This is an interesting thread as for my sins I hold a managers certificate in industrial security to run a fairly large security operation .
The only way to definitely stop a thief is to shoot the bugger dead before they enter your property but then that becomes a bit hairy for you .
I'm afraid that drug fuelled crime wave is very hard to reduce .. These people 's minds run some amazing scenarios in their everlasting quest for money for drugs.
I wouldn't put too much faith on having a couple of GSD's or Rotti's etc.lurking about the place ..not after seeing two dead as a door nail Rotti's nailed to the inside of a pub's back door with carving knives & meat forks . All the stock and much of the fitting were take in that raid as well as six gambling machines being emptied of every last sou.
Some folk will steal the most strangest of things or so we sometimes think . A neighbour lost a pair of wader/ fishing boots from his raised up open garage door , two doors down the people lost a 300 plus collection of miniature bottles of spirits the same day in broad day light when they were at an old folks tea dance . Putting two & two together the police reckon the boots were used to move the bottles. No one saw a bloody thing , me included , and we lived at the end of a 200 mtr long cul-de-sac full of well fenced in back gardens and short two feet tall front lawn hedges between all the homes on all sides of the cul-de -sac with no escape pathways at all for a quick get a way.
Barry, one of my many farming mates , was cutting his large front lawn with a ride on mower , the phone went . He had to slip back into the bungalows farm office which faces away from the front of the property to check some info out . Four minutes later when he came back to the lawn the ride on had gone from the middle of the lawn .
He can't prove it but it's thought the caller was in cahoots with the thieves and was observing him ,. So when he went inside the thieves spotter called/ texted them on a second cell phone to say what the score was . They were then were able to come along the road with a small truck and carry off the mower. Barry lives in a farm house set back 150 yards from a single track road there is not a tree or bush close to the road side for a mile either side of his farm .
We tend to have quite a few roving gangs like these and the google earth and other parts of the internet and wired up community make their thieving so much easier.
Now the thieves knew he will have claimed on his insurance and got a new ride on . For three months later...... his new ride on was stolen when a forced entry was made to his barns by some folk driving across his fields instead of coming along the road.
After this I helped him set up a 40 foot shipping container as a security lock up , got him to build a concrete block inner lining wall which had high tensile expanded pressed metal on the inside of that and also across the roof on the inside . That was OK for almost a year till one day he came in from the field when his phone alreted him to a an alarm being triggered . He called up several other farmers along the road where he lives & got them to meet up at the entrance to the farm ( His wife was out shopping 20 miles away ) They found the doors of his container cut out , the latest ride on and brand new less than ten hours of use big quad were gone , so were almost all his hand tools . Someone had visited the farm armed with with a truck mounted generator , a couple of dry air or oxygen cylinders with gauges and a plasma cutter . It was a very neat job and who ever did it was very very experienced with the cutting gear
They may have had two people doing the door cutting & opening the doors .
They had driven past several remotely powered & transmitting colour CCTV cameras , set off two alarms , ( one of which rang Barry's mobile with a pre-programmed message about security ) with the trucks number plates tape over and the paper vehicle licencing disc also taped over .. All the three guys in the truck wore the white hooded painters coveralls and what looked like white rubber gloves & white dairyman's wellington boots..
Barry reckons that it was less than 17 minutes from him getting the alarm call to him & his farmer pals arriving at the farm They met no one coming from the farm in either direction along the road .
We estimated that they took less than three minutes to burn the doors open and about the same to load the stolen goods. It's obvious that there were several accomplice's stationed around the area observing from a distance to give a quick text on a stolen phone to the thieves alerting them if someone came along .
The last time I talked with Barry he said no insurance company will now insure him for less than several thousand pounds ( sterling ) every six months .
I myself had a walk in theft .. Christmas eve 1974 I'd helped my ex wife bake four dozen mince pies . It was quite hot in the tiny kitchen so we left the back door to the enclosed back garden ajar.( the three foot high back gate was bolted & padlocked )
The beautiful aroma of fresh baked hot mince pies was enticingly wafting around the neighbour hood . In the kitchen we also had our Phillips Taifun battery radio tuned to Christmassy pop music playing gently .
We took time out from the hot kitchen & further baking with a cup of coffee & to sit with our two & a half year old Munchkin and watch some children's TV with her . Once we'd stopped laughing at the antics of Road Runner thwarting Wily Coyote yet again , I became aware of a pressure drop in the air and felt a bit colder.
Then I became aware that the radio was not giving out it festive stuff.
As I walked into the kitchen I found the back door was wide open with a towel dropped on the floor to hold it open . All the three racks of cooling mince pies and the radio had gone so had a large shopping bag . Immediately I ran outside to see who was about ..not a sausage to be seen . I then knocked on several neighbours to make enquiries , most were out shopping but none of these in residence reckoned that they had seen or heard anything. I couldn't smell the mince pies at the homes that answered the door either.
It certainly gave us a sickening feeling in our stomach's for a few days . I'm so glad that our kiddy was in the front room and not playing about in the back garden on her own as she often did .
After that we got permission to raise the chain link fencing to 6 foot tall on concrete posts and I ran three simple trip alarms along the fence line on my side I also alarmed the gate with a simple magnet and reed switch circuit that put a 9 volt screamer ( secreted in the shed roof ) on if the gate was opened or removed from the hinges by some one unscrewing it.
Obviously I suspect that it was one of our " neighbours " who didn't answer the door when I went enquiring that had nicked the goods, but proving it and making sure you cripple the right guy is perhaps not quite the politically correct way to behave in a so called civilised society , for you might just get hold of the wrong person ..
