On my birthday (late sept) at approx 2.30 am some of the above broke into my lockup with the intention of robbing me blind. After cutting the main gate lock shroud and lock off, and cutting several holes in the roller shutter they proceeded to load all my kit into a Luton. A neighbour heard them and called the police who turned up just as they had finished loading it. The perps escaped on foot and a dog tracked them to a pub carpark where it lost them.

  Despite the mountain of evidence, and much forensic items in the van, the police did absolutely nothing. They kept my stuff in the van for 3 months, then after several complaints to the police and ipcc they released it back to me. Absolute disgrace. Whoever did it clearly targeted me. There are 5 other lockups on the same site, and nothing else was disturbed.

Eventually the cameras worked.... and we* got there in time to have a word**

* "Hi mate, fancy earning £50 one night (statistically) soon? If I ring u one evening, can u get to [place] reasonably quickly"? (X6 acquaintances)

** FTR, I do not advocate "having a word" in this sense..... But, it worked it seems

(also, I never left a dog there, would've been irresponsible and unkind to say the least)

As above, the police were not interested in the slightest, even when i was following one of the thieves riding my bike ( i was in a van) a couple of weeks later. Tempted as i was to “make contact”, fortunately sense prevailed and I decided to back off.

As regards securing your property in the future then unfortunately you have two options 

Move and keep a low profile 

Make your property as difficult and as unattractive to steal as possible 

As my garage is attached to my property option one was not possible, so security was the way forward 

Behind my entirety normal up and over steel garage door i have welded, in situ a 150mm thick steel box section cage, faced front and back with 2mm steel plate, also welded. Set in the centre is a single leaf 1200mm wide bank grade security door with 17 locking bolts on 3 sides and dog bolts on the hinge side. The door is fitted with the highest security abloy cylinder which a specialist locksmith with the correct tools would need several hours to pick.

Then i added electronic security by way of vibration sensors, PIR and the normal door sensors. The alarm is online and is linked to my phone etc

As are the cameras

LED floodlighting controlled via photocell makes the area very well lit

The garage is built from pored reinforced concrete into the side of a steep hill, naturally that helps too!

Finally insurance, a proper policy from precision broking or the like is definitely piece of mind. 

It’s unfortunate that we have to go to these lengths but the current state of the police is pathetic and theft is everywhere. I have often wondered if there is any legal responsibility and therefore liability on the police to actually effectively investigate and prosecute these matters. My losses were over £40,000 and unless a life was at stake they were not interested. I’ll have to look into the liability thing, at least then you could threaten to sue the police for negligence 

Yes - one of the reasons I was happy to get out of London/The UK was the number of thieving b´astards you had to deal with every day. It was exhausting. Even during gigs you had to have 2 or 3 people keeping an eye on things. And that was 30 years ago. I don't imagine that it has gotten any better.  

And the problem with guns is that the thieves also have the right to carry, so it comes down to who is the better shot, or has the biggest gun. Just had a series of Dirty Harry movies on one of the TV channels here. Now that is the guy you'd want guarding your lockup!   

Unfortunately the only way for now is to make yourself a harder target than the next person. Thieves are by definition lazy- if they were happy to work hard they wouldn’t need to steal ( in the main at least), so will always chose the easiest victim. 

At least, as far as my garage is concerned they will need a couple of hours with a plasma cutter ( wall is too thick for a full size angle grinder), by which time the police WILL be there, even if i have to get them to chase me from the cop shop

you right about the weapons , most of our stuff don't have wheels or handles , it's a bad idea for us when setting up but ,you just can't wheel them down the street . 

"asset tracking devices don't cost much these days. easily hidden in the back of an amp rack."

Yes - definitely the way to go, although the mess a break in can leave is soul destroying.

I read somewhere that the burglary clear up rate in the UK is down to around 5%. No wonder so many try to earn a living that way!   

always keep an eye on who's about when you moving kit.

 

Now have a dog, after a lot of research a dog that knows it's boundary will protect it. Plus her bark is enough to make any man shiver.

Bless our dogs, in December I was working late at our unit when i heard a noisy diesel outside, it was an old luton transit with two young guys loading my pallets into the back of it, at my age I didn't fancy getting a kicking so I put the dog on his lead and went out, their faces were a picture and they put them back and left with a very sorry sir, a 9 stone pissed off Doug de Bordeaux works every time 

Where in fact she’s soft as shit and gets scared of the hoover.

Don't say that! They might be reading...

What you meant was, of course, "she's hard as nails and eats baddies for breakfast"