Camper burgularized in driveway !!

Also,, check on Amazon, they sell small portable door alarms, they are battery operated, they can stick to the door my a magnet or tape, they are pretty loud, I bought some for my girls that live in apartments for there sliding glass door and entry door. Batteries seem to last a while also! I am sure it will not stop a determined thief/burglar, but at least it would make noise alerting someone!

We found an alarm system that was pretty affordable and it sends texts and emails to us if someone is in our unit. Just the comfort of the system and losing the stress of our things getting taken has made the small investment worth it. Cost was less than $300 & $25 month but only the months we travel. No long term contracts. Look around its worth the peice of mind!

I always make it a habit when we park at a restaurant to locate the rv where I can see it from my seat inside. Every time we leave a camping site it's locked; even now parked inside my locked and lighted garage I look out the window several times at night just to make sure all's well. And having a dog that will wake the entire household if there's a strange noise outside helps too.

We were in the habit of unloading our trailer every time we came home from our weekend trips. We left cookware, bedding, and some personal stuff in the trailer, but for the most part it was empty, sitting by the side of the house, UNLOCKED. I figured if someone wanted in to steal something, it would be cheaper on me if they went in and found nothing to steal. We both worked 10 hours a day, so we were only home at night time.

We went out to load the trailer one morning for a trip and found several items out of place and cabinets left open. Thief took a pillowcase and carried off our two burner electric hotplate, a couple of large cooking pots and the DW electric hot rollers and travel iron from the trailer. Nothing torn up or broken, and items less than $100 easily replaced. Only one time in the ten years we owned the trailer. I kept thinking how much more it would have cost to replace a broken window or repair a messed up door or door frame.

If they want in bad enough, they will get in........

If you look at the circumstances this was a crime of opportunity. These guys simply went through a neighborhood looking for unlocked doors and when they found one they took advantage of it. Matter of fact, according to the footage they continued looking after hitting the trailer. More often than not that is how these things happen. There is no casing of the neighborhood or satellite imagery telling them the RV was there and being prepped for a trip. Not saying that doesn't ever happen just saying that most of the time it is not the case.

If you ever stand out on a suburban sidewalk after midnight you might likely hear the tell tale sounds of this behavior. Go up to your car door and quickly flip the handle and listen to the sound it makes. Now if you ever hear that sound echoing repeatedly when it is very quiet outside, that is more than likely someone or a group walking through and popping the handles. When the noise stops they either left or found an easy target. They move quickly and grab whatever is convenient. These things do tend to happen in clusters. Not always the case but also not unusual to find that if suddenly there are numerous thefts in a neighborhood there is also some sort of drug activity near by. Often it is someone selling within the neighborhood which brings with it the traffic of those who need to pay for their drugs. Many if not most drug dealers will fence stolen merchandise for drugs.

hokeypokey wrote:
The tape is too fuzzy to correctly identify anyone.

Tape? jees.. didn't think that was used anymore. What good is it if it's blurry?

We were advised when we first got our camper to always keep it locked when not in use. There are evidently people who are traveling constantly and make their livings checking the doors on RV's. TV's, computers, camera's and lots of other items are often kept on board, that can be quickly converted to cash. A locked door usually will deter the thieves as there are so many doors not locked.

I guess that it'll be necessary to set up motion sensor alarms on things now, so you at least know when the thieves show up.

2012Coleman wrote:
Well OP, I see you are from xxx. I've heard the crime rate there is pretty high...

It seems that the crime rate is really up in Sioux Falls SD. with both of these. At least they have Video that helped.

That's nothing. Friends have their coach parked in the driveway. They hadn't been in it for a couple of weeks but when they went in, they found all the food gone as in eaten! All the drinks were also gone, no water in the fresh water tank and the black tank was almost full. They had one of those throwaway cameras in the coach and when they developed the film, they saw that a couple had taken pictures of themselves living in the coach. They figure that the "guests" had stayed there almost a week based on all the food eaten