Campsite/Campground Theft

[nomad297]

I read quite often in this forum of people securing anything that weighs less than their RV to deter theft. It is a shame if this needs to be done and I am wondering if theft at campgrounds is as bad as some lead me to believe. I only have a couple of seasons under my belt and I have never been a victim -- I have always left (thief-desirable) things sitting outside, under my awning, sometime for the whole day, without even thinking that somebody at a campground would be so low to steal them. My friend, who has as much/little experience as I do, locks up everything or puts it inside, and I have always thought he is a bit paranoid, but after reading these forums, I'm thinking I have just been lucky.

I have always had the feeling that people at campgrounds are trustworthy and "part of the family" and would never violate another family member. How wrong am I?

Bruce

[Nutinelse2do]

Unscrupulous people get older too. Regardless of age, there are always going to be people who think they can take from others instead of working hard and saving for what they want.
Just my 2 cents.

[GaryWT]

On our last trip we were told not to leave anything out expecially shoes and dish towels and the like because the resident fox as taking things at night, some things were found, others never were. That said we usually only lock the trailer when we leave the campground, friend of ours lock it everytime they leave the site, even if they are just coming next door to our site. Never had any issues.

[msmith1199]

And there comes the paranoid word! If you lock things up or put them away you must be paranoid!

[mlts22]

One trick I do with security is similar to the old adage of the bear. You don't have to outrun it, just outrun the slowest person.

I just try to have my stuff just a tad more secure than what is around me. Too much security, and it gets people curious.

Of course I adhere to one adage for security. Master Lock is about price and convenience. If I want top tier security, I go Kryptonite, Medeco, Abus, Sobo, Mul-T-Lock, or at the minimum American (which is ironically owned by Master.)

[NanciL]

Some people are paranoid

We have been camping all our lives and never have had a thing stolen.

I have to take that back: Many years ago while tent camping, with our kids in a beautiful national forest camp ground in the mountains of New Hampshire, inadvertently we left a Tupperware sugar bowl on the picnic table overnight.
In the middle of the night we heard the snarls and growls of the
"masked bandits" and needless to say the sugar bowl was gone in the morning.
We looked high and low all around the camp site, but finally gave up searching.
Two days later we were taking a hike on a trasil that left from the camp ground and about a half mile up the trail, there was our sugarbowl, (minus it's cover and sugar) with a bunch of teeth puncture marks in it.

We still have the sugar bowl that sits proudly on a shelf and is a constant conversation piece with our kids and grandchildren

It would be nice to be able to trust mankind, but what every you do, don't leave any foodstuffs on the table, those masked bandits will rob you blind!

Jack L

[relaxin]

I have lost beverages out of a cooler on more than one occasion so now certain parks, or parks where you see little punk teens wandering and kind of scoping out things. I put the cooler on the picnic table bench(under the awning) and wrap a chain through the handles and lock it when I am either leaving or going to bed as one time it happened in broad day light middle of the afternoon.
in the past I have lost other trivial items, an axe, lantern, lawn chair, fire wood.cassette tapes (before cd's existed), kids toys, more back when I was tent camping, and a common issue with most of the disappearances was a situation where people are cutting through sites,
so for those who get all worked up when some of us say "we don't want people cutting through our site" some of us have reason beyond just privacy

back in the tent camping days it was different as theres not the same storage availability, some times you go for a walk like when nature calls, and you can't put everything away every time you fart or blink your eyes. and with a tent opened up for the day to air out,,, old canvas tent,,, its a quick easy look around to see no one is on the site, with an RV its a little harder to tell when no one is there (in 5 seconds or less)

another common thread where there has been issues is in parks that have seasonal campers, whether its lowlife trailer trash living in the park for the summer, or the little gangs of teens that that wonder the park till 3 am

yes I was a teen once, and I raised a couple, and they were on the site at 9 pm unless they were at a friends site and with their parents but back by 11pm

[okraman]

In 40 plus years of camping, never had anything come up missing. However,it depends on where we are camping, as to how much gets put up or otherwise secured. I almost always chain the bikes, I don't leave a lot out however. Partly not to tempt somebody, but also, one of my early camping trips (tent days), unexpected storm came up. When we got back to camp,our stuff was scattered all over the place. So, when leaving the site for awhile or retiring for the night, I try to secure things in the event of weather related events, which tends to make some of the outside stuff less visible. But, I lot of that depends on the area we are camped and weather forecast predictions.

