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The Mean Pettiness Of Theft
I own a travel trailer and use it to take my family on vacations. It is a great way to see the nation while still taking your home with you, it avoids hotels, and it lets you spend your nights in some absolutely gorgeous areas. Only hiking and tent camping will get you further into the wilderness. The downside to the trailer, though, is storing it when it is not in use. I rent a spot at a local storage lot. Last night that lot was raided by a team of thieves.
We got the call this afternoon from the lot manager, telling us that we needed to get down and patch things up, take an inventory, and file a police report on what was stolen. There were around 30 RVs on the lot, and nearly every one had been raided. The thieves moved quickly, smashing the window on the door, slashing the screen within, then letting themselves in. They only stole what they thought they could fence, so they left the sheets and towels, the crock pot, the iron skillet, and (strangely enough) the septic hose fittings. They tried to bust into a side compartment where I keep the hitch ball and tools, but must have deemed it a waste of time (and scrap metal dealers operate under massive scrutiny here).
The only RVs left unmolested were the obviously-older, dingier ones. My in-laws’ RV, for instance, was untouched probably because their rusty old Jeep Cherokee signaled that nothing of value was within. I lost a 21″ flat screen Samsung TV ($150 when new 3 years ago) and a $40 off-brand DVD player. They broke the TV wall mount in the process, so I would not be surprised if the TV itself was busted too. Street value through a fence: maybe $40 in all?
Cost to repair: (1) $15.00 glass panel, plus sealant, plus 2+ hours in the car to get the glass, plus clean up time. Not worth even filing a claim. I was lucky. Some RVs have safety glass in all of the windows (mine included) which made clean up rather easy. Several did not and the owners will have to be rather careful. Vacations have been ruined for many people as the RV dealership garages are booked solid right now. Several units will likely have more expensive repairs (my trailer is pretty cheap).
I’m guessing the likely fence value for everything stolen can’t have been more than $1,000; valuables are just not kept in RVs when in storage. I’m guessing the total damage to be between $3,000 and $4000. Such is always the way of vandalism.
When in high school, my own car was perpetually in the shop, meaning I got to drive my mother’s Chrysler Lebaron convertible. One night I left my $30 off-brand walkman in the car, and some jerk slashed the top for it. That was an $800 repair, for an item with a fence value of maybe $10.
I know the thieves don’t care. $1,000 for an hour’s raid probably seems like a good return to them, but then they don’t have to tell their kids and watch them break down sobbing. They don’t have to clean up the mess. They probably think that this was some sort of social justice, revenge against the fat cats. They might even boast of their munificence at not smashing the whole RV to bits – my parents’ RV was broken into once and the vandals defecated in the shower.
Yet vandalism is always so petty – minuscule and momentary gains for the thieves, at the cost of far greater physical and emotional damage to the victims. The thieves in Baltimore think themselves justified in smashing liquor stores and pharmacies, and burning senior centers to the ground. They got their fun, they had their adrenaline rush, and they got away with it. The thieves here will likely never be caught either, just as they were never caught with the Lebaron.
My expenses here were thankfully minimal, and the physical damage is already repaired. The owner of the storage lot, however, has already lost customers, will see his insurance rates go up, and will have to spend a great deal to upgrade his security and repair his reputation. That sort of damage is long lasting and never totally repairable. If the thieves just needed a quick grand, I would gladly have paid them in cash and spared us all from the mess. Heck, I could have employed them actually making things and adding to the wealth of the community.
Instead, the wealth of our community is diminished tonight, and we have yet more reasons to watch our backs and be wary.
Published in Domestic Policy
The mantra of today’s thief (and looter, a la Baltimore and Ferguson) is “it’s not hurting anyone; they’re all insured.” I’ve occasionally, but very rarely, forced a client to sit through a long lesson in basic economics. They never did understand the value of my time, either, until it was spent wasting theirs…
In terms of a single event I’m sure it would have been quicker, cheaper and easier on all involved. However life doesn’t work that way. Paying dane-geld never gets rid of the Dane.
If only.
All too true. Likely they would have resented the job offer and considered themselves sell outs for taking it.
No surveillance cameras? Alarms of any kind?
Apparently inadequate ones. I’m guessing it was at least partially an inside job, or one of the thieves had a gate code. No other way to get in and out quickly with the loot, and no sign of vehicles outside the fence.
