when hearing an alarm, no one's been around any car and more likely, the thing goes off again within a few minutes. repeat.

Re: Hmmm

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

wow, you're full of assumptions today!

i don't ride a bike and do own a car here, fwiw.

Re: Hmmm

[firepail.livejournal.com]

and this is relevant to what here?

car alarms only work if you park in front of your house, otherwise, they are useless. here's why: most people here live in apartments and can't always park exactly in front of their house--so if they have to park a street over THEY can't hear their alarm at 4 AM , but that neighborhood can.

and even if you are a concerned neighbor and hear that an alarm is going off? unless you see it being broken into and get a description for the cops, there is nothing you can do. and you can't alert the owner to the situation if you don't know them personally and know exactly what apartment they are in.

my neighborhood has tight parking, so car alarms go off regularly--and the car owners with alarms going off generally just click the disarm button from their porch rather than investigate their car.

Re: Hmmm

[cold-type.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity, how did the police react when you reported the crime?

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Well bringing the topic back to cars, please set the alarms. They tend to prevent "fifteen cars on the same side of the street all got broken into last night" type of situations.

I don't know what everybody else's neighbors are like, but there's only two of mine who have trouble with it going off. Oddly, both of them keep their cars in driveways. There's the guy behind me, who gets up early and sometimes forgets to turn the alarm off before he opens his trunk, and there's the girl across the street, whose alarm sometimes malfunctions. Maybe a loose hood switch.

Maybe the people complaining just have some jerk on the block who comes home late and has no clue how to parallel park. Or they just need to go easy on that Davis Kool-Aid. Personally I like to know who's tapping my car when they think nobody's looking.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Where I live (the Other Other Orchard St), I never hear alarms, so I'd probably go out and investigate if I did hear one. When I lived in downtown Providence a few years ago, it was absolutely routine, like 2-3 times in a typical week, to have alarms start at 1-3 AM (when a drunk bumps into the car or whatever) and go for hours, presumably stopping only when the battery died. And if I had taken a fire axe down to the car and hit it until the alarm stopped, I would have been the one arrested. Where's the justice in that?

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

the last time my car alarm went off, it's kind some nimrod hit the side door while trying to park, tried to get away but got stuck long enough for a neighbor got his desc and plates. cops showed up 20 minutes later, and we found out how to contact the nimrod, and he slunk back. slam dunk.

yah, i kidna want to know if someone hit my car hard enough to typically cause damage. or they are breaking in.

thieves love silence, complacency and street lights.

#

[davelew.livejournal.com]

Most car alarms don't prevent theft, they just make it a tiny bit more difficult. Anyvody with a steady hand and some knowledge of cars can disconnect the horn from the battery without setting off the alarm.

I know this because my car's wheels were stolen a few years ago without setting off the horn, and I had to reconnect the horn myself.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Well, it helps to get a pin switch for when the hood opens. It was only a few dollars extra when I got my alarm.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

The big peeve where I am, is idiots honking their horns when they're picking somebody up. Sometimes a taxi gives a beep or two, but usually it's some dumass picking up their buddy, and they just lean on the horn until the other person comes out.

Wow! Orchard seems like a nice Street.

[nvidia99999.livejournal.com]

...

[davelew.livejournal.com]

I was able to reconnect my horn without opening the hood, so I assume the thieves were able to disconnect it the same way.

[ron_newman]

there's another Orchard Street in Somerville?

(Hey, we have two Oxford Streets in Somerville, so I could believe it)

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

No, there's an Orchard St in Somerville, one in Cambridge (which I think is contiguous with the Somerville one), and mine in Medford (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1390669.html). We have to be extra-careful when calling Camberville places for food delivery, and even then we still get the puzzled calls when they don't listen.

Are you counting the Oxford St that goes into Harvard? I always assumed there was a tentacle of Cambridge surrounding it.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this world really needs more fire-axe diplomacy.

[ron_newman]

Oxford Street in Somerville is parallel to Highland Ave., near Somerville City Hall.

But the northernmost 3 or 4 houses of Cambridge's Oxford Street, where it runs into Beacon, are in Somerville

Orchard Street in Cambridge/Somerville is one street with a common numbering scheme (very unusual around here). Day Street should have a common numbering scheme, but somehow it got screwed up; there's a 15 Day St in Cambridge, two houses down from a 15 Day Street in Somerville.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Ok, were talking about the actual horn here, not a siren under the hood.

But doesnt the alarm go off when you open the door? I'm assuming the horn was disconnected from inside the car then.

Or was the horn somehow disconnected from the outside by reaching up from underneath the engine compartment?

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

It's so cute how all the neighborhoods of Boston are their own little "cities" with different governments and ordinances and everything.*

* actually, it's not really all that cute

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

I found the numbering schemes of Los Angeles very amusing.

Read: house numbers running into the low five figures, the equivalent of if Mass Ave was numbered consecutively from the South End all the way to Lexington.

And cul-de-sacs numbered within the main street's scheme, you see things like "12345 Tiny Court", because Tiny Court is off the 12,300 block of Infinite Boulevard.

[ron_newman]

Most cities number their houses this way. It's called a grid system. Boston and NYC are the only places I've ever been in the US that don't do this.

[goodkittieavril.livejournal.com]

Thank god I don't have a car...and I live on Orchard St!!