Be careful when you leave home

[sjsjbrook]

My friend went away on vacation over the labour day weekend, she returned to find that her house had been robbed, not of a few things, but everything, clothes, washer, dryer, TV, jewelery. They even took the shelves off the wall, but left the cookbooks, they took the sheets off the bed, but left the mattresses. They even unwrapped the birthday gifts for her one year old. They took her Yoga bag for the gym, which had her shampoo and towel. Apparantly they loaded up her car first, and took that and then returned with a truck and loaded it up.

This is something you really think only happens in the movies.

Why I am bringing this to your attention.

Well she lives in a neighbourhood and her neighbours were all home and NO ONE noticed the truck in her driveway.

Some advice she has now for those leaving home on vacation, I wanted to share.

Be careful about where you post you are going away, we all get excited about trips, and post on facebook, twitter and forums, but some people are watching for this.

Tell you neighbours that you are going away so they are suspicious of any activity in your house, yard.

Have someone check your house everyday you are away. (These people took their time and had to be there for most of the day to empty the entire house)

Hopefully my posting this will help prevent this from happening to anyone else. As you can imagine she is distraught, and now has to provide a list of every item that is missing in the house. Can you imagine trying to remember everything that was in your house?

 

[Golf4food]

Nobody should ever post on Facebook about an upcoming vacation or while they are on the vacation itself anything that might give away that they are not home. Rave about it once you get back home and upload some pictures, but don't give crooks an easy way to tell your place is ripe for the picking.

 

[roomthreeseventeen]

Wow, very scary. We always tell our doormen when we're going to be away, so they can keep an extra watch out.

 

[dburg30]

Yep I've found myself more then once wanting to post on FB about an upcoming vacation, but have always stopped myself. I may mention we are going somewhere, but never specific dates and usually not even vague ones

 

[LMO429]

My cousin recently was robbed in a similiar fashion. She went out briefly and a small van pulled up to her home and pretty much took everything. The neighbors who saw the van did not think anything of it because it looked like a work truck. They assumed work was being done to the house. The first thing the police officers asked my cousins was if she posted on facebookk that she was not home. They said nowadays all this technology makes it way to easy for criminals to know where you are and when you will be back.

It amazes me on facebook how people do not set their privacy settings.

 

[rkdahl]

Making your Facebook privacy settings "Friends Only" will go a long ways in keeping your activities more in check.

You really need to walk through all the privacy settings and make sure you are not broadcasting data you don't want to. Just search on Google for Facebook Privacy Settings and you'll find any number of pages that offer step by step privacy recommendations to help protect your information.

 

[stitchlover]

We had this happen in our neighborhood about a year ago. The poor people had a dog in the backyard that barked the entire time. Their neighbor told them I heard your dog barking hysterically all day I guess I should have looked into it!!!

 

[kaligal]

We have someone pick up the mail and feed the cat. We set timers on the lights.

But unless you have criminal friends, I don't see the harm in posting it on your Facebook page. Not that having criminal friends is a bad thing.

 

[Mrs Grumpy]

Something we do is we load our suitcases in the car when it is dark outside either really late at night or very early morning when there isn't any traffic out.

We also keep lights all over the house on timers so they will come on and off.

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

I am like this for my DD15, she is not allowed to post on FB when we are going to be out of town. She is a typical teenager with everyone she once knew on her FB page.

I however only have actual friends on there, and in fact have turned down many requests of people I know, but not well, cause no offense but I want it to be a place where just me and my friends are. Both of our privacy settings are set for everything to be "friends only." No one on there won't already know we are going to be gone and they all know we don't have anything worth stealing anyway.

Honestly, I worry more about my neighbors knowing I am gone them my FB friends, but that may just be me. But like PP we pack the car when it is dark and with the van baked in. If I had an attached garage I'd do it there.
BUT, it is awful sad what heppened and a good lesson for sure. I still don't know why anyone woulnd't use the privacy settings, but maybe that's just me too.

 

[disneygirl 17]

pleaserobme.com

has anyone ever heard of this...I heard it on a news story. It compiles when you are not going to be home from facebook, twitter etc.

 

[kathyell]

Making your Facebook privacy settings "Friends Only" will go a long ways in keeping your activities more in check.

You really need to walk through all the privacy settings and make sure you are not broadcasting data you don't want to. Just search on Google for Facebook Privacy Settings and you'll find any number of pages that offer step by step privacy recommendations to help protect your information.

And furthermore, log out of Facebook and then search for your own profile. When you find it, click on it so you can see what people who aren't on your friends list can see. That way you can be sure that you have set your privacy settings to something that will keep your posts between you and your friends only. If you have enabled the setting to keep people from even searching for you by name, you should be able to test that, too, to see if you really don't show up in the results.

