Break-In

[Vicky]

Our new-to-us, winterized fifth wheel was broken into during the past month and I need help understanding how the person(s) did it. Our trailer is on a permanent site in a small, rural area park. Park owners are very consciencious but our unit backs up to several miles of wooded area. Park owners noticed fridge vent cover was off and left on top of the camper. I gave them permission to enter the trailer and they reported it looked like a tornado went through it. I drove to the camper to find a gut-wrenching mess. It was apparent someone was, at some point, living in our trailer...probably just during the late night-early morning hours. Windows were covered from the inside so no light would show to the outside. One tv is missing and the other plus a dvd player were on the couch as if they were going to come back and take them also. I could give a thousand more gory details especially about the bathroom stool, but I'll get to my questions. The lock on the door did not appear to have been tampered with but the screen to one of the small rear windows was carefully cut around the frame.Obviously that screen is inside the actual window. I thought that window couldn't be opened from the outside without structural damage and it is so small, I question how anyone but a child could get through it. Are the locks on campers easily "picked"? Is there a way to jimmy the windows to get them to release? The windows are the typical ones where you must squeeze two buttons/knobs inward together and lift at the same time to get them open. Sheriff's deputies weren't even going to make a report for my insurance until I really pushed them because there was no "forced entry".

Second question involves pipes and plumbing. Incoming water was shut off but the slime-balls brought a gallon of water in the trailer and, among other things, shaved a beard and brushed their teeth in the bathroom sink. Am I right in assuming anything they put down the sink drains went directly to the holding tank and doesn't pose quite the freezing danger as if there was incoming fresh water in all the lines. Along those same lines, I need to deal with the literal mess in the toilet stool. Can I bring water in the trailer with a hose and use it to drain the stool, then run a lot of water into the holding tank and drain it again without worrying about freezing issues after I leave the trailer.

I'm sorry for the long post but I truly need help dealing with this. I should tell you there is something about this horror that is hysterically funny and each time I want to cry, I think about it. After I winterized the camper and just before I left, I put down 3-4 of the insect glue boards all over the trailer and the two-legged animal who came in our trailer stepped on at least two of them. There are pieces of the glue boards stuck all over the trailer where he had to pull them off. Even his rubber gloves he had on were wadded up in a ball with the glue all over them. He got alcohol out of the medicine pack and used it and cotton balls to try to get the stuff off. I just wish I had been there!!!!

[discovery4us]

It is never easy when someone violates a persons property. It sounds like it may be a one time event based on the fact that you say someone was trying to change their appearance. Doesn't make it any easier but might help in the long term that this could be an isolated case of someone that would not normally be in the area and was passing through taking advantage of the first place he saw.

Many of the RV's around here are stolen and taken to the high desert to become meth labs. One thing you see in common is that the fridge access panels are removed. According to the PD it is common for RV owners to store a hide a key in this area, this thief apparently was checking for a key as well.

[dwayneb236]

Cops do the best they can with what they got. Detectives in the department I work in easily get 20 or 30 new cases a week, each. It's not that they don't want to help. They do what they can. I'm so sick and tired of people saying cops don't do anything but generate revenue.

[tatest]

Whoever got into mine got in through a 14-inch roof vent. Only one person needs to be small enough, it is a bit more than 19 inches on the diagonal, a few decades ago many interior doorways were just slightly wider. Once someone gets inside, then the door gets opened.

Hooked up RV in a rural area (or an empty summer cottage) is a big temptation for homeless looking for a place to squat in the winter. A lot easier to be unnoticed in a rural location than an empty house in town, and they move into those as well. For several years I kept unknown homeless persons out of a vacant house by putting a homeless person known to me into it.

Waste tanks and plumbing generally don't need to be winterized, beyond emptying and putting in a little antifreeze to keep valve seals from drying out, and to keep traps from going dry. It is the closed water supply plumbing that is most vulnerable to freeze damage.

I responded to the squatter breaking into my motorhome by moving it to a more secure location where the storage property owner actually watched what goes on in her facility.

[RVcrazy]

I would let your insurance deal with this. You don't need the headache... Best of luck with the situation. I would move the rig.

