Shop broken into

I showed up this morning to find my shop broken into. I guess I'm feeling grateful they didn't take or damage the most valuable stuff: Speedio with assorted tooling, bigger heavier stuff (compressor, bandsaw), computers.

They did get anything hand or power tool like. Lots of power tools. 3 bikes hanging on the wall. Camera, camcorder. It interesting what they did not take. Expensive Mit height gauge, couple mit calipers sitting out, micrometers. They stole a beat up old Roland amp I'd run the radio through. Sitting 2 feet was about $500 in coiled wired for some electrical work I'm going to do, wire not taken. In my toolbox, one drawer with allen wrenches and 1/4 socket stuff completely empty. Next two drawers many hundreds in drills and reamers still there. I'm lucky I have a home project going: my toolbelt and some various tools were at home

Due to the way they got in, they couldn't get out easily with anything, so they broke through to the neighbors warehouse unit and went out their front door.

Sorry for your losses. If you have insurance, By the time you're done, you'll be severely pissed-off. They are good about collecting premiums but not so good about paying for losses.

jack vines

That sucks. My Dads tools were also stolen. It is a real bummer. Luckily they were idiots.

Sorry to hear about it. Sounds like opportunistic thieves, drug addicts maybe, looking for things they can sell quickly. Drills, reamers, etc. probably not too attractive to their kind of customer.

I do, with Sentry. I think my deductable is 1k. Ballpark they got maybe 3k worth of stuff not counting the bikes. One bike was a sweet hardtail made in the USA KHS. Not sure how they'll value those. They went through my medicine cabinet in the bathroom and left the lid up on the toilet.. jeez. The has the hand truck out until they figured out they couldn't get out the front door. Cops might be by for fingerprints on it, but I doubt they'll catch anyone that way.

Sorry to hear about your losses as well. I recommend putting in a call to local pawn shops, and other “easy fences” to try and head your thieves off at the pass. Hopefully you were in the habit of marking items and can provide a description of whatever marks you make on your stuff. Pawn shops especially aren’t gonna buy anything that will wind up costing them money.
Thankfully I’ve never had my shop broken into, but my truck, parked out in front, has been hit several times. Only once did they actually take anything. My technicians bag, mostly filled with hand tools, lots for me to replace, not that much when pawned and all marked. The only thing of any real value in the bag is a well-used Fluke multimeter.
Anyhow, I did as I’ve recommended and called up every local pawnshop in the yellow pages. I gave a short description of the bag and tools in it. I also spent a day walking the neighborhood and giving the same description to anyone out and about. I poked my head in the dumpsters nearby. Thankfully I had an employee ID badge tied to the bags handle and a few days after the break in I got a call from the front office at that company. “Some guy is trying to get in touch with you about some kind of tools?!?”
I authorized the secretary to give the person my number and got a call a day or so later. The guys story was that he lived a few blocks from my shop and his son had found the bag and tools at their apartment complex. I offered a reward and the guy said he just wanted to get me my stuff back, so we set up a time to meet. I had a couple $20’s folded in my pocket and was totally prepared to give them up to the samaritan. Again he refused the reward and just handed me my gear.
I got back to the shop and started going through the pockets. The only thing missing was a big, long-handled Snap On flathead. Everything else was there, though NONE of it was where I generally kept it.
My guess is the son was the one who did the deed... the dad likely found him in his bedroom with my tools spread out around him and realized what he’d done. He made an attempt to put the stuff back in order and went about locating me. Thank god I had that piece of ID on the bag.
Much like your situation it seems, there wasn’t much value, if any, to a fence of the stuff that was taken from me... but the cost for me to replace wasn’t insignificant. Replacing the bag and tools surely wasn’t something I looked forward to.

Like everything, do your own cost/benefit analysis as to how much time you’re willing to devote, but in my experience, the half day spent in the phone and in the neighborhood was worth it.

Best of luck...


Be safe and stay healthy



Jeremy

That sucks
Glad they missed the metrology! There is so much money in measuring tools.

I know how much $$$$$ is stored in just one cabinet, in the inspection room.

Maybe have a large territorial dog living in the shop?

LoL. That would do it.

