Beware leaving garage door open
 

We have a friend that lives on Simpson Street in Mallory. Last week they were working in their back yard by Stillwater Trail and their house was entered by someone and stole a lot of jewelery, I Pad, coins, and other money. Entry was thru the garage. The week before their neighbor 3 houses away had their car stolen from their open garage, while they were taking a nap. This past week end there were eight or ten deputies and 3 state troopers in unmarked cars patroling aroung Bishopville Loop and down Hengan Place. I later found out that a car was stolen from the garage or attemped to be on Bishopville Loop but don't have any other information. Just Beware and keep your Door Closed.

An savvy person would not leave their front door open. Why would someone leave their garage door open that leads into the house via an unlocked door?

That is not in a new construction area. It takes a lot of nerve to go into a house when the owner is in the backyard. Obviously someone is watching others to know what they are doing. Culprit probably is a visiting child in that area.

one can only conclude some folks are not only leaving their garage door open but may also leaving their keys in the car.

In addition to the two legged snakes one has to be mindfull of snakes and gators venturing into open garages.

There are just some basic rules of safety, no matter where you live. If you would not leave your front door open, why would you leave the garage door open?

Good luck.

btk

How did you arrive at that conclusion? We have visiting children in our neighborhood frequently. Are they all suspect?

I frequently take my morning walk between 3 and 5 AM, in Malloy. It goes without fail, that I see at least one garage door wide open. I thought Neighborhood Watch would alert these people. The most I've seen open at one time is 4.

We left our garage door open one night (all night). Neighborhood watch called around 11pm, and again at 2am. They wanted to know if we were ok or if we were having any problems. Could not thank them enough.
Nice to know they're keeping an eye out for us.

BB

Most of the time, community watch vehicles speed up and down our court so fast that there is no way they could even see an open door.

Lots of our friends leave their garage doors open if they face west to keep the heat from building up in the garage. We do from time to time, but we have a motion sensor that will alert us to anyone entering the garage. It is easy to hear even from the backyard and lanai.

Seems like a good idea. What is the brand, where did you get it, how easy is it to install, where is the alarm, need wiring or is it electronic broadcast, plus any other info you think would be of interest. Thanks:2excited::pepper2:

Well, thanks to the OP for this reminder. I just noticed DH left keys in both cars' ignitions, and the garage door open.

It is super cheap. Super easy to use. No installation. Battery operated. Got mine at "As Seen On TV" store up on 441 or you can buy online.

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It is possible that someone may have an opener with the same frequency.

"It is possible that someone may have an opener with the same frequency" Depending on how old the system.. Most older openers have 4 or 5 digit 4 roll frequency set where you slip the numbers from 1 to 5 making new combination to change the Frequency. Some thief's drive around with an opener till the have hit. Especially new systems cause you have go in and manually reset the factory setting, otherwise if I buy new one it maybe set on same Frequency?.

"How did you arrive at that conclusion? We have visiting children in our neighborhood frequently. Are they all suspect?"

Bold burglaries in the same neighborhood while school is out of session and children/grandchildren are visiting in the neighborhood. Are they all suspect? No, just those who know what is valuable to steal.

Keep your garage doors down and the keys to your carts and cars well inside the house - not hanging on a hook by a door, either. I have talked to a few friends here in The Villages and they normally keep their car keys in the car and cart keys in the cart while in the garage. What can you say?

I'm wondering where do you think these children are hiding the cars???

How annoying is that motion censor when you are working around your garage? I might be interested in getting one.

I say you can't fix stupid. I would never leave my keys in the car/cart. Never have, never will. Besides, if I did,I would look for them in the house and wouldn't be able to find them!

It is possible that that "someone" with an opener that uses the same frequency has it with criminal intent in mind (and assuredly NOT visiting children). A while back there was an issue of criminals riding around with garage door openers just trying till they happened to hit on one that worked.

My suggestion would be to get the instructions for reprogramming your garage door openers and doing so. I did this and feel more secure as a result. If your garage door was installed by Ro-Mac (on Rolling Acres Road), as mine was, they can give you the instructions or tell you where to find it. If not Ro-Mac (or someone else local), it should be available online.

As far as Community Watch is concerned, I've never seen them race through here, if anything the opposite: I see them drive by slowly looking one way or the other, and if I'm out in the driveway area they invariably make eye contact with me.

I agree with those who point out the foolishness of creating an "invitation" by leaving the garage doors open.

In fairness and in the interest of balance another possible reason a garage door is left opened is that there is a defect such as the laser unit misaligned which prevents a garage door from closing. It is easy to believe once you pushed the button that the door is closing and you walk away.

If the reason people are leaving their garage doors up is heat I might suggest that there are several companies that offer screen for garages. We purchased an overhead screen door that serves that problem well.

Thanks for the quick response. I'm off to the store.:crap2:

I admit it I'm STUPID - have left the keys in the car while it is parked in the garage for
the last 40 years. Only time it backfired is once when I was taking a shower and my mom who has dementia got in the car and drove off. All's well that ends well. Thank goodness. Always thought that was one of the benefits of a garage - leaving the keys in the ignition.

