Garage was broken into yesterday afternoon. Short verson: my floor jack was in a neighbors yard (they may not have stole it, not sure at this point, but I don't believe so) and I got it back, nothing else damaged or missing. The jack was the nicest thing you can get to without emptying out half the garage.


Garage is a detached 2 car garage with only 2 garage doors to get in. Car side(car not on the road at this time), garage door opener was disengaged and I fixed the lock so I could access the garage in case of a power outage. Truck side has garage door opener working.

They broke in through the car side, lock no longer works, now using garage door opener again.

Plans include:

Contacting alarm company (I have a monitored home alarm system) and adding garage to house system.

Have a can of purple paint. Now my tool chest, tool cart, jack, jackstands, etc will look a little different than most, and I will be able to identify them easier.

Engrave last name on to tools I actually care about, recording model, serial, and taking a picture (most are harbor fright tools, not worried about them). Would this be enough?

Can you think of anything else (beside booby-trapping the place) I should do.

 

Maybe a driveway sensor. Motion detector lights.

The alarm is a good idea. We did a remodel 12 years ago. We put all our furniture etc in the garage. I had the alarm guy hook it up. I also put a sliding hasp and padlock on the garage door. The local theif came by, cut the lock and got an earfull of horn when he tried to force the door open.

I replaced the lock, added a second one and installed lights. No more issues.

ymmv

No booby traps btw. Cameras can be handy--a local midnight rambler was busted via a security camera image. "Critter cams" from the sporting goods store might work for under $100.

Serving suggestion......

 

Wal-Mart has a decent game camera for $50. I am going to pick one up, as gas cans seem to grow legs around here. Not fun when it's the pre-mix for my saw and I'm behind on cutting the wood for heat.

 

i have a video system installed now after 35 gallons of gas and 15 gallons of diesel were siphoned out of 3 vehicles. then 3 weeks later the house across the street was broke into. nothing was taken because the dog woke up and scared the drug addict away. and we know it was a druggie, because a week later he broke into a house down the street and admitted to the one across the street after he was caught at the pawn shop with more jewelry than a crack head should have legally.
the cameras are in plain view, and there is no way to disable one without being seen by at least one other camera.

 

My Chicago garage had been broken into a half dozen times, each time through the overhead door by tripping or capturing the simple coding that the manufacturers supply with the openers.
My solution was to purchase a simple plug in remote control module for the power cord for the opener. Now I can shut the power off independently of the power to everything else in the garage. Kind of a pain to have yet another remote but it hasn't happened again in the 3 or so years since I installed it. 2 minute install, plug it into the receptical and plug the cord into it.
I also reinforced the latch side of the jamb for my service door with 2 1/2" dexion slotted angle and added burglar bars to my windows and skylights. I have a pair of 500 watt halogen lights on a motion sensor at the perimeter of the alley side of the garage set to pick up anything above 3 feet so the critters (mostly rats and squirrels in this cesspool city) dont set it off. The 1000 watts of halogen light it up like its a medical lab so its pretty obvious if someone is there.

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=pitb...ml%3B450%3B338

 

I just spit out my coffee all over the place.

I love it.

Gotta get me one of those.

 

Or:

 

$420 dollars later, my garage is now tied into the home alarm system.

Door opens, alarm goes off, cops show up.

Was at the point where money wasn't a issue. Now it's done.

Got a bunch of pictures of my stuff, showing how I marked them.

Was working at a dive bar, fixing a ice machine. Someone there was selling pit bull puppies for $100.00 each (boy, were they cute). Actually consideded buying one (and a few signs).

Hopefully I just spent a bunch of money for something I won't need.

 

Local Police told me to engrave my 9 digit zip code and first four letters of my last name. No problem with ID Theft then.