We were robbed!

[etoiles]

This morning we woke up to discover we were robbed! All of our solar lights had been stolen out of our front yard except for one that was hiding under a bush. They were gorgeous ones that we had gotten many compliments on as well.

They didn't stop at the solar lights either.... they took our orange light bulb out of our porch light next to our front door!!!

What do we do now?? I am worried now since normally we put up Christmas lights and decorations but I wouldn't want those stolen either.

Anyone else have this happen? Any tips on preventing it being stolen?

 

[lovemygoofy]

Do you have motion detector lights near your doors? I would do that quickly if you don't. I'd be more freaked out that someone is trying to put my house in the dark than thinking someone wants to steal my Christmas lights.

 

[DreaminDisney]

Do you have motion detector lights near your doors? I would do that quickly if you don't. I'd be more freaked out that someone is trying to put my house in the dark than thinking someone wants to steal my Christmas lights.

That was my thought too. I'd get the motion detector light.

 

[DISNEY1975]

I read about that happening here in MA about a year ago.

Turns out the thieves owned a small landscape company and stole them to use for landscaping on a customers home. They charged them for the lights!!

The owners of the lights searched up and down streets looking for their unique lights and found them about 3 miles from their house!

Call the police. At minimum they will patrol your area for a while. these jerks would probably not go after your christmas decor..to much hassle going through the snow!

 

[a1tinkfans]

Sorry to hear this OP!

My ds and I MADE our Easter decorations years back. We went to the lumber yard, got the wood home, and then drew them into egg shapes, then had dh cut them out for us. We then hand painted them. They were so pretty, about 20" tall and made the wood stakes and everything.....

Lo and Behold.....they WALKED off.........talk about SAD, The ds was in near tears. I literally cried to think some jerk took them!! All that work and more importantly, the pleasure we had in making them...which actually took a while.
I did call Police, and reported it. Nothing came of it...
BUT
I refuse to give in to losers that steal....SO

We made MORE, and on the back of each one painted right on them "stolen From #XX XYZ Street, Town" at least thinking they could not give them away without being questioned about how they got them. BY the way, I was so annoyed that AFTER they had been stolen I placed a sign on my lawn, saying Hope you are proud of stealing a Childs decorations!!
The dh didn't want too but I was so Hurt!!
We literally use Chain link around all our Xmas metal sculptures as they are expensive.....we once saw our reindeer moved about 5' and then spilled over on the side (someone prob tried to take it and then realized it was chained ) WOuld have liked to seen their face... though my dh may have been hard to control with a thief caught red handed!
We have motion detectors now and literally hide the chains on decorations we place outside.
If you went thru my neighborhood, you'd think "never an issue here" BUT as Police said....its likely kids, they are such brats sometimes.....
SInce then...no issues.

 

[JR6ooo4]

and add some security cameras, or fake ones...

http://cgi.ebay.com/4-FAKE-DUMMY-SE...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2ea8804f95

Mikeeee

 

[DebbieB]

About 4 years ago my aunt cut a snowman out of plywood and painted and decorated it. She got a rebar and drove it into the ground and attached it to the snowman with a metal bar and screws. One morning I came out to go to work and all that is standing there is the rebar! Someone stole it! My guess is they just pulled it up off the rebar, the metal bar went around it. It was 3 or 4 feet high so it couldn't have just blown away.

 

[etoiles]

Wow! Thanks for those stories. I think we will chain down our deer for Christmas since that is our most pricey decoration.

Do you have motion detector lights near your doors? I would do that quickly if you don't. I'd be more freaked out that someone is trying to put my house in the dark than thinking someone wants to steal my Christmas lights.

This never occured to me until you said it but we live in a suburb where the houses are pretty close together and have street lights so we are in no way in the dark. The orange light was actually a motion detector one until they screwed off the bulb.

We started to drive around looking for our orange light or solar lights but they may have been placed in their backyard.

 

[Mermaid02]

This has happened to us...... my husband is an electrician an he SO wants to give the decorations a little "lift"........ I told him we'd probably get sued and the would be thief would win........

 

[Luv Bunnies]

A few years ago, someone took a reindeer from our lawn. I was completely ticked off and called the police to report it. They told me to file an online report but they wouldn't do much about it. Later that day, my son found the reindeer on the driveway next door. The house was vacant at the time and there's a big hedge between our driveways. I don't know if it had been there all day or if the thief brought it back and left it there.

Several days later, someone decided to toss a reindeer on our roof and put our snowman family on DH's car. Now I was really ticked off and put everything in the garage. The more we thought about it, the more determined we were to keep our Christmas display up! We put everything back on the lawn and I put a few signs around that said, "Videotaping in proress." I also put a sign on a tree that told people to call 911 if they see a crime in progress in the neighborhood. Also, just for good measure, we bought some heavy-duty clothesline - the kind that has a thick metal wire encased in plastic. I wound the wire through everything in the display and then fastened it to the porch. To keep the ends of the wire together, I got some metal fasteners. You slip the ends of the clothesline through it and then pound it flat with a hammer. This material can be cut with wirecutters but we figured most punk petty thieves don't carry those with them. Our display was untouched for the rest of the season and we haven't had any problems since. You can't run from these twerps. You have to play hardball with them!

