Stroller theft?

[brewso.livejournal.com]

I will be a mama soon (!), and we recently purchased a relatively pricey new stroller. I am wondering about bringing it to places like Davis Square businesses and leaving it outside. I feel like I will be constantly worried about it. My thinking is that bikes get stolen all the time, even when they're locked - why not strollers? Some of them are worth more than the average bike. What do you all think? Should I lock it? Has anyone ever locked their stroller? Has anyone ever heard of a stroller being stolen around here? Am I just being paranoid? 

Comments

[jenskot.livejournal.com]

Congrats, but why would you be wandering around with an empty stroller and leaving it outside? Ive never seen a stroller locked up, but then again, I've never seen a stroller left on its own outside without an owner (at least, not in Davis - in some countries, they just leave the baby outside!). Why not just take it inside with you?

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

i recently got laid off from a place that sold some SERIOUSLY pricey strollers. some of them can be pretty large and maneuvering them around some of the stores and places in the city can be a bitch - even getting them through the door. many have the thing where you can detach the carseat part from the top also so you don't need the whole thing, or you put your kid in one of those slings.

though i agree, i've never seen a stroller locked up, but i never really thought about it either. i'd lock it though, better safe than sorry.

[jenskot.livejournal.com]

Oops, childless-me should probably shut up, I guess. But yeah, lock it up, why not? No sense in losing a pricey stroller, and people in the city will steal *anything* - call me a misanthrope, but I even have my little Weber grill padlocked to my porch.

[skexy.livejournal.com]

Well, given a choice between looting a stroller and a grill; I'd totally take the grill; you know; if I were in the market to steal things.

[jenskot.livejournal.com]

Haha, just thinking about this further - doesn't a stroller that's too big to stroll around and forces you to manually tote the kid inside kind of defeat the purpose of a stroller?

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

well, depends. like maybe you use it mostly for walking/jogging, but one day you go shopping with friends, and don't wnat to buy all different sizes of strollers or whatever. i think of places like trader joes too where, even if the stroller can fit inside, it's always such a clusterfuck i wouldn't want to deal :p

but so with you on the people will steal anything, definitely.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

Some stores have really narrow aisles. And if you go to someplace like Stellabella during sometime like story hour, there will be a bazillion strollers outside the store, because sure a few of them can fit in there, but not ALL of them at once. It's not a problem in the story hour scenario, where presumably the plan was to sit around on the floor/let the kid play, but it's really annoying in the narrow-store-aisles situation. (My stroller isn't even all that big.)

[ron_newman]

Wandering around with a kid-in-stroller and leaving the stroller outside, I would assume.

[firepail.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered about this as there is always a parade of unattended expensive strollers outside of StellaBella Toys on Mass Ave towards Porter, and yet no one seems to touch them. I would think that these things would come with some sort of lock or lojack since they are so pricey!

Seriously, I am surprised that you don't see locks on the things.

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

There's probably not much of a black market for upscale strollers, at least not compared to the market for bikes and bike parts.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Seconded. The reality is that you can leave a $50 bike light and a $75 helmet on an unlocked $100 bicycle. People will take the bike and leave both the helmet and the light on the ground. It's *entirely* about the black market, really.

Also, you can ride off on a bicycle. Strollers are a little more unwieldy.

[ron_newman]

I've had a headlight stolen. I try to take mine with me instead of leaving it on the bike, since it just slides right out.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

How about a helmet?

[ron_newman]

That happened to me once, too, but it was in Lawrence.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Weird.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think this is it. Plus, although people *will* steal anything, the fact that it's literally stealing from a baby has got to at least cut it down some.

[redheadedmuse.livejournal.com]

right. I keep all our bikes locked up indoors, but I leave my kids bikes unlocked in our yard, 'cause I figure they were worth only about $30 new and you'd have to be pretty f***ing low to steal from a toddler.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

You'd be surprised. The upscale stroller market on Craigslist can be awfully cutthroat.

[jenskot.livejournal.com]

Two words: Childrens Orchard. Well, three: Craigslist. :/

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

There's a huge resale market for strollers. (Thank goodness. Damn things are expensive new. And a good stroller will outlive a kid's need for it, and then who wants it lying around the house?)

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

if i am ever makin' babies i know where to get a fancy stroller now :D

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

in the old days, people would leave stroller and babies outside, and go inside to shop. these days, the law would be on you SO fast.

i'll bet StellaBella has commandos ready to swoop if anyone touched those $500+ strollers. perhaps they have C4 inside. just to be sure.

but yes, i'd imagine that strollers are INSTANT sales items if stolen.

#

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

Also: congratulations -- see you at the playground!

[brewso.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm ecstatic to be having a summer baby so we can actually get out and do things early on. How old is/are yours?

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there was a large study a few years ago that showed that summer babies are on average happier their whole lives. Me, I'm a winter baby -- c'est la vie. My daughters are 2 and 4, both winter babies too (but so far doing a pretty good job of staying happy). Although, with the playground destined to be closed all summer....

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

Matt,

Do you know when they are supposed to start? I suppose it's off to Cambridge for us this summer, but what to do if we don't want them to get wet?

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

The public comment period for the final plan (http://www.somervillema.gov/Section.cfm?org=OSPCD&page=1326) ended on Monday, so at least according to the plan it's now out for bid, and Ellen Schneider (the city's landscape project manager) said that that would take about six weeks, after which work would begin pretty much immediately. So that means beginning of May, although I'll believe that when I see it.

From that point, the the playground area will be closed off for three months, possibly as long as four. The intention -- if the contractors will agree to it -- is to keep the grass field open as long as possible during the playground construction, and then work on it and close it off all winter so the grass takes a good hold.

