the curse continues

[cellio]

Sigh. It's a good thing I'm not superstitious, or right about now I'd be starting to think about replacing the cursed car.

Sometime during the 25 minutes I was at tonight's minyan, some bastard smashed the driver-side window in my car. It does not appear that he attempted to steal the stereo or the car itself (no damage to stereo or steering column). He dumped the contents of the glove box and apparently rifled through things. (For reasons unknown, he also put the visor down -- but it's a semi-porous surface so it doesn't show prints.)

This was a mysterious act of vandalism until I realized that the only thing missing was the garage-door opener.

That's very clever. Break into a car, pick up the garage-door opener, get the owner's address from the registration card, and hope for an atached garage that will let you break into the house in relative solitude later. (Open garage, walk in, close garage door behind you, work on the house lock at your leisure.) I'm surprised I thought of it mere seconds before the police officer said something.

We have a detatched garage, so about all he'll be able to steal is the sukkah and I don't think he wants that. I suppose he could also return in the dead of night to work on stealing the car; there's not much I can do about that except make sure there's nothing valuable in the car. An auto-glass service is supposed to come in the morning. Completely coincidentally, we're getting the garage-door opener replaced anyway.

I have no evidence about the car alarm. Did it sound? If it did, no one responded, but I wouldn't expect them to. And if it went off, the thief hung around for at least a bit.

Some data about the Pittsburgh police: they came about half an hour after I called; given that there was at least one robbery (armed?) and one sounded-like-mugging nearby being talked about on the radio, that's not surprising. The officer who responded was polite and professional, and he asked if I'd like them to dust for prints. (You could have knocked me over with a feather. Dust for prints? For something less severe than violence or burglary? Wow.) We found a good candidate print on the outside of the car, but when the prints folks showed up (within 15 minutes) they couldn't get anything. They did, however, sweep much of the glass off of the driver's seat for me before leaving, saving me the challenge of getting the car home unbloodied. (Yeah, it's safety glass. But there were a lot of looked-like-shards.)

Comments

[kayre]

Glove box and visor are also places the less than wise keep credit cards.

I'm so sorry about this; it's an awful feeling, and an enormous inconvenience, I know.

[alienor.livejournal.com]

My sister had her garage door opener stolen, too. The funny part was that they *selectively* stole *certain* CDs from her car as well, rather than just taking the whole wallet.

They got into the garage (the car was in the driveway when the opener was stolen) and took a dirt bike they were keeping for a friend. ::sigh::

[ealdthryth.livejournal.com]

Good grief! That's awful. It's rather scary about the garage door opener too.

[steven.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the garage is detached. Sorry about your car, though! Ugh!

[tangerinpenguin.livejournal.com]

It may be possible to get the garage "rekeyed" (re-frequencied?) Worth looking into...

And yeah, lots of things end up tucked behind the visor - garage-door openers, parking/building passes, five bucks for toll...

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

Oh my, that car does seem to have some sort of curse. I'm glad you are okay and that you were planning on replacing the garage door opener anyhow. That reminds me, the other day I saw a sign on the Lowes in Monroeville that said that they were on sale.

[laurabee.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about the garage door opener letting people into the house. Yikes, now I'll have something to worry about if I ever buy a house with an attached garage.

I had my passenger door window smashed a couple of years ago around this time. The only thing missing was the half roll of quarters we were using to pay the meter with. Part of me wished I'd have left the car unlocked so he could just take the quarters. :)

[amergina.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Makes me glad that my attached garage does not have a door directly to the house. Kind of unusual, but there it is.

[tsjafo.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you weren't hurt. Prayers and good thoughts on the way.

[rani23.livejournal.com]

ARGH! That sucks!!!!

I am sorry you have to go through this. ARGH!

Awful...

[patsmor.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry. And it must have been cold, too.

A few years ago Aldric was at an event hosted by Cariadoc & Elizabeth's group at the U of Chicago -- while he was in at the feast someone knocked in the passenger window and stole his gym bag, a 6-pack of Coca-Cola, and the radar detector. Only valuable thing in the gym bag was his wedding ring (since he didn't wear it when fighting) and the rest were the sweaty nasty clothes he'd been wearing while fighting.

We never thought to check for the garage door opener. Now I'll have to think more careful about that on my house. He is in an apartment now, waiting for his new house to be finished (the endless story), but with your permission I'll mention this to him.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear it; it sounds like a huge nuisance all around (car stuff usually is for me, anyway, and this has the added bonus of the remote, too). I hope everything gets fixed with a minimum of hassle.

[ichur72.livejournal.com]

Eek! How terrible! Sorry this car has been the source of so much frustration.

[lyev.livejournal.com]

As everyone else has said, my sympathies and support that you had to deal with this.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Oy! I'm sorry to hear about the damage and the theft. I am glad you were not injured, however.

[psu-jedi.livejournal.com]

Holy crap! On all counts!

Glad to hear you weren't in the car when this creep decided to do this. I didn't think about the garage door opener--my parents always locked the door going into the house from the garage, but I do know some people who don't. If you don't mind, I'm going to pass along your story so they can see what can happen! (Sometimes obvious things aren't so obvious...)

I hope getting the window replacement is a lot easier than the last trip to the dealership. *sigh*