The rationalizations come after. “What do I want?” and “How can I take it?” are the only thoughts before, I expect. It’s the mind of a selfish teen in perpetuity.
The fools will be caught eventually, for one crime or another.
Wow. I don’t know if this is the case for that business but what passes for a “background check” these days is pretty lousy so it could’ve been easy to hire a felon without knowing it. Or wanting to know it.
Could have been one of the other renters, or a relative thereof.
Good point.
So sorry to see this, Skip! Glad you and yours are safe!
It stinks. We’ve seen some huge copper thefts on construction jobs over the years–what they garner is a tiny fraction of what it takes to replace it. It’s kind of the outer limit of bad time horizons in peoples’ lives.
Skippy, I had the same thing happen to my 32′ travel trailer. Over $5,000 in damage, and your thief is either the owner or relative or friend of one of the other trailers. In order to have the gate code. In my case it turned out to be the son of one of the other trailer owners.
I guess like everyone, I’ve been stolen from before. I understand the anger. I’ve felt it. But at least a thief has a reason, to enrich himself. There’s a, “Nothing personal, it’s just business” aspect to it.
What angers me even more is vandalism for the sake of vandalism. Mindless destruction, or worse, destruction targeted to an individual. As a class, people who engage in that are much more dangerous, to the individual and to society as a whole.
I am betting on one of the renters kids that was there saw an easy score and brought their friends into it. Most likely the stuff was traded for drugs.
Skip, your title, in so many senses of the word “mean” says it all. It’s more than petty theft, it’s malicious vandalism. Destroying!
Sometimes they even enjoy sharing the experience. Mega language content warning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6patiKWi90
Indeed!
The super-villain solution. ;^D
Yes, hello. I’m interested in renting one of your parking spaces. Yes. Yes. An RV. Yes. Tell me, will I be allowed to do any digging under and around the parking space?
Silly, Jason. You put it inside the door of the RV aimed outward and have a deactivator switch for yourself or your family. Haven’t you ever set up a home security system using Claymores before?
Claymore anti-personnel mines are a good answer.
Skip, I was a little alarmed at one of your last sentences about gladly paying such people – why on earth should we have to bribe people to not hurt us or take our stuff?
There’s a wanton immorality to this sort of thing which speaks to the fact that the thieves’ preference for chaotic, short-term gains far exceeds their preference for long-term, stable gains, such as those provided by employment.
In short, this is yet another reason why a Libertarian society won’t work: despite their assertions that people should rationally view you as a potential future trading partner, there is a non-trivial fraction of the population that views you as a quick hit; a one-time resource which they can consume for little or no cost which is easily replaced by other people who play by the rules while they refuse to comply.
“Cleanup on Aisle 3. Cleanup on Aisle 3.”
I had a catalytic converter stolen once (they have a scrap value of a couple hundred dollars because of the paltinum) and have had the ‘Stang brogen into on multiple occasions. I still have to replace the tumble on the passenger side door from an attack with a screwdriver. One time they cleaned out the few tings in the Mustang waht did they get?
Total value street value maybe $100. Loss of fame in humanity: almost complete.
Ah, someone else with experience. ;^D
I got a story about that…
Not so much of a story actually. I run a role-playing campaign where players hunt monsters in the modern day (based off the Larry Correia books, naturally). One of their toys is an RV with claymores lining the sides. And quite a bit more than that…
Anyone stealing a bible probably needs it more than you do. Actually, I always figured that a bible prominently displayed warded against theft, because the would-be theif would figure any CDs left in there would be Christian rock. Of course, driving a Mustang also indicates a higher social class than my car (pretty much anything would.) It was still broken into once; the thieves made off with my buddy’s GPS unit (which the cops later returned), and, I kid you not, half a bag of Malt-o-Meal. I didn’t ask for that one back.
I have no idea what this is or how it works.
Edit: Put in a better video
But who would clean up the mess?
Seconding all this so strongly.
The first order effects of theft are terrible, but the second order ones are potentially worse. I know people who’ve been victims of relatively minor thefts (in terms of financial damage), but whose lives were very nearly ruined by the loss in security they suffered. That, of course, effects the people who love them, etc., etc.