[teele-sq.livejournal.com]

when you park the stroller outside the store, leave the baby too. incidents of kidnapping are much rarer in these parts than straight theft. so statistically you're better off.

[mamajoan.livejournal.com]

Hey brewso, congrats on your impending upheaval, um I mean arrival. May I recommend the SomervilleMoms community on YahooGroups to your attention? It's a fantastic resource.

Personally I don't worry about leaving my stroller anywhere, but then again, I'm roaming around with the POS that you get for ten bucks at Target, so maybe I'm not the best person to say. ;) Anyway, for roaming around Davis you should be foregoing the stroller altogether and just using your sling, so it's moot. ;)

[brewso.livejournal.com]

Thanks, mamajoan. I recently joined Somerville Moms and am loving it! I'm also a member of Huron Village Parents and the Somerville Moms group is so much more active and informative! You're right - it's a fabulous resource.

[genevra-mcneil.livejournal.com]

First, my folks bought us a very pricey stroller and I steered it around Davis for a year (after The Child got too big to wear in a sling -- she's a big kid) and I left it outside the library, shops, Starbucks, etc. without it getting stolen. The squirrels in the park made off with some of the food in the stroller occasionally, but that's another issue.

But I'd like to second MamaJoan's recommendation to wear the child whenever possible. The stroller is really unwieldy in Boston and a Bjorn or sling is much much easier.

Right up until you child hits 25 lbs.

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

There's another point we haven't considered.

You walk down the street, see an unattended bicycle, you can ride away on it.

Not so easy with an unattended stroller.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

what if someone gives you a really good push

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

we have a junky stroller and a nice stroller (BOB)... sometimes we want to go eat in a restaurant and don't want to bring the big thing in. We have a cable lock and will lock it up outside. I think it's a little overkill, but my husband feels safer with it that way.

And I don't think it's strange to not bring the stroller into some of the places in Davis (Mr. Crepe comes to mind, as it can get pretty crowded).

[haptotrope.livejournal.com]

I would consider locking it-- just a silly derrent style lock.. not a full-on fryptonite with new york chains and stuff.

Though if you do, I would also seriously consider careful placement to allow wheelchair'd folks to get through without tripping/running into any uberstrollers (anyone remember when these things could fold up and you could store them like an umbrella in the corner of the store?.)

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Yes. From what I can remember of the stroller me and my li'l brother rode in, it was a little metal thing you could fold up and carry with one hand.

The baby buggies you see now look like some perambulator from a Victorian novel, and some of the "babies" look about eight years old.

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

The fold-up-and-carry-with-one-hand ones are great for some things (like, say, folding up and carrying with one hand), but aren't good for traveling long distances in the city. Every bump in the sidewalk is magnified, and the little swivel wheels just can't hold up - and I don't mean that it jostles the poor kid too much more something, I mean it gets tiresome to push. And if there's snow, they just basically can't go.

You don't have to have a super-fashion-accessory stroller, but having something with big wheels is nice. If you're going to be out for the day in the city (rather than just darting from your car across the mall parking lot) a decent amount of carrying capacity is required. And if walking and public transportation are your primary mode of transportation, you need something that will hold up. (I wouldn't be surprised if we've put over a thousand miles on our stroller.)

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

I've left strollers (and these days, wagons) outside stores, libraries, and restaurants in and near Davis Square. I've always been a little uncomfortable when doing so, but nothing has ever been stolen in the eight years I've been doing it.

[publius513.livejournal.com]

As a person who worked in the baby retail business for longer than I care to think about, I'm not sure I'd recommend even bringing a stroller shopping to a place like Davis. Especially not one of the big expensive "SUVs" of the stroller market. Life is complicated enough for new parents. Lock it up if you MUST bring it, but there are a lot better options out there for this sort of trip.

My recommendation would be a combination Snugride type of stroller (kind of a frame and wheels for the carseat. Graco makes one specifically for their carseats, and there's a more generic version available from Baby Trend called a Snap and Go) and Baby Bjorn. Snap and Gos are a lot easier to get into tight spaces, and the Bjorn makes it easy to take the baby into places where even that little stroller would be awkward.

[eeyorecol.livejournal.com]

We both wrote at the same time and recommended a Snap N Go - it's such a good thing

An umbrella stroller like a Maclaren (if you want something fancy) is good once the baby is bigger and can sit pretty well...

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

I'll third this and add that the Maclaren snap-n-go thing (http://www.maclarenbaby.com/us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=98&Itemid=490) is much better than the other one (Graco I think) we tried. It's more expensive but very cheap compared to a full-on stroller. Also, we park our fancy schmancy stroller, folded up, outside Soundbites all the time without locking and have never had a problem. We don't usually use it right around the Square. It may help that no one can figure out how to unfold it and unlock the wheels in the time required for a quick getaway.

[eeyorecol.livejournal.com]

Congrats! As the mom of an almost 14 month old, I'm going to throw out some totally unsolicited advice:

I loved using a Snap N Go - a stroller frame that you lock the baby seat into, rather than using a huge stroller for a newborn. Once my daughter outgrew the baby seat, we moved on to an umbrella-type stroller, which can fit most places. If you are going out during the day, leaving the stroller outside isn't too much of an issue, as long as your stroller isn't giant. :-)

I got a jogging stroller off of Craig's List, and most of the time I think that it's just unweildy and a pain in the butt (though it's excellent for going over unshoveled sidewalks, another staple of DSLJ discussions!)

Other good thing to know: Starbucks and Mr. Crepe both have changing tables. Mr Crepe is sometimes baby central at lunch time on week days because they have high chairs (and you can leave your stroller by the place where they make the crepes)