ITT, we count down to ICJ's WRX getting stolen

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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ITT, we count down to ICJ's WRX getting stolen

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I have to leave my WRX out all the time because the place in which I live does not have a garage. There's no real garage to park in either, when at work.

I came out to grab lunch today. The driver's side lock had been pushed in. Like pushed into the door. I am imagining the world's shittiest car thief trying to get into it, and accidentally pushing the fucking lock through the door. Because car thieves should all be executed, I'm sure he is as dumb as fuck and was content to simply damage my car.

The WRX locks, but with a hole where a lock used to be, I doubt it will be there when I wake up tomorrow.

So I present to you.... the countdown! We're gonna leave for the mechanic at 7:00 AM tomorrow. Will the WRX still be there?
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Flack
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Post by Flack »

We had a rash of those maybe last year. Apparently thieves put a screwdriver in your lock and then bash it in with a hammer. I guess at that point either the door unlocks or they can then pull/push the bar that unlocks the door? Seems barbaric, but if it didn't work they wouldn't do it.

it also (apparently) takes a lot of force, and it sounds like whoever hit yours didn't hit it hard enough to knock it all the way through, only part way. So... hooray?

Do you have anything sitting in your car that would attract thieves? GPS, anything? One of the biggest things they go for are gym bags and such, as they might contain keys or wallets or phones or iPods or gold bars.
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The Happiness Engine
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Post by The Happiness Engine »

Here is a dumb and tedious process that can assuage feelings of car anxiety:

Whenever you park, open the hood* and pull the relay. Car won't start = you still have a car, at least.

Image Top center in some random year's WRX, "EGI" is Moon-speak for "Engine Ignition".

* you might have a candidate fuse in the cabin, which just makes this easy.

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AArdvark
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Post by AArdvark »

Fuse 15A is for the cigar mirror. What is a cigar mirror and why does it require a fuse? Can you put one of those lojack things in it so you can track it when it does get stolen?



THE
IT WENT THATAWAY
AARDVARK

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The Happiness Engine
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Post by The Happiness Engine »

AArdvark wrote:Fuse 15A is for the cigar mirror. What is a cigar mirror and why does it require a fuse? Can you put one of those lojack things in it so you can track it when it does get stolen?
At what point in your life have you ever smoked a cigar and thought, "Damn, I SURE AM glad I can't see how AWESOME I look!" huh?

Isn't peace of mind worth a measly fifteen A's?

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Jizaboz
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Post by Jizaboz »

WTF is a cigar mirror?

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Post by Tdarcos »

15 Amps is a lot of power, I mean, the charger on my power wheelchair only requires 5 amps.

It's probably misleading, it's not "cigar mirror" it's probably "Power to cigar lighter and motor for side mirrors" (it might have said "cigarette" instead of "cigar" except they needed to make it small to fit on the fuse diagram).

The amount of power people can conceivably draw out of the <s> cigarette </s> cigar lighter could be enough to require 15 amps.
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The Happiness Engine
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Post by The Happiness Engine »

Tdarcos wrote:15 Amps is a lot of power,
No, 15 amps is a lot of <i><b>current</b></i> you dumb fuck.
I mean, the charger on my power wheelchair only requires 5 amps.
...at 10 times the voltage. To perform a wildly different task.
It's probably misleading, it's not "cigar mirror" it's probably "Power to cigar lighter and motor for side mirrors" (it might have said "cigarette" instead of "cigar" except they needed to make it small to fit on the fuse diagram).
Really? Is that what is happening? Are you sure that the Subaru WRX automobile does not have a mirror specifically for cigars that draws a fair amount of power? Because I'm pretty sure that is what we are all talking about: an electrified piece of silvered glass for the purposes of enjoying nicotine whilst driving.

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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

UPDATE!

Girlfriend came home before I did tonight. She texted to say that all four doors on my car were open and the trunk had been popped.

Apparently, the doors were slightly ajar. Like, right before they'd be closed all the way. They weren't wide open or anything. But nevertheless, I had been robbed.

It's tough because I leave my car on the street (we have no garage) AND I either walk to work or take the motorcycle. So up until now, there'd be days where I didn't check my car.

On Tuesday night I decided to get a little fast food. Tuesday was the last time I'd driven it. Because fast food places need to give you a cup the size of the Discovery's oxygen tank, y--

Well, shit.

I just read Flack's post about the tornadoes. None of this matters. This ... this isn't a real problem.

I was going to ask if people have video cameras setup on their property, and how they were setup and how much video they saved. I just... it's not a big deal.

