After living in a dangerous city my whole life, I think living in a place where break ins are consequences of owners being lazy would be awesome.

Worst break in I've ever had was a skunk. Came in through a sliding door left open for ventilation on a hot summer night. Woke up to scuffling under my bed. Using my phone light I saw the telltale black with white stripe tail sticking out from under the bed and froze.

Sat in bed for a minute pondering my sad and mostly likely odorous fate. Finally walked on furniture to the bedroom door while the skunk was apparently chewing my leather shoes, set a trail of cheese leading out the sliding door and sat in silence and darkness on the stairs overlooking the cheese trail.

Eventually it came sniffling out methodically gobbling cheese right back out to where it belonged.

Got a locking screen door after that...and a new pair of loafers.

Crimes of opportunity are also the most common crimes in places with more crime.

What’s awesome is living somewhere that crimes of opportunity don’t even happen. There are still places where people don’t lock doors because they don’t need to.

> There are still places where people don’t lock doors because they don’t need to.

Yep. I grew up not ever locking our doors, and I still don't. I even usually leave the keys in my cars in the driveway, especially in the one that the neighbors all know they can borrow if needed. I do have a dog who will bark when anybody unknown approaches the house, though.

When I lived in the city for a few years, I did lock my doors, but I left my car unlocked. I would relatively frequently come out to the car in the morning and it was obvious that somebody had rummaged around in it. But I didn't really care, and it was better than having the windows smashed, which did happen in that neighborhood.

I’d say that lots of areas in Australia are like that. Even in big cities like Syd and Melb.

I live in a medium sized US city and my truck has been parked on a city street with tools in it, unlocked, for two years. Most people lock their doors here, but even in a city known for a medium amount of crime, it isn't really that bad.

Opposite anecdote: car was broken into to steal the stereo (yes its been a while ;)). The door lock was damaged and wouldn't close any longer.

A day later the car was broken into again. While the lock was still broken and no stereo in the car. Someone smashed in the side window and left the door ajar too. Nothing got stolenthat time around.

Worst part about it was that it was probably the same person breaking in both times.

Yep, they saw something last time they wanted and didnt get it.

The one time I had my car broken into was in a nice quiet town with low crime. But I was on a not-so-great street. Crime is pretty localized. Most criminals don't go very far out of their way.

In Japan many people use flimsy locks on bikes. It is not to deter a determined thief, but to mitigate the possibility of an opportunistic "borrowing".

Just about all the bike locks I've seen here are flimsy, and most only used to lock the wheel to the frame so it can't be ridden away. Most bike thefts are from drunk salarymen "borrowing" a bike to ride home (riding while drunk is illegal BTW, just like driving drunk).

I've the same about the Netherlands. Everyone knows it's a country with huge bicycle ownership and use, then later people discover it also has huge bicycle theft. From talking to people that have lived there, anecdotally all the theft is drunk or mistaken "borrowing".

My childhood home didn't had a lock. We were all surrounded by relatives. Everyone knew everyone else. Sadly, not anymore. (I am from Kerala, India)

The sleepy suburbs have their downsides, but also their upsides for sure.

People like to hate on suburbs for a lot of valid reasons but moving back to one as an adult after spending my 20s in the city was profoundly calming.

The whole "hey kids go outside and play" and I don't feel the need to monitor them is wonderful if you've got kids.

Also a perfectly normal thing in cities in most of the world.

In the ones that have an "outside" for the kids, sure. In my experience, most of the bigger cities in Europe just don't have the space for the kids to hang out. Sure there are parks with playgrounds here and there, but they are separated by kilometers of concrete and stone. At least suburbs have the spaces and the clean air.

Cities have a lot more for kids to do within a kilometer or two, IME. In a suburb you may have "space" but it's all just people's lawns and strips of grass next to the road.

Not all suburbs are set up like that. Mine has a nice “downtown” area in walking distance with plenty to do. There’s mid-rise buildings, shops, restaurants, bars, and a train station to the city if you get bored.

You need density for that kind of "downtown", which is in fundamental tension with this notion of "space". I used to live in Ealing, which calls itself "Queen of the suburbs", but I don't think that's the kind of place iakov was talking about.

To me it seems whole "urban culture" (graffiti and skateboards (i know i'm probably shallow by generalising it as such)) has developed from lack for playgrounds and green spaces (especially for older kids).

In Lithuania lots of soviet buildings actually had somewhat of a common yard, which in past 20 years has been replaced with a parking lot.