[msmith1199]

In my years of camping I've never lost anything, but then again I take precautions and don't leave expensive stuff out unsecured. So that's probably why I haven't lost anything. I'll leave chairs out and things like that, but the bikes get locked up and when I did have a Honda 2000 generator is most certainly got locked up.

And it's not necessarily your fellow campers you have to worry about. It's the meth heads who live within bike riding or walking distance. They'll steal anything and everything and I bet there is not too many places in the Country where you won't find meth heads close by. I have security cameras at my business and I review the weekend video every Monday morning. As soon as the sun sets on Friday night the tweakers come out like cock roaches. Mostly on bikes, mostly towing some type of trailer behind the bike. They dig through the dumpsters and trash cans and look for anything of value that may have been left out. I've even got video of them stealing all the copper out of air conditioner units at my neighbors shop too. If they identify a campground as a target rich environment, then they'll be there. I got with my neighbors at my business and we have almost dried the problem up just by putting up some more lights behind the buildings and by locking up all the dumpsters at night. When they couldn't get into the trash they eventually have almost completely quit coming by.

[dave54]

The only things we have had stolen were while parked at the storage yard. Someone yanked open a storage bin and stole an empty laundry basket -- really odd because about $200 worth of tools were right next to it and untouched. Another time someone took a full propane bottle and carefully hooked up an empty one to hide his theft (bypassed the chain lock by unscrewing the entire mount mechanism). I did not discover the theft until setting up camp at next use and noticed a different collar pattern on the bottle.

We lock up any valuables when we leave camp -- cable locked to the frame, and throw a camo tarp over the gear so at least no bright colors attract eyes driving by. One time we returned to our boondocking site with two sets of fresh footprints around the rig but nothing touched.

[Howie3]

I had the strangest theft in a govt campground a couple of years ago. I enjoy canoeing solo but in order to balance the weight, I use an inflatable 5 gal 'cube' you can buy for $5 to store drinking water. It weights about 60 lb full and I just use lake water to fill it and place it in the bow as a counter balance. I had the canoe chained to a tree by the boat launch overnight with the water cube right next to it. Next morning I came to the launch to go fishing and the cube was gone. Too heavy for kids to take it and after many seasons of using lake water it was discoloured, so no one in their right mind would want to use it for drinking water!
What was frustrating was that it happened to be a Sunday and all the hardware shops in the nearby town were closed so I couldn't replace it until Monday. Couldn't canoe without it so lost a whole day of fishing and the thief got what? A worthless contaminated drinking water vessel!

Moral is: not what you can afford to replace but what you can do without if you are simply unable to replace it while camping.

Howie

[mepboat]

We just did a 4,000 mile trip from Fla. up the east coast to Lake Erie to see family and then traveled back down to Nashville and then back home to Fla. We stayed in all sorts of camp grounds. We judged the safety by observing and talking to the area neighbors. Anyone showing any distance or distraction causes us to be a little leary and we adjust what we leave out accordingly. We never leave out any valuables. We never leave out anything that would interfere with the remaining trip if it could not be replaced.

[lfcjasp]

We always lock up the MH when we are going to be out of sight of it. And like other have said, electronics and anything we really don't want walking go inside. We usually leave the chairs and tables out. We've left a lot of stuff out at times and at other times very little. At the racetrack, we leave out more things; so much valuable stuff is left out at every pit anyway.

In a lifetime of camping, I don't recall much gone missing. When you're reenacting, the only way to secure a tent is to tie it closed and that's usually done more to hide non-period items and to keep any wind from making the tent into a sail. Usually someone stays in camp to keep an eye on things.

[Oaklevel]

Camping for almost 30 years have had nothing stolen (yet)..... rarely lock door figure our Boxers have a better chance of getting away if a fire etc.

#3 Master locks can be easily picked, most side storage compartments in trailers are #751 keys...... most Easygo golf carts & Club Cars take the same key for each brand.......... LOL locks are for honest people..................

We really don't carry much that is worth stealing..............

[mr__ed]

The only items I leave outside are folding chairs and my bicycle, whixh I keep under the fifth wheel overhang, chained to one of the landing jacks. There's no sense in tempting an otherwise honest person by leaving something of value unsecured and in view. 😉

[The_Texan]

Merrykalia wrote:
Hunting Island State park in SC does lock their locks and in order to get out, you must have the code. It changes daily and YOU are responsible for going by and getting the code, if you think you may need it.

That said, there is a ranger on duty throughout the night that can get you out if you need to get out, but not in.

Believe me, there are others just like this park. I know this for a fact, as we have worked in several that LOCKED the gate at night and you had to have a code to get out.......