So my car got broken into last night.

I unlocked it with the button on my keys as I was walking across the street to it, so I'm not sure if they used a slim jim on the window or if I left one of the doors open.

And the funny thing is, they didn't take anything. Mostly, I suspect, because I had nothing to take. I had about 27 cents in pennies, and some MacDonalds and KFC coupons, in the little compartment by my seat, and some kleenex and handiwipes in the glove box, and that's about it.

Oddly, (grin), they didn't want the converter so I can play cassettes in the car's CD player, or the charger for my flip phone.

Best part is that they shut the door behind them, so my battery didn't run down because of the interior light. Have to say, though, that I feel a little like the butt of that joke where the burglars break in and end up leaving something.....

Ever had your car or house broken in to?

My car many years ago, they stole a pair of clip on sunglasses but were disturbed so didn't take anything else.

Years ago in England My mum was staying with us . We had 2 downstairs reception rooms and turned one into a bedsit for her. She awoke one night to see the shadow of someone searching through our desk in there . Thinking it was my husband she called out to him to put the light on so he could get what he wanted. The burglar must have got such a fright at the room being occupied that he dropped everything and ran!.
It is a horrible feeling that someone has been through your belongings, but luckily nothing was stolen.

I used to work in a very deprived area near Manchester. One evening, the Youth club attached to my school was broken into. The only thing they deemed worthy of theft was the burglar alarm.
In the same area, I was invited to a child's home to see his mum's birthday present. All 4 of the older children had worked together to make her a rose garden in her tiny concrete back yard.
Then I spotted the labels, which showed they'd all been 'acquired' from the magnificent local Victorian park. '
They'd apparently taken several digging implements and a go cart and hauled a selection of pink and yellow bushes home, worked through the night to give her a lovely surprise the next morning. The general opinion was that the park was huge, had a lot of flowers and wouldn't miss a few.

My car was broken into the year before last. I can't remember the date but I do remember the perishing cold. At first I thought that the window glass had simply imploded because of the cold - that model is prone to it, according to my motor trader neighbour. I didn't learn for sure that it was a break-in until the glass repairer arrived and he showed me the telltale marks left by someone breaking in - a professional job, he said. I said it wasn't that professional as they left glass all over the front seats and they didn't take anything, although there wasn't much to take: enough change for a parking meter, some hand disinfectant, and a packet of mints.

It wasn't until I opened the boot a few days later that I realised I'd left an emergency bag in the car; I'd been backwards and forwards to see various hospital consultants and a couple of times they'd kept me in for a few nights, but I'd had no change of clothes, no toiletries, no books, and no money to get anything so I'd packed a bag and left it in the car "just in case". If the thieves had been a little more persistent they would have found that bag and the £30 I'd tucked into a side pocket...

Someone broke into a house I shared with a couple other friends and stole my laptop right before my junior year at university. I was really bummed, but at least it was the start of the year and I didn't have any papers saved on it.

Prior to friends of mine having the backseats of their car taken up by kids, they had a notoriously messy car as rubbish was dumped there along with books, jumpers, shoes and other things they 'stored' there. Their car was stolen and the police rang them a few days later with the good news that it had been found an hour's drive away. The cops warned my friends that the car was a bit of a mess inside. They got a friend to drive them to pick the car up and were happy to find that the thieves had cleaned out some of the mess and it was tidier than when it had been taken. They didn't tell the cops that though as they were a little bit embarrassed.

Like you, agony, I have had my car broken into twice. Both times, the thieves got nothing because I don't leave anything of value in my car. The only "result" was that I had to pay to get my car fixed. Luckily, we've never experienced a home burglary.

On the first occasion, my car was parked under the carport of our house. They had used a screwdriver or similar tool to insert into the lock of the door and pop it open. It cost me around $55 to get a new lock. This was a few years ago so would no doubt be a lot more than that now. However, it was a lot of money for us at the time. It was not covered by insurance because the repair was less than the deductible.

On the second occasion, we were at the local church hall and several cars were broken into whilst parked in the church parking lot. The offender broke in by throwing lumps of concrete through the car windows. In our case, the concrete went through one window and out another, and damaging the door in the process. This time the bill was high enough for the insurance to take care of most of it.

We also caught the offender because, when we heard the noise of breaking glass, we rushed out of the building and caught the guy in the parking lot. He was the next-door neighbour and he claimed he had heard the same noise and rushed out of his house to see what was happening. This was a blatant lie because he had more than twice as far to travel as we did and could not possibly have made it to that spot in those few seconds. However, the police said that, since we didn't actually see him do it, they could not do anything. Basically, because the offender belonged to a particular ethnic group, the police were reluctant to spend any time on it.