Same. I've left my garage door open on the way out so many times (in a quiet, unremarkable cul de sac -- neither upscale nor rundown) without consequence that I no longer worry about whether or not I closed it.

If I leave my garage door open, the mice come in and set up shop. Takes a couple weeks to trap them all. Sometimes I even see them running in.

I don't leave the door open unattended even for 5 minutes.

Never heard of a break in in the city my family is from. No one ever locks their doors. It's one of the nice things about a society where most people get the help they need, no need for people to do these crimes to survive.

I grew up in suburbs and we used to leave our garage door open often up until day our bikes were stolen out of it.

They're also easy targets for people to break in during the day while people are at work.

I chased a person out of my garage in broad daylight who ended up being a porch pirate.

A "beware of the dog" sign would probably be just as (if not more) effective regardless of whether there's an actual dog.

I doubt it.

A dog and a sign send different messages, and the message of the sign is “the resident is afraid of being robbed”.

EDIT:

I want to make explicit that I am comparing something that gives the impression of a dog without a sign vs a sign with no other evidence of a dog. I am explicitly not commenting on the message sent by a sign combined with other evidence of a dog, just “fake (but, for the sake of argument, convincing) dog” vs. “dog sign”, each alone, as deterrents.

Interesting. I put up such a sign to try to reduce my liability if someone tried to get into my yard and encountered my 150 lb dog.

My former neighbor's father owned a junkyard with a fairly mean junkyard dog. Said dog did its job with a would-be thief, and the local government made them exterminate the dog.

Apparently the logic behind that decision included the argument that the fact that they posted a "beware of dog" sign indicated that they knew the dog was dangerous (duh, that's sort of the point) and therefore shouldn't be given further chances.

Yes, I realize that this wholly ignores the fact that the would-be thief was trespassing and that the meanness of junkyard dogs is so well-known as to be mentioned in a popular song. And that, again, the risk of getting bitten by the guard dog is precisely the deterrent factor in the system.

Obviously people have guard dogs to guard things.

But dangerous dogs who attack strangers don’t ask questions. If they’ll bite a strange thief, they’ll bite other strangers without bad motives. Dogs are smart, but they don’t understand “Hi I’m your new mailman”, etc.

Yeah some little kid wanders into the wrong space, shouldn't result in a dog attack.

By this logic nobody should be allowed to own a pool. Instead we require pools to be fenced, which is the same thing people do with guard dogs.

Pools don't jump over fences, though.

In what reality are kids inadvertently wandering into junkyards and getting harmed by junkyard dogs in large numbers?

Kids were brought up as the reason that pools are fenced. Because adults tend to have motor controls and an understanding of their ability to swim, so pools aren't usually a danger to adults.

By contrast, people of all ages can be bitten by vicious dogs ... and shouldn't be. Yet, they are, in large numbers.

Dogs go to the vet. Dogs jump over fences, they run out open gates. People go to junkyards. There are many opportunities for a junkyard dog to interact with people it shouldn't bite.

That does sound serious. I wonder if there are any anti junkyard dog grassroots movements that one could join to help put an end to this madness?

But kids do.

No, the small children who are at risk for falling into a pool do not jump fences.

Regardless, if your pool had a history of safety issues, you should be expecting attention from regulators and insurers. Query your favorite search engine for "pool closed following death"

Mailboxes are typically outside of the fenced area where the dog is. Stay off my property and you won't have issues, is the point.

> Mailboxes are typically outside of the fenced area where the dog is. Stay off my property and you won't have issues, is the point.

They typically are, yet mail delivery personnel are attacked by dogs constantly.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-postal-service-r...

That was just one example of many plausible scenarios. There are dozens of scenarios where dogs and people may be on different sides of said fence. The issue is an indiscriminate danger to people. It's the same reason you can't booby trap your own property.

Yeah but if you up the stakes from injury to death by replacing replacing “junkyard dog” with “automatic killbots” I feel more sympathetic to the thief. The punishment for breaking and entering is stuff like fines, jail, and community service not injury or death.

Despite the fact that if you were there you might have the right to stand your ground I don’t think that extends to autonomous systems, even biological ones, acting on your behalf.

And what would the local government had done had the owner happened to be there and had put a bullet in the thief instead of waiting for the dog to do it?

It's not about the outcome or the dog. It's about sending a message to everyone else in town that that level of defending one's property is not going to be let slide.

