Thieves

[BadBird]

Carol and I returned from a month long trip back to Kansas for family birthdays and reunion. While on the road back home got an email from our motorhome storage facility that someone cut through the fence and stole numerous catalytic converters. Yep, ours was one that got hit. They no longer have OEM parts so it was suggested I just install a straight pipe. No sensors were removed and none on our unit behind the converter. So, going to give it a try and see if I get codes showing up.
Went to the IRV2 website and there are hundreds of people going through the same crap. According to the storage site, the sheriff won't even come out to investigate. Said thieves won't even go to jail. Bull crap society out there. Larry

[Luva65wagon]

This is the second story of this type this week from members here in the club. Of course the problem is the thieves, but it's probably as much the scrap metal buyers who pay no questions asked. Too many incentives. And Seattle is currently suffering from a 20%+ loss of police staff, so you dole out resources to life and death things. We called the police because the school behind us was being actively vandalized. Operator asked if firearms were being used. Nope. Sorry, can't get to that.

[BadBird]

I hate politics. BUT, it is politics that is causing this all to happen. Just last week, I saw that there was a hate crime committed on 132 street near us. It progressed to road rage in the middle of the intersection. The police were called. The officer got the information about a white jeep. Got the license number.
While investigating he received a call of the Home Depot attempted robbery just down the street. He left the first scene to arrive at Home Depot where he saw the white jeep leaving, same license number. He turned on his lights and started after the jeep. The jeep driver pointed out the window he was going forward and sped away. The officer according to new law could not
chase the suspect because it was only a class 3 felony.
The offender was wanted for other more serious crimes. Warrant for arrest in robbery.
So, what message did the POLITICIANS just give all the creeps out there?
The Sheriff wouldn't even go to the RV storage lot to see what happened. No reason to investigate because it was not serious.
MY RV was broken into when it was at our house. When I called the police, the Mill Creek officer told me, "everyone has gotten robbed recently". That I already knew. I caught a guy trying to break into my daughter in laws car. I had a guy jump our fence running from police and steal our bicycle to escape. My next door neighbors truck was stolen. There are 8 houses in our cul-de-sac. All have had break ins, stolen vehicles. My best friend a block away had his house broken into and $20,000 of contents stolen.
This isn't a police problem. I don't blame them. Mill Creek, this isn't exactly Detroit, but crap. Sorry. Nuf said. Larry

[Luva65wagon]

Sadly Larry, I don't think it is that black and white. Sure, politics is nasty stuff - especially these days - but it's always been nasty. Getting worse with the constant barrage of disinformation and lack, anymore, of critical thinking. I see a vast need to fund things this country desperately needs and that money only comes one way. And nobody wants to pay for it, but they, at the same time, all say we gotta have it (fill in the blank for whatever "it" is). Right now Seattle and areas around it (cities growing too fast, generally) are in a crisis, but the crisis wasn't made by politicians. It was made by nothing more than greed. That greed said it's OK to raise your rent, for instance, to a level you need to make $70K a year, minimum, to afford. And when that is done everywhere, which is mostly true in this area, where are you going to go? I know of a guy here in the club who suffered this fate. He sleeps in his Falcon (or did, last time I saw him). For others it's a trailer, or a tent. This leads to depression, which leads to drugs, which leads to theft, which leads to the politicians to fix it, which they technically can't because it takes money and nobody wants to spend it. Not my problem (they'll say), when in fact it really is. Perhaps just not the way you want it to be. Anyway, it's just not a cut and dry, black and white, thing. It's a mess, that much I think we can all agree on. But what is the fix? That's the $64,000 question. And sadly I think the fix is probably a $64,000,000,000,000 question.

[Jeff W]

I am the second member with the stolen catalytic converter. Two weeks ago they cut my wife’s off her 2002 Honda CRV. It was parked 1/4 block from our house in a busy neighborhood. Sadly they cut the pipes in front and in back, both sensors and pulled the connectors from the harness.

my wife was very shocked when she heard the open header Sunday morning. No cut outs on this one Larry.

Not counting the $180 for towing, the quote is $5,600 with 2-3 week lead time due to high demand.

I ordered an aluminum cover that will slow them down next time, and I am going to add some mods to slow them down more.


Sad indeed.

I ordered

[dhbfaster]

Man...sorry about your stolen catalytic converters Larry and Jeff!
My brother-in-law just had his stolen off his van in the Boulder Colorado area too. He put some kind of cage around his new one too. his van stays in storage a lot too. It's crazy. it's like a franchise business or something. The people stealing them are probably selling the cages for them too.
My son is a prosecutor for Snohomish county. Right now there's a three year backlog for non-violent cases. He has well over 100 cases to manage (just his share) and they want him to go to trial on something every week or so. So, getting to theft stuff can take forever and I think the people doing the stealing and the buying know that. The police know it too, so why even bother going out to catch a bad guy?
I agree with a lot of what you said Roger...especially the part about one thing leads to another, depression, etc...and down the spiral goes. It's a bad situation.
Overall I'm a fan of capitalism. I've always been fascinated with the "machine" inputs and outputs and complexity of it all and the opportunity it brings and how it can motivate people to greatness, but it definitely has it's downsides and has to be managed or it can be problematic.
Check this out: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/2020-population-and-housing-state-data.html
According to the latest census, the population in Washington state went up 14.1% over the last 10 years, but the number of available housing units only went up 11%. That's a huge supply and demand gap! Based on that data, we need more people to build housing units and to be landlords. There's just not enough supply- so the price goes up.
Meanwhile, there are help wanted signs everywhere you go. We raised WH worker pay about $4/hour just this year and still have a hard time getting people to show up. It's cheaper to live further out too and people can move- and they can move a lot easier if they have transit...
Anyway, we do all agree it's a mess. Hopefully we can keep it from getting worse.

[bloodspite]

Converter theft a big deal out this way as well. Not long ago couple guys broke in to a repair shop and cut them off 5 different cars in the lot. They got the guys on camera. Not sure if they caught them yet.
So bad they made converter theft a felony here.
Hate to hear this happened to ya'll!

[Jeff W]

Here is my finished deterrent. Should add an extra five minutes to the theft.

why is this picture upside down? Who knows.

[Luva65wagon]

why is this picture upside down? Who knows.

I think it's a MAC thing. But there, I fixed it.

[Falcongek]

Here is my finished deterrent. Should add an extra five minutes to the theft.

why is this picture upside down? Who knows.

NIce, but won't it get too hot, I believe cat's do get hot?

[gtaroger]

I owned a motor home a couple years back. While in storage someone got in the storage lot and stoled the cats off 5 of the units stored there ,mine included.One month later they came back and stoled the cats off 3 more units. Locky for me ,they skipped mine that time. This is not in Detroit. I lived in Detroit for 25 years and in that time the only thing I had stolen was a radio out of my car.