This church has a food centre which provides food for the needy. It was broken into several times in quick succession. On one occasion, they stole some food, including all the icecream, but left the freezer door open so that all the frozen chicken melted and went "off". It was summer and we had several days of blistering heat between Sunday (when the church was last used) and Tuesday (when the break-in was discovered). You can imagine the putrid smell by then. They left behind a beer bottle with greasy finger-prints but the police refused to take it into evidence. They said since the church was a public building, the beer bottle could have been left there at any time. Well, it wasn't there on Sunday when we locked up but the police would not accept that.

The stupid thing was that, if they needed food, they didn't have to break in to get it. It would have been happily given to them if they'd asked. But I doubt if need was the motive.

Interestingly, while the church had that particular neighbour, we experienced a high number of break-ins to the church and damage to vehicles over those months. When the neighbour moved, all the troubles miraculously ceased. The police were as useless as an ashtray on a motor bike. Don't get me wrong - I am not anti-police - but they were very apathetic on these occasions.

I had my room broken into, as did several of my flat mates, at the halls of residence at university. They took pretty valuable stuff from the other rooms, a couple of computers, CD players, DVDs, and so on. They took nothing from my room, I read books and went to the pub in my spare time and that's about it. I had nothing of value to anyone else.

None of our vehicles have ever been broken into (although a few of them have been hit in some way in parking lots and the offenders, of course, never left a note lol). Our house has never been broken into, to date, but that's perhaps because we have alarm signs posted all over the place, including the fences.

However, our next door neighbour has had a vehicle stolen from his driveway, twice, and his house broken into once. Disturbing. I suppose some folks might think this is part of some insurance fraud, but they're not the type. There have been lots of break-ins in the general area, apparently. And a grow-op across the street lol.

The police actually came door to door to inform us that they suspect a number of juveniles involved and to assess personal security measures. I thought that was pretty cool. Nothing like proactive education rather than after the fact.

My inlaws were broken into twice (in a different area of the city) and our mom felt so violated that they ended up selling and moving into an apartment. I find this very sad.

My own widowed mother doesn't even lock her doors (which scares me) but she's never had an incident. Go figure.

What is a "grow-op"?

"growing operation" (I think was its original connotation). Anyway, it's when people grow sources of drugs (most specifically marijuana) in their basements or on farm property. It's a much bigger issue in British Columbia, but it happens in every province here.

Unless someone reports them (activity usually a lot of coming and going of people all night/all day and lots of loud music and never seeing the occupants), they are often discovered because of excess use of the power grid (sometimes causing transformer blowouts or electrical fires). Or the smell. Once the occupants were arrested, the house "in question" had to be torn down due to mould and other issues. A year later, rebuilt by new neighbours, who seem normal (whatever that means lol).

Thanks for explaining.

I think we might have had one of those in our street too. Every time I walked the dog past the house on the corner, there was an overwhelming smell of cat pee and the light in the shed was on most nights and very, very bright - a bit suspicious.

Since I only have a bicycle, my car hasn't been broken into. And this is a high incidence of bicycle thefts area, mine is near 40 yrs old so they leave it and go to the next one. Sometimes I wonder if I should even continue to bother chaining it up.

But our police department has warned us that a new M.O. is being used by the criminals in South Florida. They enter your vehicle without damaging anything and then steal the garage door openers! Next day, without being aware anything is wrong if they don't look for the opener (these folks come out a door other than the garage one). The thieves, sitting a distance away but within visible range, wait for the folks to drive away and then use the garage door opener to enter the house.

We had a similar wave of nastiness 3 decades ago. Back then they used radio technology to steal the door opener code out of the air. Then they coded their opener to work on the home's opener and entered and stole whatever. This was done when the owners were home and in bed. Many a wallet went missing. Back then, we learned that simply shutting off the power to the door's opener thwarted their try. I think it would work with today's problem too. Folks, turn off the power to remote controlled operators when not in use.

I did find someone had tried to steal my bike's red tail light once. When I went to unchain the two wheeler, I saw that the light had been turned on.

Hmm, not a bike rider since the 80s (please ignore the two mountain bikes hanging from the garage rafters they're prob worth more than my original 10 speed, but really not worth stealing lol) if a person stole our garage door opener, they can't get access to the house itself as there is no entrance from there. It's a cement wall. Other than the front door (alarmed) or the deck doors (also alarmed), I guess you could smash one of three basement windows if you really wanted in (but they are alarmed too).

Feel free to steal as much stuff as you want from our garage, it will save me from cleaning it out someday. Would be nice if they don't steal our battery charger thingmes or my precious kayak though lol. All of the hubby's expensive tools are stored out at his brother's acreage, guarded by a really nasty rottie.

I don't actually ever lock my vehicle (that resides on the driveway, since I don't drive much now that I'm not working). It's cheaper to replace the whole thing, rather than just glass/windshield, insurance wise. And there is NOTHING in there that anyone would want to steal - the reading glasses in there are from the dollar store, knock yourself out lol

Of course, none of this means that we won't be broken into. i just refuse to give in to the fear.