 

[GeorgeG]

We haven't had any problems like that where we live now, but up in New York it was fairly common to have things stolen from our yard. We lived on a street that had a lot of foot traffic and my wife is really big into decorating for just about every holiday.

I would advise against rigging items with electricity only because of the liabilities involved. I do like the idea, but sometimes we are forced to be practical. The motion sensor lights seem to be the way to go in this "civilized" world we live in...

 

[Kit'smommy]

Someone stole our light up train out of our front yard Christmas two years ago and several of the large inflatables at neighbors' houses were slashed. I really hope what goes around comes around to people that do stuff like that.

We still haven't bought a replacement as it was expensive, but if I do, it will get chained to the porch.

 

[DisneyAndRedSox]

I am so sorry that happened! Actually, everyones stories gets me mad!

My husband's parents live in a neighborhood with very small yards. Well, DH was home from college sound asleep in his room (parents were away) and his friends collected lawn decorations from all over the city and decorated the front lawn as a joke in the middle of the night. The front lawn is extremely small and it was packed, not a blade of grass was showing. The police had to bring the paddy wagon to haul all the stuff away and people had to go to the station to claim their stuff. Even made the paper...

Ironically DH shared an apartment with the ring-leader for several years after college and now he lives in a very nice house. If I ever see one of those fundraisers where you can have someone's lawn decorated with pink plastic flamingos you can bet I will be taking out my checkbook!

 

[Pooh_Friend#1]

We had punk kids that liked to rearrange Christmas decorations when I was growing up. We would have a nice set of reindeers and snowman and when we wake up the next morning it would be gone and replacing it would be candy canes and wreaths.

 

[dawson5]

I am the crazy lady in the neighborhood who tracked down the kids who tried to steal our inflatable and popped it instead. Parents are all "yeah! one for us" and my boys are like "don't tell anyone you did that."

to the PP with the lawn filled with stuff when he woke up, I've been trying to get my DH to help me do something like that for a long time. Two moves ago, he was driving back to the apartment with his boss (boss took a job out of state, hubby followed, they shared an apt until we moved up there, paid for by the work). His boss complained about all the Xmas decorations in a yard they passed. Hubby was like whatever, it's christmas time, people take it seriously. I keep telling him (DH) that we need to make a bunch of decorations and put them in his yard so that when he wakes up he'll find them. (I don't want to take anyones, just fill his boss' yard with ones we have made/bought.)

 

[lauradenise4779]

A few years ago, someone kept re-arranging our Christmas reindeer into, ummm...mating...positions. It wasn't during the middle of the night, but it was late, probably between 10:00 pm and midnight.

Finally, we'd had enough. We knew it had to be teenagers, so one night my husband hid under the front porch with the water hose. Sure enough, a group of teenage boys walked into our yard and started re-arranging our reindeer. As soon as they got close enough, he hosed them. It was freezing cold. They screamed like girls and ran off...probably because they were scared that they were caught and because they were now soaked in freezing cold. Never had another thing bothered in our yard!!!

 

[Mom23Disneybelievers]

A few years ago, someone kept re-arranging our Christmas reindeer into, ummm...mating...positions. It wasn't during the middle of the night, but it was late, probably between 10:00 pm and midnight.

Finally, we'd had enough. We knew it had to be teenagers, so one night my husband hid under the front porch with the water hose. Sure enough, a group of teenage boys walked into our yard and started re-arranging our reindeer. As soon as they got close enough, he hosed them. It was freezing cold. They screamed like girls and ran off...probably because they were scared that they were caught and because they were now soaked in freezing cold. Never had another thing bothered in our yard!!!

Good one!

 

[sbell111]

We had punk kids that liked to rearrange Christmas decorations when I was growing up. We would have a nice set of reindeers and snowman and when we wake up the next morning it would be gone and replacing it would be candy canes and wreaths.

We have heavy cast iron planters on either side of our driveway. A few years ago thought it was fun to move them across the street on either side of the neighbor's driveway. Each morning for a couple of weeks, I would move them back.

It was more amusing than anything else.

 

[LisaNJ25]

People are jerks. I had a pumpkin stolen last night. It was a heavy sucker to. I just bought 2 of them monday and had them up on my front porch on a bench..

 

[LuvOrlando]

Do you have motion detector lights near your doors? I would do that quickly if you don't. I'd be more freaked out that someone is trying to put my house in the dark than thinking someone wants to steal my Christmas lights.

I thought exactly the same thing. I think someone might be looking to have hours of uninterrupted time under the cover of darkness to work on getting into your home. Are your blinds closed at night? Do you have timers to set some lamps to go on & off through the night and give the impression of someone being awake? I do this when we're on vacation and/or if DH is on a business trip. My blinds go down at night and I have those multi time timers and set 3 different lamps on at 2 hour intervals. Yes, it is alot of work but I think from the outside my house looks like too much trouble compared to the neighbors. If you don't have any blinds I'd get them up so a prowler can't look in to see where you are, or aren't.

Good luck & be careful. There are allot of desperate people out in the world right now and I don't think desperate should ever be under-estimated.