 

[Friendly Frog]

This happened to my mother. It was heartbreaking. She has limited income at this point in her life, but she owned some really nice antiques, collectables and jewelry she acquired through the years. Of course those things were not covered by insurance, nor were many other items that were priceless to us. (Like Dads awards and medals.) No way will she ever be able to replace any of the items, and well, my inheritance is gone.

 

[disneym2m]

That is so sad, to go on vacation and to come home to that mess.

This is my dilemma for vacation. For the first time, we will be gone for two weeks in December and I somehow have to fool the neighborhood into thinking we are home.

So this is what I do...

1. I tell my next door neighbor and his wife but not the kids. He tells me that he doesn't even tell his kids we are gone just in case of the kids his kids hang out with.

2. I will have the Christmas lights on a timer. I do this every year so if this year I didn't have the Christmas lights up, someone will notice.

3. I have three lights. All near a window, so that light can be seen from outside. And I rig the times to come on and off at different times.

4. I have an alarm system and I have motion lights around the doors. What is good about the motion lights is that they are not on all day, and someone might notice that those lights haven't been shut off. I have the ones that turn on at night and shut off during the day. I have had these for a while, so the neighbors don't notice it. But if they are left on all day, they know something is up.

5. Usually a few weeks before a vacation we do certain things so that while we are gone it is not noticeable to the people in our neighborhood.

6. I also move heavy furniture in front of doors that are more easy to get into. Like the backdoor. Unless someone hears something, the back door is so easy to break into. And I lock the screen doors and go out another door.

It is rather sad that we have to do things like this, but in today's times I guess we have to.

Does anyone else have any security suggestions????

 

[heatherwillmom]

I heard about a town that had 50 houses robbed by 3 guys in a short time. After being caught & questioned by the police, they admitted that they got all their information about who would be not home & when from Facebook & Twitter. Maybe if you post that you're going to be gone you should add something like, "Going on vacation for a week. Good thing I had that new alarm system installed. It delivers an electrical shock like a taser to anyone touching the doors or windows without using the remote to turn it off, which I will have with me. I am a little worried that someone might actually get in & get hit by the shotguns that I have ****ied-trapped the doors with."

 

[disneym2m]

I heard about a town that had 50 houses robbed by 3 guys in a short time. After being caught & questioned by the police, they admitted that they got all their information about who would be not home & when from Facebook & Twitter. Maybe if you post that you're going to be gone you should add something like, "Going on vacation for a week. Good thing I had that new alarm system installed. It delivers an electrical shock like a taser to anyone touching the doors or windows without using the remote to turn it off, which I will have with me. I am a little worried that someone might actually get in & get hit by the shotguns that I have ****ied-trapped the doors with."

I really like this idea. I wonder if there really is such a product.....

 

[heatherwillmom]

maybe we should try to invent one. I have actually heard of some one fixing the shotgun to the door before.

 

[AJRitz]

maybe we should try to invent one. I have actually heard of some one fixing the shotgun to the door before.

It's a very, very bad idea. It's illegal. Such devices are called spring-guns, and even if someone is breaking into your home, if they are injured by a spring-gun you will find yourself faced with a lawsuit you will certainly lose (as well as facing assault and possible attempted murder criminal charges). To make matters worse, rigging a spring gun is an intentional act, so your homeowners insurance will be well within their rights to deny coverage for the incident, leaving you personally liable for the full amount of the judgment.

 

[heatherwillmom]

It's a very, very bad idea. It's illegal. Such devices are called spring-guns, and even if someone is breaking into your home, if they are injured by a spring-gun you will find yourself faced with a lawsuit you will certainly lose (as well as facing assault and possible attempted murder criminal charges). To make matters worse, rigging a spring gun is an intentional act, so your homeowners insurance will be well within their rights to deny coverage for the incident, leaving you personally liable for the full amount of the judgment.

I'm glad you're so worried about the criminals breaking into a house.

 

[DaParkers]

It amazes me on facebook how people do not set their privacy settings.

That's a good thing to do, but let's be honest, How many people REALLY know ALL of their facebook friends well? One of them could be the "Crook". And as much as we love the Dis, we don't know all of the posters personally. Most importantly, we don't know the lurkers. Here's a scenario. I have that I live in New Orleans, La in my profile and also mention that I'm going to WDW Nov 10-17. Someone in Ms. sees that, then looks through my posts and see that I mentioned my real name in one of them or they heard it during a voicemail on the podcast, so they use whitepages.com and gets my address. Far fetched? Maybe, But if the payoff is thousands of dollars worth of goodies, then maybe it's worth it for them to drive an hour, rob me, and then go back to a place that the police won't be looking. Don't forget that there are some smart and savvy criminals. I feel a little safer since I live on a naval base that restricts access to none military personnel and I am not listed in the phonebook since I don't have a house phone. Please, heed all common sense safety rules and even the ones not commonly known. Don't obsess over it, but take it seriously.