Check out the video here.
[Ed – now below]
Ahhh… there’s nothing like the feeling of waking up, looking at something thinking ‘thats not right’. Welcome to my last Saturday morning. Looking at my back gate thinking “I didn’t leave that open”, and being into electronics, rewind the DVR running my CCTV setup at my house to see a weird light flashing around inside my van.
With the wife gasping going “oh no that looks like a torch”, rewind a bit further back to confirm the dreadful feeling of “yep – that is someone going through my van”.
So it seems, this guy who would be in his mid to late teens, rather slim dressed in 3/4 length shorts, white shoes, white tight t-shirt, light coloured cap and a black bum bag came down next door’s driveway to check out their car. Then he moves onto my place. Unknown by him, i’ve got a CCTV setup in place to watch his moves.
He spends about 25 minutes in total at my place, checking out the 3 cars, looking through the study window, being very careful not to make noise. He moves onto my van where he spends the majority of his time – pulling to bits a cheap $80 LCD monitor in the front of the van (used for a reversing camera), then moving into the back and going through a cabinet in its entirety. In the end, i’m missing a torch, few dollars in coins, but he was nice enough to leave the cheap LCD monitor in a few bits in the back of the van for me.
The police turn up within 30 minutes of my call to have a look at the mess he made and obtain a copy of the footage for their reference. I know there isn’t much they can do with the footage apart from possibly using the description of the guy for anyone else that may have seen this guy lurking around.
In the end, i’m very lucky that nothing was damaged and really nothing big stolen. I can only put down his entry into my van by him using an un-locked door (which is very bizarre for me to leave anything unlocked – however the van was in for a service so i’m thinking perhaps they unlocked it and I neglected to check it), or that he’s very good and getting it open without any damage. If anyone recognises this young fella, i’d be very interested to hear from you to pass the information on to the police. We both have a feeling we’ve seen him around, and now keeping an eye out. He certainly seems to know what to be careful with (noise), and really does not care at all about automatic sensor lights.
If anything comes out of this post for the readers, it’s to make you think everything locked up and secured as best as it can, because there are these little thiefs everywhere. You’ll notice in the video he had a look at the window lock – wouldn’t surprise me if he had entered the house. That’d be a lovely thing to wake up to – seeing a stranger standing in your bedroom. CCTV systems are great for watching bad things happen such as this, but its a cosmetic security. I always recommend concentrate on prevention security – better locks, security doors and grills, back-to-base alarm systems before installing CCTV security, for again, prevention is better then cure.
Keep an eye on your neighbours and street – you know your street best. Report suspicious activity to the police/crimestoppers – for every little bit helps, and hopefully we can reduce the number of these idiots who keep out insurance premiums high.
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