The thief stole my Garmin from 2002, its charger and a car charger I had for my iPhone. He left the battery charging station in the back, which was worth a hundred bucks. Dumb fuck. I hope the Garmin brings him as much joy as it did me, which is to say that I hope he literally throws it at the dashboard when the piece of filth tries to use it to get out of town and avoid highways.

It's pretty clear that there are lowlifes testing the doors of all the cars in the neighborhood each day or night. I'm going to get a video camera. Not so I can identify anyone, but so I can see the patterns. Also, I'm going to start checking that the cars are locked each night. OCD, yo.
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Flack
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Post by Flack »

That tornado post was 2 years old. Ben bumped it, trying to be funny.

When my truck got broken into years ago, they closed the doors just enough to make them latch but not enough to turn the dome light off. I woke up to a bunch of shit missing and, perhaps more annoyingly, a dead battery. Savages.

Did they finally pop the lock out of the WRX?

You can get a four camera, self-contained DVR system for around $300 on TigerDirect. They use motion detection to record, do night vision, record to a hard drive, and overwrite as needed. I have two such systems. Neither one is hooked up. It's a long story.

You can also get a wireless webcam and connect it to your PC and run motion capture software. There are also a lot of people turning Raspberry Pis into security systems. I read one guy who even hooked it up to a small solar panel to recharge it and it's wireless. Cost about $100 start to finish, including the Pi.

I encourage you to leave a note on the dash letting the criminals know that they already stole everything so they don't need to bother doing it again.
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The Happiness Engine
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Post by The Happiness Engine »

Cameras are worthless. "A be-hoodied man committed a crime and took your stuff."

"Empty your car, leave the doors unlocked, pull the relay that fires the ignition." No matter who you are, what your car is, where you leave it, it will be there when you come back.

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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

It's not worthless if it's satisfying my curiosity. :)

The main thing I wonder is if I left the car unlocked or if someone got in. I'm also curious as to the time. I don't expect that I'm going to catch anyone but it would be nice to have more facts.

Additionally, since we're going to be in the new house for a long period of time (where we are now met so few of my needs -- like garage parking ha heh ha - that I knew it wasn't a long term solution) I'd like to know how often people even come to the house. The new place is one giant brick building converted into a duplex. We have a gate up some stairs. Some people might be coming for the neighbor, but I've always wanted to know what happens to where I live when I am gone.

It's all about control, Happiness Engine.

I'll start a new thread on cameras.
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RealNC
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Post by RealNC »

Well, I think the car should be safe now. Or very soon. With the depopulation of black people by the police that's going on over there, there's not going to be anyone left to steal the car.

(I made the above racist in more than just one way. That took some effort.)

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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

That's -- Jesus.

Geezus.

That's like a Russian egg doll of racism, sir.
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The Happiness Engine
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Post by The Happiness Engine »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:It's not worthless if it's satisfying my curiosity. :)

[...]

It's all about control, Happiness Engine.
As someone who recently had their apartment robbed (due to monumental stupidity) and once had their car broken into I know the feeling. I guess I was just drunkenly cautioning between the urge to know more and a previous landlord's idiot son who camped in an entirely blacked-out living room and anxiously watched his twelve camera feeds (recording to disk in the basement) as a stray cat walked by.

The latter may have been related to a pretty decent cocaine habit, but I think my point still stands.

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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

That's a good point. I don't want to have the Ozymandias television setup going. The monster I tend to drop doesn't fall on Manhattan, it falls out of my pants.

(Ladies.)

Fuck, what was the story of your apartment getting robbed? That sounds terrible. Was it a hot prowl burglary, or was the guy kind of doughy-looking?
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The Happiness Engine
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Post by The Happiness Engine »

It's a boring story. Turns out if you drunkenly stumble out of your apartment on the way to work the spring on the door may close but not actually LATCH that door. Do THAT a few times and what was probably a delivery guy, maybe a neighbor, notices and does a riffle-and-grab. EVERY single thing I own was opened, evaluated for stuffing into pockets, and deemed not small or expensive enough to steal, but recreating the path through my apt was a pretty interesting experience. Things like "riffle jacket pockets while walking from hall closet to bedroom, dump on bed", "check kitchen containers and freezer". I don't think anyone was in there for longer than 90-120 seconds.

I lost $300 cash and the cheapest (empty) grinder one can purchase from the types of stores frequented by assholes. Money well spent, I now make sure my fucking APARTMENT DOOR in a LARGE CITY is indeed locked before stumbling drunk to work.

