Common to have items taken from porches?

[skreeky]

I really don't want to start a flame war - this is an honest question for people living in the area between Davis and Ball Square.

When I was younger I lived in JP. I loved it. However, it was a town where you didn't bother to put out a pumpkin in October because it would be smashed by morning, and you tried very hard to be home for deliveries because boxes would be stolen from the porch.

I've spent the past decade in West Roxbury, where you could have anything at all on your porch and yard and it would not be disturbed.

Now, in the process of moving in, I've been tossing empty boxes on the front porch. Some are broken down, but others are not obviously empty (full of packing material). The idea is to eventually post to Craigslist that there are empty boxes at *address*, and they go away. However, I have not posted that yet, because I have recently placed a number of mail orders, and I don't want my items to be taken by "accident" with the empties should they arrive. The problem is that I just got home, and someone has helped themselves to my empties anyway. On the face of it, that's fine - I wanted to be rid of them.

What I am wondering is, is this the sort of neighborhood where I ought to be trying to have my deliveries taken around to the rear for safety? Do people generally help themselves to things on porches? Some of my neighbors have quite elaborate sitting areas on porches and I figured there was no problem with respect of that space.

I'm "fine" with living in either sort of neighborhood, but I'd rather not find out the hard way which this is.

Comments

[ron_newman]

friendly moderator note

Could you please edit a Subject line into your post? This will make it easier to find and probably cause more people to read it. Thanks.

ETA: I tagged this 'crime' and 'mail'. If you click on the tags, you'll see occasional posts about package theft. I don't think it's endemic to our neighborhood, but it has been known to happen.

[skreeky]

Done - that was an accidental omission.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I've never had any problems with packages disappearing from porches, though I've heard of occasional rashes of disappearances from others' porches. I'd probably want to sign for packages of obviously valuable things, or bring them inside very promptly

People pretty often leave stuff out on the front sidewalk AS free stuff, with the intention that others take it away. But that's the sidewalk, not the porch.

Your pumpkin will be fine. Carve away! :) Welcome to the neighborhood.

[smacaski.livejournal.com]

I used to live in that area--I'm over in Teele Square now--and there was one incident in which I had a package stolen off my porch (someone obviously needed those silicone pie crust covers more than I did). Given that was once during four years and dozens upon dozens of deliveries, I think it's generally pretty safe to have packages delivered to your front porch.

I tend to be a bit warier around the winter holidays, though--of course, that's when lots of people are having lots of fancy presents shipped to their homes, so the porch thieves really come out then.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

We're on the corner of a street that gets constant foot (and car) traffic, but haven't had an issue. Some shippers default to leaving things on the back porch which is fine, but mostly things are out front and nothing has been taken to my knowledge.

We also leave our primary stroller on the porch and so far so good, though it is older and not so shiny-looking. I've seen plenty of $700+ strollers unlocked on local porches overnight, though, so obviously folks aren't too worried.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Yep, believe it or not, one of the most popular strollers in this area is the Uppababy Vista. http://www.amazon.com/UPPAbaby-Vista-Stroller-Cole-Slate/dp/B004IYNIQC

Seriously, they are everywhere. But yes, a lot of people end up buying second-hand. And the Vista isn't even the most expensive thing out there, it just happens to super-big here, in part because the company is based in MA.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

I never have had anything taken from my porch at our current location, and I get all kinds of stuff shipped in.

We don't do pumpkins anymore, tho, because they rot so fast and we get ants on the porch from them. I WOULD do pumpkins, if I didn't have the ant issue.

[gmg-1.livejournal.com]

I've never had a problem with any of my shipments, but someone did steal a folding wood table and three chairs from my driveway/backyard at some point when I was gone for Independence Day. This has shaken my faith in humanity *and* left me nowhere to sit.

[seltzer92.livejournal.com]

yes, it is common to have items taken from your front porch around here. and no, i would not risk having items delivered and left on the porch. this is why i opened a P.O. Box and instructed my mail person to ring the doorbell and actually wait to see if i answer., instead of ringing and then dumping the item and continuing on his route as fast as he can.

oftentimes a mail person will assume a neighbor will take in your package for you (for example a person on another floor in a triple decker building)

there was a small ring of criminals around here a few years ago that were grabbing christmas packages of folks' front steps in somerville and cambridge. the story made national news including the drudgereport etc.

[puffy-wuffy.livejournal.com]

It kind of depends. I get out of work earlier than my roommates and am therefore able to receive everyone's packages, so we don't get things stolen, but I think, especially if you're on a well travelled main road that having things shipped to your workplace or a PO Box will save you a lot of trouble.

[mytheria.livejournal.com]

In general I've found it to be fine to leave things. When I was closer to Tufts, and in more of a student dense area, people would be aggressive about hunting for empty boxes this time of year. I'm in north cambridge (for a few weeks more) and have left all sorts of stuff on the front porch with no issue, but I'm on a tiny side street.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

I got a box bench for our front porch and the sign on our mailbox asks that deliveries be left inside it. The UPS guy said I was brilliant and always uses it. It's also handy if I'm away and forget to have them hold my mail. Obviously it wouldn't keep anyone determined from grabbing a package, but it keeps them out of general view/temptation.