That's funny, jblum. The reason we started leaving keys in the car was because we kept looking for them in the house and weren't able to find them! But we lived in an out-of-the-way neighborhood, with a 300-foot driveway well off sight of the road.

But you can fix stupid. :pray: We are no longer going to keep keys in the cars.

Good point.

Maybe a car-theft ring? Also, to my albeit uneducated-in-thievery mind, these incidents sound like the work of more experienced people. To rob someone blind while they're in their backyard takes an awful lot of nerve. If they were kids, they've been at it a long time.

Its not that hard to open a closed door.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P-zTdoGTQo]Protecting your home from a garage door-opener break-in - YouTube[/ame]

If a thief is determined to get in, he/she will...:grumpy:

Thanks for posting that. Which village or location would Stillwater Trail be in??? Better safe than sorry, but the audacity of the perps. Again, thanks.

Stillwater runs west to east just south of LSL. It then goes east southeast.
Thru village of Caroline & Mallary Square.

You may want to obtain a map of The Villages, $5 at the sales center.

Having cared, in our home, for a mom who had dementia....I had to chuckle. Although it truly is not funny when it happens. Right?

Mine totally FORGOT how to drive so we were lucky that way......
But once while we were all staying in a hotel, adjoining rooms with a connecting door.....she escaped late evening and went down to crash a wedding in the atrium by the pool, in her nightgown, barefooted, with her purse on her arm, looking like Sophia in THE GOLDEN GIRLS.....front desk called us at midnight to come down and get her.......we could never figure out how she opened the deadbolt lock.

But, getting back to the thieves........any type of "invasion" is frightening.
Everyone up here used to leave their doors open, their keys in their cars, etc. but those days are long gone.........

Besides thieves, once our neighbor's little 4 year old boy got into their pickup truck and turned it on....got it rolling down the street which is a hill....luckily his dad spotted him and jumped to the rescue.....

So, whether it is old grannies, little boys or the unwanted thief, better to not leave keys in the car.

Thank you. Now I remember where it is. I do have a map but it's upstairs.
I've been up and down all morning (tri level house).....taking a "rest"....

Appreciate the info.

Like you, our daughter and her family live in a rural area with a 600 foot long dirt driveway leading up from the two town dirt roads.......so they no doubt feel "safe" as who could find them in the middle of the forest? However, I worry when they always leave their doors wide open and their keys in all the vehicles........as sometimes these out of the way neighborhoods can be more easily burglarized than where homes are closer together and neighbors keep an eye out for each other...............

I first had to wonder if this information was recircled information having to do with a golf cart stolen from a garage in Mallory or Caroline and found nearby in a parking lot. It happened about a year ago when a person went out early to get the paper and forgot to close the garage door. I think I remember that the cart was intact with everything on it. I thought at that time it might have been kids. There was also two breakins in the area north of 466 off Buena Vista about that time and jewelry was taken. It was the adult son of a resident that was caught.

However I probably am wrong as the OP said this was recent. Sometimes when you get information about something it is all a collective jumble and mostly right, but not entirely right.

LOL - They have come around my cul-de-sac so fast their vehicle is on two wheels.

Bad driving from the little white trucks????????????

That isn't our experience at all. Kudo's to The Village Watch. They...well...they watch.

I heard this whole story at the rec center....'someone who lives by someone, who got robbed told someone'....so again this is how stories perpetuate. I'm not negating the whole thing as not being true as it maybe is. BUT on a social network like this...it's like that old game of "telephone" we played as kids. By the time it gets around, the whole thing is much different than the original happening.

Will we keep our garage door up...probably!

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that part. It is a bit annoying. If you can, try to put the sensor outside of the garage.

I wonder if it's the same group of thieves targeting TV? I doesn't seem like it would typically be attractive to burglars because there are too many neighbors around during the day.

Community Watch knocked at a friend's house one night recently to let them know their garage door was open ... they in fact had forgotten to close it and weren't aware. They also had a problem with their opener controlling their neighbor's door. Resetting the code didn't help and they had to get the door repair guy out.

Personally, I would take any story like this with a grain of salt. There is the police incident report one day a week in the Daily Sun that gives where burglaries, robberies, etc are reported. I have not seen any reports of homes in The Villages being the victims of crimes.

Let the bashing of the Daily Sun begin! :rant-rave: :swear: :rant-rave:

A couple of years ago there was a "rumor" about a woman's house being robbed of jewelry, her safe was broken into if I recall. A few weeks after I heard the rumor, I happened to be standing in line to sign up for a golf tournament, and I heard two people talking, and one of them was the actual woman who had been robbed. So yes, it does happen here, don't fool yourselves.

I also believe that just like anywhere else, there ARE some faked burglaries and insurance fraud going on. There are all kinds of ways to be bad.

Beware of leaving garage door open
 

YOU WON'T SEE THIS IN THE VILLAGES DAILY SUN only outside the villages

Harbor Freight Tools sells wireless driveway alert systems. Battery operated. I fasten the outside unit with a plastic tie to my light post. Inside unit can be turned on and off. About $20.00