Depending on the jurisdiction you might end up paying quite a lot of money. Potentially lethal boobytraps left in derelict buildings are mostly illegal in the US[1] and in other western countries shooting a thief is generally illegal unless you can prove fear of bodily harm since you are escalating a situation from damage to property to damage to body. While the US is rife with stand your ground laws - most of the rest of the western world finds using potentially lethal force in response to property damage abhorrent.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV9ppvY8Nx4

You might get charged for it.

In most of the United States, that is no longer true. The law previously required a "duty to retreat" if the home owner encountered a potentially violent assailant. However, most states now have "Castle Doctrine" laws which shift the burden of proof from the defense to the prosecutor. [0]

Most prosecutors will not charge a home owner due to this change in laws. Civil liability is separate factor, but criminal charges are rare.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine

In many jurisdictions, this won't help you and may actually increase your change of being held liable. For example:

>...A Beware of Dog sign may or may not count as protection against lawsuits. In Alabama, the court is likely to consider that if you need a sign telling people to beware of your dog, then you already know that the animal is dangerous. This can still apply even if your dog has a lack of violent history.

https://www.drakeinjurylawyers.com/do-beware-of-dog-signs-le...

Dont over estimate how dumb they are.

Installed security cameras, they still came onto the property.

So, next I installed a sign "BEWARE OF THE SECURITY CAMERA", and didn't work, infact one guy broke into my car and simply just covered his face from the canera.

So then I installed a cheap security light next to the sign that would light up when they entered.

That worked.

Criminals have wisened up to the police's uselessness - in many places, video evidence of a crime even with a clear picture will no longer result in any police action.

The light still works as a deterrent because the light makes them visible to a potential occupier. They'll fear real, immediate confrontation/violence, not some lazy policeman looking 5 minutes at the picture before moving onto something easier such as kids dealing weed.

What amazes me that Facebook and Google has faces and identity of 99% population and could be solved in an instant. FB even used to auto-tag people for you if you upload their photos. Probably still do internally. Solving a crime is like one checkbox away. Yet "the privacy" of doing crime is more important.

This might be reflected in a rise of crime rates, as I suspect that criminals prefer not to commit a crime if they know for sure that they will be caught. Likewise if they know that they will be confronted.

> Dont over estimate how dumb they are.

Somehow, I can't parse this.

Imagine dumb is on a scale [0, 10] where 0 is “not dumb” and 10 is “dumbest a person could possibly be.”

Now on this scale estimate how dumb someone is. If you say 2 (a little dumb) but in actuality they’re a 7 (very dumb) you underestimated how dumb they are.

Yes, but the OP was talking about overestimating dumbness, and it being bad for protecting against home invaders. It still doesn't make sense to me.

He thought a camera would be good enough, but the thief was smart enough to cover his face. He over estimated how dumb the crook was, for the solution (camera), required a thief to walk around showing his face.

See? He overestimated how dumb crooks are, and was robbed.

Thanks! I think reread this subthread about five times before it clicked that "overestimate" was truly the word OP intended to use and there was a valid point being made via that word.

Totally changes the meaning of the comment if one assumes that it was a typo and OP intended to use "underestimate".

This raises a question.

"Don't overestimate how dumb they are" is logical and correct. However, because "how dumb they are" is in the sentence, it emphasizes, well, that they are dumb, which is not what the OP intended to say.

Writing it as "don't underestimate how smart they are" is more readable, although logically, it's stating the same thing.

Even better, I would have written it as "don't underestimate how smart they can be."

Exactly — it's about underestimating how dumb people are (which your comment refers to), not overestimating (which GP refers to).

Nice try AI.

Everyone wears masks these days so the only way to identify a thief is if they are wearing a unique jacket etc

Mr. Blue Basketball Sneakers has been stealing all kinds of stuff from parked cars in the radius of my home. He's been caught on camera probably a dozen times. He wears a black mask, hoodie, and pants but wears some very conspicuous blue basketball sneakers that absolutely glow from the motion lights he ignores. I'm sure he lives nearby as he's always on foot with a backpack and the hits all seem to be one big neighborhood. Hopefully the cops catch him before some crazy homeowner with a gun does.

Any supermarket (or company that does their loss prevention) could run pass their AI and id them in milliseconds.

Same with cars - even if you don't have a licence plate, there are tons of little fingerprints around your car that licence plate reader companies use.

" Dont over estimate how dumb they are."

I don't know... you setup deterrents, as a bluff and it took a while before one worked.

I wonder if a more effective deterrent would be communicating that you are an abusive and neglectful dog owner. 'Beware of dog' signs communicate to me that a person is responsible and they don't want to be sued in case of an accident. If there was a sign outside that was just a silhouette of a pit bull with the words 'dog fighter' underneath, I would not want to rob that house.