[opnspaces]

It sucks that your RV was broken into. I wish people had more respect for others property.

If it was mine I would probably clean up everything and try to move on. Depending on the toilet I would either clean it or just pull it and replace it. My trailer user the Thetford Aquamagic IV and those are only around $100 so it wouldn't kill me to replace it.

But in reality you can probably turn on the heater in the RV. Then fill the toilet bowl to the top with water and let it soak for a few hours and flush it. Hit it with a toilet brush and then dump a bunch of antifreeze into the tank and throw the brush away.

[westend]

PastorCharlie wrote:
Make sure you are up to date on your Hepatitis B shots and wear protective clothing....never know what infectious diseases the intruders may have.

I would think insurance would pay for a professional cleaning service.

No reason to agitate the OP over something that is unlikely to be a problem like the transmission of Hepatitis B.
Most viral and bacterial diseases can't exist on surfaces in open air for very long.

[2012Coleman]

colliehauler wrote:

olfarmer wrote:
I agree, if you are insured for theft etc. the insurance company should pay for clean up.

If you want to take a chance on a rate increase for a claim.

Agree - call your insurance and see if they will pay for a company like Serv Pro.

If they raise your rates, cancel the policy and get one someplace else.

[colliehauler]

olfarmer wrote:
I agree, if you are insured for theft etc. the insurance company should pay for clean up.

If you want to take a chance on a rate increase for a claim.

[olfarmer]

I agree, if you are insured for theft etc. the insurance company should pay for clean up.

[PastorCharlie]

Make sure you are up to date on your Hepatitis B shots and wear protective clothing....never know what infectious diseases the intruders may have.

I would think insurance would pay for a professional cleaning service.

[B_O__Plenty]

Geocritter wrote:
You should be able to get some good finger prints off the inside of the rubber gloves.

Steve

Fingerprints are of no value unless you need to prove someone who has already been identified was in the unit. Otherwise they are a waste of time and sometimes done just to appease the owner. Sorry this happened, maybe you could tow it out for the season and park it somewhere a little safer?

B.O.

[Vicky]

Thanks to all who've offered advice. Park owners are putting up more trail cams as we speak and they're installing another security light close to our camper. I want very badly to stay there (with my personal protection) because I, too think they will return but I really can't stand the thought of staying in it until much is thrown away (like the mattress) and everything is scoured and disinfected. I can't do that right now due to distance, weather and handicapped husband who shouldn't spend too much time home alone. I'm waiting a couple of days to see if Sheriff will look further in the case. Maybe he will show more interest than his deputies since it appears someone was hiding out from someone, possibly law enforcement and he did a physical "makeover" while in the trailer. There is much physical evidence, to include clothing, but no one died so it doesn't rank up there for priorities. My discussion with deputies included a reminder there might be a lot more campers that were used in the area but it won't be known until this spring when owners return for their lake time. I'm hoping to have the stomach to go back in a couple of days and begin the ugly tasks. I will use the advice given and hope I will soon stop shaking in rage. Thanks again!

[Bucky_Badger]

FULLTIMEWANABE wrote:
Unfortunately in this day and age it's highly unlikely they'll put any priority on finding the culprits, finger prints or not. We have full facial video footage of a break in at a condo stealing tires and loading them on their truck from the underground parkade cage = police done nothing. We also had a break in many years ago of a house we were moving into over time, and 18 months after the fact got a call to say they'd caught the person who did it on another job. We said "right lets throw the book at him". Told nothing we could do, to pursue action against him, as he volunteered 24 other crimes including ours on understanding no action would be taken. Police said it's their way to clean up open files. Go figure. Ironically on that house break in back in 1993/4, the officer that came to see us actually told my hubby to get something like a hard wooden bat, make sure you injury him real bad but no marks show or hubby would get done. Seems there's no justice in this world any more and all our policing in either UK, Canada or otherwise puts more priority on collecting fines above real criminal acts. Ho hum, sign of the times.

Totally depends on the PD. PD nabbed 2 perps that broke in my dads house...now spending 5 years in the slammer. If you have the news station put that video on the news they probably would have got them

[Bucky_Badger]

I'd get 2 hunting cameras and put one on each side of the camper just in case they do come back