And this iis why I cna not have nice things

[Racket_Man]

Out in the front of my house.

3 years ago someone stole my nice set of wind chimes over the winter
2 years ago Someone Stole a brand new potted rose bush on Mothers Day
this year
a pink flamingo my Manger gave me
The tops (butterflies and angels) off of LED lights I had along my walkway to the sidewalk. I came home from work at about 3am. The tops were still there. I ate dinner, check my e-mails and here, then looked out the front door and noticed something different . The LEDs looked strange. I went out to have a look. The lights were still there BUT someone had stolen the tops and nothing else.

[XCashier]

That sucks. I remember when we had our house, someone stole the roses off of our rosebushes. One day, beautiful blooms, the next a bunch of broken stems. Another time, some jerk used our garden hose and left it strewn across the yard, water still running! Not to mention the amount of people who hung around on the front yard like it was a public park.

We planted a hedge around the front yard (back yard already had a wall around it) and the amount of trespassers dramatically decreased.

You might consider a hedge or fence around your front yard. I know it's a pain, having yet another expense, but far too many people don't comprehend the concept of "private property" anymore and homeowners have to protect themselves somehow.

[Pixelated]

This is why, if I want to put some nice item outside ... I put it in the back yard. The fence is wooden and definitely NOT see-through. The guy who built the face made a nice gate ... but ATM there's no way to open the gate from the outside. So the back yard can look as nice as I can make it, and nothing is going to get stolen.

Although the currently malfunctioning garage door (it's stuck about a foot from the ground and won't go all the way down) isn't helping.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

We've had to chain down our gas grill to the side of our deck because we've had not one, but TWO grills disappear at different times during the last 27 years we've been here.

First one walked right off our front porch. At the time, we had some skeezy neighbors who lived next door that were into prostitution and drugs. Those neighbors didn't last too long (and they're the same group who got busted by local cable company for using the woman's daughter's name on the account and giving out our phone number. Oops . . .)

Second one walked off the back deck after some skank attempted to take Mom's cell phone out of the front seat of her El Camino while she was out on the riding lawn mower. This one had the gall to come up to the back door and say he found it in the yard and wanted to know if there was a reward.

I simply took the phone, placed in on the table next to the door inside the house and told him to go talk to my Mother - but I was sure it was inside her car and not out in the yard.

He decided to leave instead. A short time later, after Mom had come back inside for the evening and we had just locked up the house (and the cars) I went outside to let one of the cats inside and the grill was gone - from right beside the back door.

Found out through a neighborhood connection the guy was seen dragging a grill down the road. Never did get it back but the cops did come out to take a report and got a description of the guy who came up about the cell phone a short time before.

So yeah, we have to lock up everything or chain it down. And we recommend it to our neighbors when they move in as well. Just had a lawn mower snatched from next door neighbor's yard because he went inside for a few minutes and left it out on the side of the house - instead of moving it inside his fenced in back yard.

This is the same neighbor whose toddler son slipped out of the house just a few weeks after they'd moved in and wandered over to our yard. All of a sudden, there's a small boy standing at the top of the wheelchair ramp, big brown eyes, long dark lashes and quietly munching on a cracker - he was a real cutie.

I couldn't get him to tell me his name, he just started quietly. I flagged Mom down in the yard and told her I was going to walk the little fellow back home since we didn't have their phone number to call them.

Both his parents had no idea he'd slipped out - understandable as toddlers can and will slip away unnoticed (they have an uncanny ability to operate in stealth mode) and were immediately apologizing (and no, they aren't bad parents at all. They're actually pretty nice folks once you get to know them - besides we all know how little ones are.) I was just relieved he wandered over to our house instead of out into the main road, which is quite busy.

But yeah, in these times no neighborhood is safe.

[Aria]

I trust my neighbors but at the same time, I bought a really FINE bike lock. Because I don't want to NEED to trust them.

[apocolypse101]

We've had to chain down our gas grill to the side of our deck because we've had not one, but TWO grills disappear at different times during the last 27 years we've been here.

We thankfully don't have to do that at my house. We have a deck on the front of our house that is on the second story, with a fairly narrow staircase up to it and it was near impossible getting the giant grill up there in the first place (the thing is freaking heavy!), so I'd like to see someone try to get it down the stairs by themselves, in the dark during the middle of the night without being see, heard, or crushed.

[Dave1982]

A pink flamingo? Wind chimes? Seriously? Those must've with been the most annoying wind chimes ever or the most beautiful ever for some pone to steal them. And a freaking flamingo? It's not that I don't believe it happened, I just can't fathom what they were thinking. At least a gas grill is a useful thing to steal.

My mother has a bit of a wind chime collection hanging on her screened in porch, but they're sufficiently far off the ground that you'd need a ladder to get them down.

[apocolypse101]

A pink flamingo? Wind chimes? Seriously? Those must've with been the most annoying wind chimes ever or the most beautiful ever for some pone to steal them. And a freaking flamingo? It's not that I don't believe it happened, I just can't fathom what they were thinking. At least a gas grill is a useful thing to steal.

I wonder what they did with the flamingo?

[dalesys]

I wonder what they did with the flamingo?

Don't ask! There was a guy busted at the local aviary...

[dawnfire]

I had the stupidest thing stolen /vandalised, a hose extender , it was just a 10 cm piece of hose that was attached to my garden tap. someone cut it in two.
The most of expensive thing stolen was hubby's moped. it was 20 year old with only test miles on it. It sounded like a whipper snipper when it ran.It was a glorifed bike but hubby loved it. they literally walked off with it (two people could carry it). here is link to what the model looked like http://qt50.net/wp-content/uploads/2...981express.jpg

[protege]

so I'd like to see someone try to get it down the stairs by themselves, in the dark during the middle of the night without being see, heard, or crushed.

I'd actually like to see someone steal my grill. It's huge and heavy as hell. Even though it has wheels and sits on a heavy wooden frame (4x4 posts with 2x4 crossbeams), it's not going anywhere. While it does roll, it's not designed to steer or be easily moved across the yard. Nor is the actual grill bolted to the frame--I designed it to lift off, if I want to put it into the garage. Still, it would be amusing as hell to see

[Racket_Man]

A pink flamingo? Wind chimes? Seriously? Those must've with been the most annoying wind chimes ever or the most beautiful ever for some pone to steal them. And a freaking flamingo? It's not that I don't believe it happened, I just can't fathom what they were thinking. At least a gas grill is a useful thing to steal.

My mother has a bit of a wind chime collection hanging on her screened in porch, but they're sufficiently far off the ground that you'd need a ladder to get them down.

It seems that some punk kids have been stealing/vandalizing stuff all over the city for the past month or so.