"Oh no, it looks like that dog is being abused, we need to get Police and Animal Services to arrest and charge the owner and take the animal to a shelter [where it can be euthanized]" is what would likely happen in a municipality where guard dogs are put down when they bite thieves on private property with all of the mitigating factors for the dog (the dog was chained up, and could not escape, and it was in the middle of the night) and all of the aggravating factors for the thief (the area was well-secured, signed and alarmed, they could not have entered by mistake, and it was in the middle of the night).

This shouldn't be a problem if there's no actual dog present, only a robotic dog.

People who rob houses don't tend to be the smartes one on the street. If you think about consequences and risks, you don't rob houses.

Your common street criminal also tends to go after low-hanging fruit. A "Beware of Dog" sign and a security camera (even a fake one) will go a long way in your favor.

For larger properties, a “Beware of Unexploded Land Mines” might work too. Or copy Vladimir the Impailer’s technique of using scarecrows impailed on stakes with the word “Thief” drawn on them.

Might scare the neighbors away too though, but that’s not always a bad thing.

Or, buy a fake skeleton, hang a plate around his neck with “ex-burglar killed by me” engraved words :-)

My old man + goth neighbor has an outdoor dragon statue / sculpture.

No break ins, must work.

"Warning: Protected by a cloud connected camera which will violate your right to privacy"

In any case, the cost of a dog bowl and some free tennis balls is minimal compared to the potential benefit if even one break-in is prevented.

When I sold security systems, I learned that one of those lawn signs alone that says "Protected by XYZ Security" has a deterrent factor. Cameras (even if they're fake or deactivated/unmonitored) also have a pretty significant deterrent factor. See https://www.angi.com/articles/do-security-signs-and-decals-s...

I agree with the majority of your statement, but I would personally shy away from a specific "Monitored by company" sign, because I try to avoid advertising my security procedures. "Oh, they use Y instead of X? Guess I'll need to bring that other device, instead." I suppose a home owner could be really tricky, and just buy the sign for Y, but have a security system for X?

Oh! On a technical note, I was watching a TV show recently (Better Call Saul...?) where someone broke into a persons house undetected. When the home owner found the person and asked how they got in so easily, the person stated that they "Cut the phone line", and that was apparently all it took. Know if there's any truth to that?

Yes, there is some truth to it. Many older systems communicate with the central station over an ordinary telephone line. More modern systems will use either a cellular communications link or VOIP.

But, the real truth here is that most criminals are pretty unsophisticated and won't even bother cutting phone lines or other cables. Most break-ins also happen through the front door, so, although it sounds great (and it is actually pretty great) to have contact sensors on every window and blanket the whole place with motion detectors, it's not really necessary. If anything, you only really need sensors on the first floor, because in spite of how the movies sometimes depict these sophisticated, cat burgler types, it's mostly just thugs who bash in or take a crowbar to your front door. That's also why advertising exactly what company your security system is from isn't a big deal: they don't care. They see "security system" and just move on to the next house.

Interesting! I hadn't considered that. :)

Not in this house. The alarm system has a cell connection. By the time you find it, the alarm signal will have already been transmitted.

Would a cell jammer stop it?

"Protected by Glock"

My favorite: "There's nothing in here worth dying for."

"Free firearms inside"?

Sounds like a bad idea either way, the trespasser might return the favor.

Is your claim that there is a class of people who invade homes while carrying a firearm, but will only use it if the other person also has one?

Yes, assuming "use" means pull the trigger while aiming at a person. If you get threatened by a gun then you'll be more likely to shoot. Do you find that unlikely to be true?

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

You're evading the question. When you ask me to explain my reasoning I would normally expect you to do the same. Or just say you don't care enough to properly reply, that's also fine by me. Now you spin it back to me by implying I am some sort of idiot instead, which is not very nice.

There is a “guard” feature for the Ring home security setup that plays dog bark noises from your Alexa speakers if motion if is detected or doorbell is rung, etc. and random lights turn on at night, super cool features.

What kind of area has a significant amount of kids walking into peoples garages and stealing stuff?!

I grew up in sheltered outer suburbs where it's hard for kids to get around on their own, and older kids turn to some nonproductive amusements -- was surprised to hear a friend tell me he liked (after dusk) freeing trailers to watch them roll into cars.

That sounds like a low risk, high reward amusement. Before cameras were everywhere, of course.

A nice suburb with almost no other crime to speak of ;)

Chicago