Strategies to avoid car window smashing / car break ins

July 16, 2024 3:33 PM

After many years of parking on the street without incident, this summer we've had our windows smashed twice, and after deciding to leave the car unlocked to prevent another incident, the car has been rummaged through basically every day this summer. Sometimes twice a day. Is there anything we can do about this?

Curious if there's anything that we could do to prevent this constant.. I guess nuisance. We have no garage access and no secure parking close enough to our house, although if that existed I would consider paying for it. We keep nothing of value in the car. We can avoid opening the door to to find the glove box open and the paperwork all over the place by locking the doors. But if we lock the doors, the windows get smashed. At $400 bucks a pop, we're $800 down (and a ton of time spent organizing the repairs) in just replacing perfectly good windows that were broken so somebody could not get anything of value. Somehow I thought by the laws of probabilty that after the first window break in that would be it for a while, but it seems to be accelerating, with break ins happening literally every day for the last week. Am I just at the mercy of thieves here, punished for the sin of not having a garage?

posted by dis_integration to Travel & Transportation (10 answers total)

When my car was vandalized by people opening the hood and stealing my catalytic converter, I went to a business that installs alarms. It's basically a button that is in the down position if the hood is closed, but pops up when the hood is raised and sounds a very loud alarm. Maybe they could do that to your doors? Then don't lock the doors so when they open them the alarm goes off.
posted by Czjewel at 3:55 PM on July 16 [1 favorite]

Honestly? Do not leave anything in the car. Really, NOTHING.
Not the paperwork that has identification info.
Not charging cords or any other electronic or electronic-adjacent things that can be sold.
No user manuals. No window breakers. No tools or flashlights.
No blankets, clothes, or even so much as an empty grocery bag that *might* look like it has something in or under it.
Not even a penny that suggests that there might be a few more coins in the car somewhere.
No cans or bottles if those can be returned for cash in your areas.

Anything you leave in your car has some sort of value, or might be hiding something of value.

Consider putting a note on the window stating that there is absolutely NOTHING in the car, and to please not break the windows because you can't afford it.

After having two different cars stolen in 6 weeks, and break-ins happening nightly in our apartment complex, we weren't even leaving the grandchild's car seat in the car. We were leaving all compartments open - glove box, center console, etc - to make it obvious they were empty - and had both a steering wheel lock AND were pulling out an important fuse EVERY single time we got out of the car.

That stopped it impacting us for a couple of years, other than the hassle of emptying the car each time. It's now mostly tapered off here, though there are still occasionally break-ins... but the biggest thing is, don't let it look even slightly tempting, especially to someone who isn't thinking with all of their brain cells.
posted by stormyteal at 3:59 PM on July 16 [22 favorites]

Best answer: Lived this for years. I left the doors unlocked and the glove box empty and open. If I had had a center console in that car I would have left that empty and open, too. I had a bag of basic car emergency tools in the back that no one ever bothered with, but my kleenex and dollar store emergency ponchos always seemed to grow legs.
posted by phunniemee at 4:10 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I left the glovebox open and completely empty after two window smashings (but kept locking the car) and didn't have any more windows broken.
posted by spamandkimchi at 5:32 PM on July 16 [2 favorites]

We had 3 window smashing events with the car rummaged through. We started making sure to leave nothing in the car and leave the center console open so it was visibly empty. We didn't have anymore break-ins.
posted by CleverClover at 6:45 PM on July 16 [4 favorites]

They're looking for guns. Unlocked and empty is the way to go.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 8:35 PM on July 16

I used to walk past a car regularly that had signs in each window saying it has been broken into three times, imploring the thieves not to do so again. It appeared to be unlocked.
posted by wenestvedt at 3:56 AM on July 17 [1 favorite]

Car cover.
posted by artdrectr at 5:20 AM on July 17 [1 favorite]

Yeah, back in the day in Baltimore and NYC the rule of thumb was as above: nothing, or close to nothing, only trash in the car, glove box and console open and a taped sign in the window saying NOTHING IN CAR. It seemed to work, mostly, but we also always had beater cars, which helps. I do think leaving some actual trash in the car is not necessarily a bad idea if it's clear there's no way to put anything under it. They stole one car anyway but only got it a few blocks since it was a stick shift - a good theft deterrent! - then abandoned it. They ripped out the ignition so we started it with a flat head screwdriver for the next couple years.

My takeaway anyway, is that if your car is nice, and clean, and newish, then you are more at risk. If your car is dented and trashed with some old cups and stuff in it, you are less likely to be targeted.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:08 PM on July 17

Response by poster: leaving the doors unlocked, glove box and center console wide open seems to have put a stop to it (or the thieves have moved on to another neighborhood for now?). we even got skipped on the latest round of smashings. feels weird to leave the car unlocked but i guess stealing cars with keyless ignitions is hard, so i'm trying to be zen about it
posted by dis_integration at 2:54 PM on July 22 [1 favorite]