Laptops, phones, tablets? All that shit will be gone. Jewelery? Oh hell yes. Those 8 or so silver dollars I had from an aunt I just remembered about because they are worth nothing more than face value? so I lost maybe $312 worth of goods and/or services.

mid-size tower, LCD, 40lb speakers? All that shit was perfectly cozy when I got back from work to find a few hundred dimes sloshed across my entryway. (I have a problem with coins, to whit: I do not care to deal with them. They just ended up, sorted, in a bunch of ziploc bags until the day I get around to dumping them into a Coinstar. (This has never once happened.))

Papers and shit? Ain't no one got time to grab my passport, checkbook, or other white collar fraud. All left untouched out in the open.

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Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I have a laptop upstairs. (I'm not too worried about someone making off with the development/gaming PC beyond the trap door.) I should probably figure out a way to secure it, but we're moving in two months so I can do it then. But yeah, it'd be gone as well as the tablet I would suppose.

I will say that it is nice that at the new house we don't have anything so it's fine if someone comes through. I hope we have ghosts.
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Post by Flack »

The Happiness Engine wrote:It's a boring story. Turns out if you drunkenly stumble out of your apartment on the way to work the spring on the door may close but not actually LATCH that door. Do THAT a few times and what was probably a delivery guy, maybe a neighbor, notices and does a riffle-and-grab. EVERY single thing I own was opened, evaluated for stuffing into pockets, and deemed not small or expensive enough to steal, but recreating the path through my apt was a pretty interesting experience. Things like "riffle jacket pockets while walking from hall closet to bedroom, dump on bed", "check kitchen containers and freezer". I don't think anyone was in there for longer than 90-120 seconds.
As horrifying as this story is, I read it as the guy went through your jacket pockets and then took a dump on your bed. Talk about adding insult to injury!
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Post by Flack »

I've never had my home or apartment broken into, which is amazing seeing as how I lived in some pretty sketchy places when I was younger. The closest was when I lived in El Reno and we had homeless people living in our shed. I had a motorcycle parked out there and they never touched it. The only thing they did was huff all my spray paint that I had out there. Other than that, they picked up a bunch of trash around the shed and cleaned up stacks of stuff I had on the floor so they would have room to sleep. I may be the only person who has had homeless people living in his shed actually raise his property value.

When it comes to car break-ins, I've had a few.

The first was when I worked at Pizza Inn. Our store was in a sketchy part of town and our buildings (and bathrooms) were always being covered in gang graffiti. I was driving a Ford Festiva at the time and had removed the rear seats so I could cram even more speakers into an already small car. I had subwoofers, mids, 6x9s, and whatever else was on sale at the fleamarket crammed into the back of that thing. I had also hawked my original NES at a pawn shop to purchase an alarm for the car that never quite worked right.

I came out of work one night and my initial thought was, "I don't remember parking in all that broken glass!" Then it hit me. When I looked inside, everything was gone: the stereo, the speaker box, the amplifiers, and perhaps most humiliating, the alarm system.

They stole my goddamn car alarm system.

I always suspected another delivery driver was in on the theft, but I never could prove anything.

Then there was "the big one" at my last house. I was living in a decent neighborhood with lots of nice neighbors and even though I still locked my car doors at night I didn't really think twice about what I left in them overnight.

One night I went to a concert after work and didn't get home until midnight. I left my work bag in my Isuzu Rodeo, and parked next to it was my Geo Tracker which was doubling as a car stereo competition vehicle. I came outside the next morning at 6am and instantly knew what had happened.

Let's see. In the Tracker alone I was out about $3k in stereo equipment, not to mention they broke the console ripping out the stereo, the glove compartment door, and a window. From the Rodeo they stole my laptop bag from work. The bag contained a bunch of expensive things I owned (everything from my Palm Pilot to an external CD-Rom burner that I had just paid $500 for) to my work laptop. If you ever want to know the definition of "paperwork," try getting a government laptop stolen.

I can't remember exactly now, but on both cars I think I had liability insurance so essentially nothing got covered. In fact my car insurance told me that my home owner's insurance might cover the laptop bag and its contents, but they didn't because it was in the driveway and it wasn't connected to the house or the car or something. So yeah, that was all an expensive lesson.

At that same house I also had what I called a GPS tax. Each time I left my car doors unlocked someone would steal my GPS. I forgot to lock my car doors about once a year and each time I did I would come out and my GPS would be gone. The only good part of this was GPS units are relatively cheap and I was able to keep up with the latest technology since I was buying a new one every year.
"I failed a savings throw and now I am back."

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