[gingicat]

Ooh, that sounds like a great idea. *makes note*

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

This is a great idea, and thanks for sharing it.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

Hmm, that just gave me a business idea -- a locked drop-box for packages.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

I have a problem with dickish UPS guys, not people stealing stuff from the porch. Seriously, my UPS guy keeps insisting that my neighborhood is "too dangerous" to leave packages on the porch.

We live a few blocks from Magoun in a neighborhood full of families and old people.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

We also live a couple of blocks from Magoun, and someone just stole our $30 umbrella stroller off our front porch this afternoon. WTF. But no one's ever stolen any package from our porch that I know of, and after 3 years of living here this is the first theft we've experienced.

[wintahill.livejournal.com]

I live a few blocks farther from Magoun over in Winter Hill. I have the same issue with UPS, they refuse to leave any packages at my house if no one is home. That is pretty much all the time during week. I really don't know if UPS boxes would be stolen off the porch because they never leave anything, but USPS/Amazon Lasership stuff has never been a problem.

Really annoying and it makes online shopping so much less convenient.

[enveri.livejournal.com]

We live on Winter Hill too. Had to sign the affadavits with UPS to leave stuff without a signature (we have a closed porch).

Grumble.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

sadly, i can even understand why they say that.

I'm near-ish to Magoun. i've never personally had a package go missing, but someone stole our little solar lights that we had planted by our front steps. And a sheet of aluminum that I was using to direct water away from the foundation. :(

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

The annoying thing is he'll happily leave some packages but not others, and deliberately ignores the slips we sign.

[pukwudgie.livejournal.com]

I'm in that general area and have never had a package taken from the front porch that I know of (in 5 years), but did have someone steal unlocked pieces of my husband's bike from the back porch once a few years ago (can't remember if it was the seat or the wheel).

Welcome!

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I'm in your nearby neighborhood, too, and I think it totally varies.
We've never had any packages disappear off our porch. We keeps some simple furniture, some tools (shovel, broom, icemelt) and put out pumpkins some years, and none of that has been a problem. We also have friend pick up things off our porch that we put out in a bag with their name on it (things like dishes left after a potluck, for instance).

But our color-changing LED light-bulb was stolen out of our porch fixture once, and one year we had c-9 Christmas lights (the cabana-party style with the screw in bulbs) strung at the outer edge of our yard, and some kids (our downstairs neighbors saw them and aged them to be about 9 - 11 years old) took bulbs out one or two at a time, until one day they stripped them all out.

Our immediate neighbor has had potted plants stolen off her steps and even had some flowers *dug out of the ground* and stolen.

My reading is that there are/were some kids in the area hostile about new-comers and expressing themselves though casual vandalism. Our lights are gaudy even by Somerville standards... they're a few degrees to the left of the kind of thing others do (giant rainbows, palm trees, that sort of thing). The color-changing LED, and the annuals of our neighbor, I think, marked us as not belonging to the 'hood.

If you're further over by Bay State or the park, I think you have a fairly different 'hood, though. A block or two changes things.

Anyway, we've never had any serious, determined theft, just casual vandalism kind. And I think it comes and goes with a few kids here and there. One year all the teens and pre-teens seem to be a really good crop and they're out there helping shovel the walks. And another year, annoying stuff happens for a while, and then it stops. Hard to say in the end.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

I lived in the same house just off the Tufts campus for 6+ years and had the following:

1) One package stolen
2) Random ripe produce from the garden (cukes, tomatoes...)
3) A dorm cube sized fridge stolen off the back porch that had sat on the back porch, also in all fairness, for months. (We didn't need it and kept thinking about giving it away, sort of thing...)
4) My locked bike stolen off the back porch (WAH!!!) (A newish bike, but not a particularly fancy one)
5) And the most bizarre of all: I had an old and broken washing machine, and I didn't know what to do with it. It got to my driveway via a hand truck and, well, sat there. It was tied to the handtruck with rope. In this order, someone stole the cord from the washing machine. The rope. The handtruck. And finally the washing machine. Aside from the hand truck this was a great boon because I had no idea how to get rid of an old washing machine!

However, I would say these 5 things are a pretty good record for 6+ years. And I did NOT have stolen: tables, chairs, a hammock, tiki torches, a hibachi, a grill, pitchforks, shovels, and other gardening supplies under the porch, tomato cages, a bike trailer.... this is just a partial list of stuff I left out at various points... Oh! And clothes on a clothesline on my porch! Also never stolen.

[skreeky]

Thanks everyone - it sounds like consensus is that while there is a certain amount of risk in having possessions outside your house because there are incidents, it's not a completely stupid idea. Any densely populated area is bound to have a few petty crooks and a--holes, but it doesn't seem like a chronic "your stuff will be stolen promptly if not nailed down (and then it will just take slightly longer)" issue.