Archived from the Tools In Action forum (Pub Talk). This thread is read-only.
Over the past 10 years here, especially since the GFC our construction industry boomed as well as the theft. Some things we have had stolen:
– $15k excavator grab and skull bucket
– $60k hydraulic rotating shears
– Ute stolen and recovered about 40 minutes later with every cordless tool and battery taken from the boxes
– 2 x 10×5 tandem box trailers
– 2 stihl demo saws and 2 stihl chainsaws
– Ute with large diesel tank on the back (never recovered)
– Truck batteries (often)
– cheque books used in the stolen Ute to buy a $45k Rolex watch, a $12,000 push bike and a motorbike for $16,000
– Numerous amounts of scrap metal from our jobs
The list goes on!
We alarmed everything, including tool boxes and trailer plugs. Welded the pins on the trailer hitch so they couldn’t be removed (several failed attempts). Immobilized all of our excavators, skid steers etc. Monitored alarms in all garages with cctv cameras and put satellite tracking in most vehicles and mobile equipment which we ended up cancelling as the police did nothing about following up the locations of some stolen items which I have proof of in emails over three months.
It cause massive stress, headaches and inconvenice yet here in Australia if you do anything wrong and go to court, your lawyer will say you had a hard upbringing, drug abuse or were from a broken family and you literally walk free with a small fine. I even went to the point of setting up GPRS scoutguard cameras on site in which we caught one guy who had been caught over 15 times prior.
How do you find theft in your country/area? How do you keep your tools secure? You literally can’t leave anything in the back of your truck here anymore and even go into a store to order a take away coffee without returning and finding something missing. Police even advise not to leave tools on the worksite and go for lunch or smoko as it’s common you will return and something, if not everything will have gone.
Wow that doesn’t sound good. People tend not to steal stuff that bad where I live but it is a lot different living in a small town (mine is 3kish people) vs a large city.
It is similar here, in “most” smaller country towns, you could leave your keys in your cars overnight, house open and it is fine. In Melbourne CBD, completely different. The ute that was stolen a few years ago was taken as I moved the car out of a school entrance to bring a truck inside and as I walked away from thr car someone pulled up, the passenger got out and into the car and took off with it (watching us all morning obviously) I was 15 meters away and gave chase in my old work Ute which carried my engine driven welder, reels and tool boxes on it so it was too slow to keep up! This was in a shitty suburb though. Lost the whole lot and they used the car for weeks clocking up tolls, speeding fines, red light cameras and petrol runners. They also tried to get into the garage/house as they had all of our keys and address etc but the same day we had everything re keyed and remotes reprogrammed.
Damn, sounds almost lawless over there. Here in the US, theft is common but nowhere near as blatant or rampant as it seems to be over there. Then again, police tend to be a bit proactive and (only time I’ll bring this up) gun ownership is fairly common, especially among working class types, making it entirely possible that an attempted theft could be a criminal’s last action in life. My house was burglarized six years ago, but the thief had cased it for a while and knew that my neighbors and I were gone.
Insurance only does so much…perhaps paint everything hot pink to both make it stand out and to decrease its immediate resale value?
fm2176 wrote:
5 hours ago, fm2176 said:perhaps paint everything hot pink
Sorry no can do. That is the equivalent of calling turkey, Bacon. There is only one Bacon and that is Bacon.
Please consider relocating to America.
Hard working people like yourself will succeed and are always welcome.
My neighborhood sucks because the crime rate is too low. The cops look to ticket vehicles that slooowly roll instead of completely stop at intersections, because they have nothing else to do.