How to Survive Life in the Suburbs

On Little Thugs, Disappointment And The Vigilante Mom

in Family on

This is just like my daughters’ Jeep.

 

My Hubby and I surprised our girls with this fun little ride last year.  It’s a safe car, great in the snow, small enough that they can’t pack too many kids in there at once, and more than a little fun in the summer.  Seriously, what could be better than heading to the beach with your besties for the day, your sunnies on and the top down on your ride.  I was hoping the Jeep might help me win Mom of the year.  What it’s been doing lately?  Leaving me aggravated.  Actually, aggravated is not the right word.  Aggravated doesn’t begin to describe the level of ticked off, angry and violated I felt when for the third time in a year my dear daughter’s car was “tossed”.  What do I mean by tossed?  Well you see, it’s a Jeep.  Not so glamorous, and regularly parked, in our driveway overnight, the doors left unlocked.  We’ve lived in our lovely neighbourhood for 17 years now, it’s safe, people know each other and we actually felt it was better to leave the Jeep doors unlocked versus locked.  Our thinking?  If for some odd reason a thief wandered down our quiet suburban street and really wanted to break in, at least they wouldn’t smash the windows or rip the top.  Soooo what did those no good hoooligans do? Break-in.  THREE times over the past year.  Sigh.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing of value to steal out of this vehicle.  No garage door opener that could slyly be used to gain entry to our home.  No visible bags, wallets or even CD’s that might appear interesting.  Not even pocket change.  There was some garbage from McDonald’s and Tim Hortons.  And yet, THREE times in a year now we’ve marched out to the driveway to discover the glovebox has been upended, empty coffee cups have been thrown about, and mitts, sunscreen, and odds and ends tossed all over the damn place.  I’m angry, frustrated, disappointed with humanity.  Who does this?  For what reason?  And can they please just move along now.

It’s a horrible feeling knowing someone has broken into a car….worse, your daughter’s car mere feet from your home and were brazen enough to do it while you were watching television or were asleep in your bed.

Obviously, something has to change, has to be done, and quickly!  We now ensure every door on that pretty little Jeep is locked after it’s driven with hopes the behaviour of the criminals will not escalate to window breaking, but this doesn’t feel like enough.  Sadly it doesn’t feel like nearly enough.  Not when you find out you aren’t the only Mama on the street feeling violated this week.  Not when you hear the neighbours had tools stolen right out of their garage.  Not when you hear car break-ins in your end of the city are on the rise.  So you know what you do?  You go out and buy yourself a fancy ass security system and hook that baby up.  Then you leave a sweet little sign on the front seat of that Jeep that reads:

Then you just sit and wait.  Hey, I’m the Mother of two kids who have both played competitive sports.  I am the Queen of sitting and waiting.  Me and my trusty little security camera with HD Weatherproof Night Vision and superior low light performance that automatically backs up to the cloud, are going to catch and kick some little criminal asses.

The car thieves are turning me into a crazy person.  This is not the new winter hobby I was expecting.  God help the punks who cross a Mama Bear and turn her into a Vigilante Mom.

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

    • Comments

    1. That’s awful! When we first moved into our neighbourhood, our car was broken into and things were stolen. They cut the car alarm and took money, expensive radio system, and other car gadgets. So I know the feeling. It seems we all have to get security systems now at home and on the road.

    2. Ugh – how awful. I cannot begin to imagine how it feels. Thankfully we’ve never had it happen to us 🙁

    3. What a great idea to install a security cam to watch for the idiot (s) doing this. Love the sign! I need to get one because we have similar idiots here.

    4. Do let us know if they manage to catch the perps. My son and his fiancee had a ton of trouble with their cars too. No garage so parked on the street and the number of times their side mirrors were broken off, or their cars scratched or even dented is unbelievable, not a chance of the perps being caught though, sadly. They’ve moved now and surprise surprise no more car damage.

    5. this has become a terrible thing in our neighborhood. No matter whats in it or not in it sometimes I think they do it just to do it… just to be a$$e$ .. there. I said it.

    7. I hear you! My car was broken into twice in one week, in the garage and locked. Still can’t figure out why the alarm didn’t go off. And took nothing both times. Ugh!

    8. That is so uncool that you keep being targeted. We live in a smaller city and it happens here all the time. No matter what area you live in. So sad.

      • Maybe now that the weather is getting colder the break-ins will slow down around here. It’s too cold to be out at night!

    9. Oh that’s terrible!
      If it were me I’d leave the vehicle unlocked, broken windows are more of a pain to fix than just cleaning up garbage.
      But three times is ridiculous.

      • That was our thinking at first. Unlocked would mean less work. Now I’m stumped, I feel like we can’t win!

        • What about one of those touch alarms? Someone touches the car and a siren goes off. It’d scare them away for sure. It would also wake the whole neighborhood, but maybe they wouldn’t mind if the hoodlums were gone.
          They’re not expensive, probably less than $50.

    10. I wouldn’t even have put a note in the jeep, let them just be surprised when the police show up at their front door – hope the thugs get caught soon.

    11. my brother in law left his garage open for about an hour and he came out to it things were stolen.

      • How scary! You should be able to leave your garage open all day long right? Isn’t that what we used to be able to do?

      • I do! I actually said that out loud when I saw the Jeep broken into again. Where are their Mother’s???

    13. You go! we too have been using Cameras here, in our little safe community. We lock everything our night time serenade is the Dodge Beep X3 for our cars before going to bed. We also put a cage over our garage window.

    14. I have had my car broken into and it is a horrible feeling. The items they stole were small (a few tools, CDS etc) and were worth something to me but NOT worth putting in a claim on my insurance.. I also had to pay out of pocket for the stereo to be replaced (it was an older car with an after market stereo) as they depreciate.

      Further more – the drunk driver who hit and ran my vehicle and crashed their own up the street – not enough proof they hit my car soooo I paid that deductible out of pocket too… It’s very frustrating that others disregard for others can cost us so much!

      • You have had a time of it! I’m so sorry to hear about both of these instances…..kind of make you wonder about those insurance policies huh? I wish there was one that covered acts of stupidity!