Two e-mails about fresh Wallingford burglaries greeted us this morning. First, from Andrew:
My house at 43rd & Corliss was broken in to between noon and 9pm today (Friday). The burglar entered through a locked window in the rear of my house in a fenced yard, by breaking the latch on the window. Despite there being several valuable items left about, the burglar only took about $40 in quarters, but rifled through nearly everything in the house.
When a police officer arrived to investigate, he told me that he’d just come from another burglary over on Densmore, where some change and an X-Box had been taken. While he was here, another call came in reporting a third burglary on Eastern between 41st and 42nd.
Also stolen from my house was a shoebox-size blue metal lockbox with nothing valuable inside. If anybody sees this lying around, I would love to get it and any of its remaining contents back.
Despite our space feeling violated, my roommate and I are grateful that nobody was hurt and nothing valuable was stolen.
Then, from Paul, we received just “Just was robbed tonight. Essential Bakery neighborhood. Ack!”
According to statistics released by the Seattle Police Department, burglary reports city-wide in 2010 were down 10% from the 10 year running average and down 20% from 2009.
That’s burglary reports, though. For as often as we hear people talking about how they don’t even bother calling the police anymore because they either don’t respond or are disinterested in taking a report when they do (e.g., Comment #7 on Friday’s Snagging and Tagging), we wonder whether this reflects an actual improvement in the underlying problem, or just a sign of the increasing disconnection of the police from the people they’re supposed to protect and serve.
[Ed note: Changed “Robbery” to “Burglary”, per a Gamewatcher’s tweet.]
oh well, ho hum.
We have lots of threads about this and no one does anything.
The robbers and graffitti artists? win.
Out of curiosity, if any of the victims are looking at this, what sort of windows/locks were they? Might help out to know what sort of things might need replacing, for security’s sake. Or, which of my windows I need to electrify.
There was a mag crew in the area yesterday, people selling magazines door to door? I have heard sketchy things about these. Maybe some of them are legit but there have been some incidents in the past not only of fraud by the companies but burglaries by unsavory characters working for them.
@kolokolo, what are you doing / suggeting people do?
Gack! Once again, Wallyhood, you use the word “robbery” when you meant “burglary”. I thought we agreed, a month or so ago, that you understood the *significant* difference? I’m quite disappointed… but don’t let that keep you awake nights – I still luv ya 😉
-r
What’s up with the quarters being stolen? Didn’t Muddy Cup lose quarters when they got burgled??
@Wallyhood Thanks for writing this up. The cop who responded was very concerned and took a detailed report. He stayed here for about an hour and a half taking fingerprints.
@Robba Old double hung window. The cop who came said that these windows are insecure. By pushing the top sash down, the latch just ripped out. He also said that, because they are single-paned, the glass can be broken easily and without the loud bang that is caused by breaking the vacuum in a double-paned window.
@kolokolo that makes me 🙁
@ChrisW Probably pinball junkies looking for their next hit of silverball 🙂
We were burglarized in 2001 and the cop who responded told us to buy these super long nails and nail our ground floor, double hung windows shut for extra security. We did and we have two per window, right where the top and bottom windows meet. They aren’t the prettiest things, but they are well hidden by our curtains and shades. They look like push pins, only, you know, thicker, and 10 inches long, and we can easily take them out with a hammer head without bending them or messing up the holes.
Burglars generally break in one way and get out another. In our case, the burglars didn’t know what to do because a lot of our ground floor windows are painted shut, too! So they left the same way they came in, at the rear of the house. And because they didn’t take very much stuff (they took some of my husband’s old baseball cards and some old jewelry of mine that was tucked away), the cop determined that they were kids.
I made several suggestions in another thread.. no one responded.
You own the homes. You can decide what you want to do.. tyep away with dismay
OR strengthen neighborhood block watches, nigh tpatrols.. etc
one potluck per year is nOT enough and you and I knwo that.
As long as the magazine-selling crew was mentioned, a young man toting an ADT (security system) yard sign came to my door the other evening…he “noticed there weren’t many in the neighborhood” and wondered if he could place one in my yard (for some special “deal”). I didn’t let him finish his sentence. Oh yeah, the corporate interests are only too eager to stir up and feed off the very real anxieties of our lives. For me, a true feeling of security has nothing to do with ADT and their ilk. It has to do with knowing my neighbors (need to ask for more emails and phone #s), spending time walking the dog, taking precautions like you guys have shared, AND, I’m a big believer in leaving my porch light on all night…
@Rob, I fixed it (and actually had done so by the time you left comment…but not the URL, didn’t want to lose people). I’ll recite it ten times.
@kolokolo: You’re saying it’s the neighborhood’s fault because people aren’t patrolling the streets from 11 pm to 4 am every night? Let’s say that a given area gets tagged once every two months. How many people would have to stay up all night, every night, seven days a week to catch taggers? And how much area could any given patrol cover? Do the math. Your blame-the-victim mentality is poison, in my mind.
ok
right on
you are the editor
you are right
thank you for interesting opportunity to read your viewpoints.
I must say adieu.
You are right.
You are right.
I think the only realistic way to catch them would be with cameras triggered by motion sensors. But with the vast and random areas they seem to cover, it would be hard to figure out where to set them up. And even with video footage, it might be had to identify the people.
We aren’t the only neighborhood or city to struggle with this problem.
Just wanted to add that my car was broken into on Saturday night around 8:00pm – on Wallingford Avenue.
Our home was the one burgalarized in the Essential Bakery neighborhood. They broke in while we were at dinner by chipping out the deadlock on the backdoor. (Thicker, heavier deadlock now installed.)
We called the police mostly for the insurance company, so it would be reported. The officers dusted a few choice items and gave us a report to fill out. They were both VERY good at reassuring our children. They made eye contact with both girls and reminded them that all told, this is a safe neighborhood and that thiefs don’t WANT to run into people, so they typically only try houses where no one is home. They also advised us to watch Craig’s List for our missing items, and to call them for back-up. I guess a lot of robbers are dumb enough to do this. Our neighbor got her bike back this way and someone else got their computer back this way.
Oh, and one more tip: The officers also told us that if a light had been on inside the rooms at the back of the house, we might have been safe. The indication that someone is home is key. We’d been carefully turning them all off for environmental reasons!
Also, I should say that we do have a dog who barks quite loudly, as do both neighbors, but this did not deter them at all.
Good luck.
We got hit last night. 42nd & Meridian area.
Somehow, we left back door unlocked, which is highly unusual. They just came in, stole my daughter’s laptop which is near the back door, including the power cord.
Dog barked, we got up but by the time we got down there nobody was there, and the door was closed.
Motion sensing light was on but we thought it was just a raccoon, and that’s why he was barking. Didn’t notice the laptop until this morning.
Informed police, they came for the report.