Sorry to hear about that- all the work and money so some mope can just take it to trade for a few bottles of cheap wine.

I'm not sure if I should do the insurance claim. I'm guessing they got about 3k in mostly power and hand tools. My deductible is 1k. Anyone got advice? I worry they'll jack my rates, but I'm not sure if that's a justified worry. They did replace a spindle once already on a claim. I smacked my spindle down into a part when I was starting out. It probably would have kept going (just sounded different and about .010" shorter). My deductable for equipment breakdown went up the next year from 1k to 2.5 but my overall policy cost didn't seem to increase.

That sucks Cosmos, glad that they didn't get any of the expensive stuff.

I would not bother with insurance for hand tools, especially since you already have a prior claim. They might look at you and think your are too high-risk...

Here the local pawn shops send lists of stuff pawned to law enforcement also the names of people that pawn stuff. Good descriptions and stupid perp allowed me to get a fair percentage of my stuff back for a couple pawn shops. Small town helps the sheriffs detective did some good work. The stuff that gets pawned will not be on the shelf for sale for a month. If you wait that long it will be harder to get back.

My house is not in sight of the shop so I installed a FM radio transmitter with a microphone above the front door and leave a radio on in the house at night. I know when a coon is on the front porch trying to get into a cattle feed bag now. We had an alarm system back then and the perp did pry on the front door but did not get in.

If you are like me you will got to do something and find out there is more stuff not there anymore. My first estimate was less than $1000.00 and after getting a lot of the tools back replacing everything came to about $3500.00. I am still missing things that I forgot about.

Going through the tools that were recovered there was stuff in there that I forgot I owned. Had my initials on them so they were mine. One tool box the perp threw in about a gallon of Craftsman sockets that were not mine. Took a half hour to sort them out.

Yeah, the check around the neighborhood isn't going to work. Metroplex is 7 million. They have flea markets here that are huge.

Jancollc, are you saying skip it all together of just don't file the little stuff? They got quite a few items in the 100-300 range: saws, nail guns, pressure washer.

They pulled all the air guns off my hoses except one they missed fortunately. I'm really really glad they didn't seem to touch the Speedio or all the toolholders lining the wall of the orange vises.

A rule on insurance that I have heard is if the loss is less than 3 times the deductible then you are better off just dealing with it. However you seem to be right there in any event you should file a report with law enforcement. They won't no looking for it but, if they happen to find your stuff at a drug house you at least have a shot at recovering it.

Aruing with insurance companies will make a old man of you in a hurry.

A pawn shop will buy even if he knows it’s stolen. They just move it to a buddy’s pawn shop to get it out of the area
Scum
Don


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

They will be back probably a ex employee also
Get a GPS tracking devise and put it inside a dewalt cordless driil box when they robbed me several times they never missed a dewalt box not once
Don


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

carlherrnstein said:

A rule on insurance that I have heard is if the loss is less than 3 times the deductible then you are better off just dealing with it. However you seem to be right there in any event you should file a report with law enforcement.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm going to ask Sentry what they think too, as if I'll get a straight answer. Report filed, they might be out for fingerprints tomorrow. I'm sure they'll have detectives all over my case! The Big Lebowski - leads? - YouTube

3 words:

Cameras
Cameras
Cameras

The ones that you can look at on your smart phone, and they send you an email or text alert after detecting movement when you're closed.

dkmc said:

3 words:

Cameras
Cameras
Cameras

The ones that you can look at on your smart phone, and they send you an email or text alert after detecting movement when you're closed.

Click to expand...

If nothing else a high end game camera with a built in sim card.

D Nelson said:

They will be back probably a ex employee also
Get a GPS tracking devise and put it inside a dewalt cordless driil box when they robbed me several times they never missed a dewalt box not once
Don


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Click to expand...

Sheriffs deputy told me that would be back, I did not think so but parked a car a ways down like I was sitting and watching. They did come back the next night I guess for the 4 wheeler, but I had pulled to the house. They broke the electric throttle.
They saw what you got and will be back for more! An ex employee would have gotten the good stuff the first time.

Dewalt boxes you say? Perp got all 3 of mine. Got two of them back.