Originally Posted by Mike J

Oh man I feel for you. We have also lost personal items, and even some really stupid items, like three years of video tapes of my infant daughters! That cannot be replaced...what morons!

As a guy who has had FIVE break ins in the house, and TWO in the shop over that last 20 years, i understand completely. I now have THREE separate protection layers to get to my tools, everything is locked up at night and when I am not at home, we have a fully sealed bolted protected safe at home, alarm systems with full motion and every single entrance wired, and I am now considering cameras. We keep minimum valuables on the premises.

They have NEVER actually caught any of the people doing this. I would hate to be in the house when they attempt to, I would likely be thrown in jail for the personal injury when I take all my frustrations out on the little fu**ers that break in my place.

The average breakin time on the last few has been 6 minutes. One time they actually crawled on the roof and cut the lines to the sirens after breaking in, the internal siren still was running, tore that off the wall. did not get much though, it was all locked away, i think they got $20. Caused a few hundred bucks of damage.

The police told me a monitored alarm system was useless - just because its monitored does nothing to catch the guys, since they are in/out in a short time. I have my system phone me and others - and my neighbors all stand watch for each other, and we all have baseball bats. And this is in a quiet Canadian residential neighborhood.

is there any construction or renters around your house? I find our incident level in the area goes up when a house is being built.

Anyways, misery loves company, so I fully sympathize - but at least everyone is safe, and you are not facing a jail sentence for the massive beating you would have doled out to the thief's.

Cheers,

Mike

Originally Posted by NC TRACKRAT

Newly-revised "Castle Doctrine" law in NC:
http://www.journalpatriot.com/news/a...a4bcf6878.html
Not only applies to residence but your vehicle and place of work.

Originally Posted by NC TRACKRAT

Newly-revised "Castle Doctrine" law in NC:
http://www.journalpatriot.com/news/a...a4bcf6878.html
Not only applies to residence but your vehicle and place of work.

Originally Posted by JPP

Seriously sucks, Roger. I was broken into in 1980 after I inherited my parents house.. actually 'interrupted' the robbery and when they tore out of the house and down the driveway, they hit my cat and killed her .... very sad day. Short story, I had no jewelry rider and State Farm paid a standard $500 for 'unlisted items' which were an antique 4 carat diamond ring, pre-1909 6 carat ruby pendant, platinum/ruby/diamond hat pins, 1920's platinum watch, 18K gold pocket watch .. all family stuff probably worth several thousand .. BUT thieves stole an oval shaped carpet in the entry which left a sun-bleach ring on the wood floor and I happened to have a photograph of the area taken a few weeks prior .. Insurance company sent the photo to their antiques appraisal unit and came back with 'Antique Persian Tapis rug - $38,000.00' so not a total loss. Now I have 'riders' on everything .. camera's, computers, jewelry/watches, antiques of note .. even poster art. Hard lesson to learn.

Originally Posted by Mark in Baltimore

What happened to your cat is terrible. Sorry, Jon Paul.

Originally Posted by JPP

Thanks, but not the worst of it. She had 5 week old kittens and was 'protecting' them by attacking the intruders and followed them out. I found her in the weeds a couple of days later ... Honestly, that was the worst loss of all and I'll never get over it. I was able to hand 'nurse' the kittens with little bottles of 'kitty pablum' so happy ending there ..

Originally Posted by Mark in Baltimore

That's a silver lining to a really bad occurrence. Still heartbreaking.

Originally Posted by OGRacing

And after you get the safe, security systems and all the other defensive pieces in place, don't go posting that you have all of them on forums. Nor tell about the family gold pieces or the wife's diamond whatever. And don't tell anyone about the jewelry box with the 10 flash bulbs wired to the battery through the lid switch. Let it be a surprise.

Bill

Originally Posted by JPP

Seriously sucks, Roger. I was broken into in 1980 after I inherited my parents house.. actually 'interrupted' the robbery and when they tore out of the house and down the driveway, they hit my cat and killed her .... very sad day. Short story, I had no jewelry rider and State Farm paid a standard $500 for 'unlisted items' which were an antique 4 carat diamond ring, pre-1909 6 carat ruby pendant, platinum/ruby/diamond hat pins, 1920's platinum watch, 18K gold pocket watch .. all family stuff probably worth several thousand .. BUT thieves stole an oval shaped carpet in the entry which left a sun-bleach ring on the wood floor and I happened to have a photograph of the area taken a few weeks prior .. Insurance company sent the photo to their antiques appraisal unit and came back with 'Antique Persian Tapis rug - $38,000.00' so not a total loss. Now I have 'riders' on everything .. camera's, computers, jewelry/watches, antiques of note .. even poster art. Hard lesson to learn.

Originally Posted by 1pcarnut

Went to San Diego for a week, get a call from the daughter staying home that sometime during the early morning someone broke into the house but nothing appears to be taken. We have a dog so we first thought she must have scared them off. Race home 500 miles from San Diego to Sacramento, get in last night about 11, quick look around and all seems fine until we go back to the bedroom to find all the wife's and my jewelry are gone.

The big thing is not the value but the sentiment. We are not big on jewelry but what we have has been passed down from parents and grandparents. Jan is heartbroken, her mother passed unexpectedly last year and they took her wedding ring. They also got a watch and two rings my grandfather gave me when I was young.

We both feel miserable today. Insurance adjuster is coming today to get an estimate on the door replacement and missing stuff. Have no clue how to even place a value on most of this stuff. We don't have pictures of it so not sure how big a fight we'll get from the insurance company on what it's worth.

Big lesson here is take a picture of everything and don't put the good stuff out where it can be grabbed. The only thing they targeted was the jewelry boxes. We may as well have put up a sign saying here's the stuff you want. What I can't figure out is where the darn dog was during all this. Only good thing in this mess is the daughter was home and didn't get hurt, for that we are grateful.