Xiaoniu 小妞

There have been a number of vehicle break-ins in our neighborhood and surround are the past few weeks. The crooks are systematically moving south from the highway going neighborhood to neighborhood. Our street doesn’t seem to have been hit, but the street 100 yards down from our house was hit. Four cars were broken into and one was vandalized. The items stolen was $45 cash, a cell phone and an iPod.

I found this out through the grapevine. One neighbor told another and she told me. She was skeptical since the person she spoke with is older and she wasn’t sure if he was remembering something from the past or something recent. I spoke with one of the people whose car was vandalized and she confirmed the break-ins and filled me in on all the details.

Luckily we are smart enough not to leave any valuables in our cars and our neighbors are older and home more often. The woman who lives across the street has insomnia and keeps an eye on things late at night. That being said I’m not eager to have my truck vandalized and have begun parking in the garage again even though the weather has been decent. I usually use the garage only in the winter. At least this way we can do what we can to avoid trouble.

The neighbor that told me about the break-ins is always parks her car in the garage no matter the time of year; however, she is having her driveway sealed and has to park her Corolla outside for a few days. She told me she was going to ask the police to keep an eye on her car while it is outside. I think that is extreme, especially since we are talking about an economy car. If she had a Bentley or a Maybach notifying the police might be warranted, but not for a Toyota Corolla. Oh well.

Hopefully, this will pass soon and the neighborhood will go back to being quiet and crime free. I’m disappointed that this is happening so close to home, but it is difficult to control. We live within very close range of three good size cities with plenty of criminals looking for houses and the towns around these cities leave no shortage of neighborhood with many houses.