Beer burglars back

I've blogged on many occasions about garage-shopping, and our strategies to reduce it.  It's spring, though, and after the yard work is done and the game of horse has been played in the driveway, the garage doors are increasingly left up while no one is watching.

Garage shopping is a crime in which the burglars simply cruise around looking for garage doors that are standing open, then help themselves to the goods.  Many of the valuables in your garage have wheels or handles that make them easy prey--things like tool boxes, golf bags, bicycles, and so forth. One of the common targets, however, lacks wheels and handles, but is nonetheless quite popular:  beer. In my neighborhood, many people around have a spare refrigerator in the garage, and a thief can be reasonably certain that a garage fridge contains the golden elixir.  There thefts occur in the evening hours, for the most part, often when its still light out and the residents are at home.  A few of these have occurred in my neighborhood this month, and in two of those cases the thirsty suspect was spotted getting into a gold Honda Odyssey minivan.  I'm keeping an eye peeled for that one. 

The more people keep that garage door buttoned up, the less exposed they are to these crimes.  We've been pretty successful in driving down the overall numbers.  When I checked this morning, I see that we have had 25 burglaries through open garage doors so far this year.  Just five years ago, in 2005, that number stood at 87 on May 12.  That's quite a drop, and I attribute it to good police work by our late shift officers, who so far this year have rang 225 doorbells to let homeowners know they forgot to button up.