Funny how the first car that was a sedan was the one that got broken into. They tried to pry open the trunk, then broke the driver’s window and cut through the back seat to get into the trunk.

As for your thief, to have been hit that many times it’s probably some neighborhood goof (or nearby neighborhood) that cruises through and knows who the targets are. Putting in a good car alarm is probably enough deterrent.

I wished they had broken the window… Instead, they busted the door lock out of the driver door. The damages were over $1500.

The most frustrating part was knowing that it happened just outside my window while I was sleeping. If I had been awake, no doubt I would have heard them. Not sure what I would have done if I caught them. Perhaps I would have accosted them holding my BB gun, which looks very real… Or maybe I would have offered them $50 to drop everything and leave.

Now I ALWAYS park my car in the driveway, and I changed our porch lights out with higher wattages so it lights up the whole front yard and driveway. I try to add as much additional risk to the crime as I can.

I’ve successfully operated a garage door from the 1930′s and another from the ’40s. Manually! It *can* be done! Honest!

We didn’t leave the car unlocked even though the same window was broken both times, because cars have also been stolen out of that neighborhood and it would have been disastrous. If they have to break the window then they know the chances that someone heard them have gone up exponentially and they have to just steal what they were going to steal and get the heck out of there. But if they can open the car door without making noise, they have that much more time to hotwire the thing and get lost. This is more true the closer the car is to your building. Matt’s was pretty close to mine.

Anyway… I have no answers. The only real answer there in your case, I think, is if the cops will step up patrols in your neighborhood. That will either scare off the thief or will increase the likelihood of him getting caught.

I can guess why he stole the jumper cables–they’re likely loaded with copper. Copper theft’s a big problem all over the country right now, especially in urban areas, and especially in areas where people use a lot of natural gas–the pipes feeding gas into buildings are usually made of copper.

Anecdote: My car was stolen back in ’96 or ’97. There were no valuables to speak of in my vehicle, save the collection of coins and one-dollar bills in my ashtray. I had been in the habit of dumping my change in the ashtray since I don’t smoke. It came in handy if I was broke just before payday and needed to fill the tank, back in the days when gasoline was less than a dollar a gallon. *sigh*

Apparently the kid (it was probably a kid) didn’t smoke, or he flicked ashes out the window. The money was still in the ashtray!

It kind of made up for the other thing we discovered when we got the car back: the little hooligan had smashed the outer covering of the steering column so he could hotwire the car. Until we replaced the column I spent the next few months having to hotwire my car to start it. Not as complex as it sounds, it was just a button on the side you had to shift, but it was stiff and I got calluses on my thumb.

In all these cases we were in luck. At the time my car was stolen my then-husband was from a family of mechanics and knew how to replace the column. We went and got one from the junkyard that fit. It was a pain installing it, though–if you aren’t a patient person you’re better off paying someone else to do it. In Matt’s case he knows how to change the door glass in a nineties-era Toyota, which is pretty much what his car was (a Geo Prizm), so he went to a junkyard both times for the replacement window. I feel sorry for people who can’t or won’t go that route and wind up shelling out hundreds and hundreds of dollars every time some jerk messes up their car.

I know it’s impractical, but for fun, I do like the idea of rigging the car so that a net falls on the burglar while s/he’s inside the car, or so that sticky confetti or something sprays out all over the burglar when s/he opens the glove compartment. It would also be fun to rig a decoy package (kept out of view in the trunk, for example), so that red dye sprays out on the burglar when s/he opens it.

But then, that may incite the burglar to come back and do more damage….!

Most cities have a “crime map” that will tell you what kinds of crimes have happened in your area. Maybe you are not the only one? I live in Portland and you can see those stats here

http://www.gis.ci.portland.or.us/maps/police

Oh, and he never left anything in them that he minded losing.

I NEVER leave valuables in the car, and if I absolutely have to, I take great pains to hide them. For instance, when I drive to the park to go walking, I leave my purse in the trunk and just take my keys with me. I will put my purse in the trunk BEFORE I leave the house, so there’s not even a chance someone at the park will see my putting it in the trunk. I am always very careful hide whatever is in the car, valuable or not, so it’s not in plain view. A lot of thieves in my city are just drug addicts looking for something to rip off to sell for drugs. They don’t care what it is or how valuable it is. So you should make it look like there’s nothing there. I would NEVER leave my cellphone in the car, and charges, ipod transmitters, etc, I leave out of sight in the glove box.

I also recommend getting a home alarm and motion sensors if you can. My parents got a home alarm, after three different houses in their condo complex got broken into. They live in a nice suburb and some thieves were targeting the neighborhood during the workday because they knew all the houses would be empty. Their next door neighbor got his car stolen out of his own carport! But the home alarm and sensors are totally worth it for some peace of mind. It’s not a 100% guarantee that you won’t ever get robbed again – but it definitely reduces your chances.

Crackheads take anything they can make $10 on. You really should carry everything around with you at all times, so they can’t take it from your unattended car. I don’t know…I’m just going to move to the country.

And I once had some rattlesnake rattles stolen out of my car. Why did I have rattles in my car? Long story…. but the wisdom says whoever stole them is going to have some very bad luck.

I shudder sometimes to think if they’d found the gun before coming to our house and if I’d woken up with my son during the night. Worse, what if I’d carried him downstairs with me because he wouldn’t go back to sleep?

We live in a low crime area, but anything can happen anywhere. We’ve since become distrustful and lock our doors even when we’re home. In other places we’ve lived, we’d often go out with the doors unlocked, the back door open or the garage open – never a problem. We’ve also installed a home alarm system, which has been an annoyance at times, but worth the $33/month for the peace of mind. Not that that will stop a determined person, but any deterrent is good, I think.

First, we moved. I’d rather pay higher rent than medical bills and glass replacement costs – not to mention the general tension of being always worried about the safety of my loved one… just not worth the “savings”.

Now we park in a lot, and our 2000 Honda spends its time next to a new BMW convertible (possibly the fanciest car in the neighborhood). We haven’t been broken into since.

The lesson – if your car looks like a cheap piece of crap, maybe they won’t break into it?

In your case, J.D, I’d probably leave a little envelope with the following note: “Smile for the camera! Congratulations, your photograph has just been captured and forwarded to (insert city) police department where I’m sure they know you. I have had thousands of dollars stolen from my vehicle, and one can only assume you are the habitual offender, so I plan to press felony theft charges against you.”