Poll: porch pirate or strange coincidence

[Dan H.]

This is not really news or current events that would be of interest to most RE investors.   It is a story of a potential porch pirate.  

My home has 2 private streets, one that leads to my driveway and the other that goes up the side of my property that I park some of my vehicles (because you can never have too many vehicles) and is an easement to other properties.  There s no reason for anyone I do not know to park on that street aftern10 at night (or virtually any time).

To get to my property you go through enough security cameras that it may rival Fort Knox.

So ~10:30 a car alarm goes off.  Only one of my vehicles parked over there has an alarm.  I go to investigate and there is a middle age lady with a nice wrangler (I suspect 35” tires, recovery points, not old (in good shape)).  She apologizes and says she is having problems with her keys.   I ask what she is doing parking there and she says it was nothing and that she had to go.  I look at my Land Cruiser and it appears undisturbed.  She takes off.  Seems suspicious but I could see nothing damaged.  

I go inside and read my email and I have 2 emails with deliveries with a total of 3 packages.  I check the front, no packages   I question if the stupid delivery person dropped the packages off on the side road.  I check, no packages.  Did the wrangler lady take the packages (worth about $700)?  If she did, how would she know they were there?  Maybe followed the fed ex vehicle or in cahoots with the fed ex driver.

Cameras: I consult the cameras.  Wrangler goes through 1st camera (10:02 PM), drives up road, turns around drives out past first camera, 4 minutes (10:06).  License plate reader did its job.   Comes back a couple of minutes later (10:08), driving past first camera but sits at the bottom of the road for a while.  Starts up road.  Is parked a short amount of time when her alarm goes off.  Cameras do not catch her actually taking anything because it was dark.   She departs after I confront her, 31 minutes from passing first camera on way in to exiting first camera (10:39).   These were the only two times in last ~5 years that vehicle had passed the first camera per the license plate scanner.

Seems likely she took the packages.   I called Home Depot, they told me to dispute the credit card charges so I did.   I was planning on filling out a police report tomorrow providing the license plate, photos of vehicle, photos of the driver, and timeline from the license plate scanner.  Basically a lot of circumstantial evidence (no video of her actually taking the packages).

This evening an old car with an old man drives up my driveway.  Old man appears to be in his 70s but is acting older.   he has the 3 missing packages and states they were delivered to the wrong address and that he is returning them.  

I question if the lady knew she was caught and had someone return the packages on her behalf or if this was some innocent set of coincidences and maybe lady went up my street to getaway from whatever.

I heavily lean toward porch pirate figured she was caught and what can she do?   She likely did not know the scope of the videos, license plate readers, etc but she knew her car was seen and she had been seen and if I had a good memory I knew her license plate number (I did not without the cameras).  Too much risk that she was caught so she arranged a plausible way to return the packages.

However, if someone followed the fedex driver to see the drop, it was not the nice wrangler.  I did see on license plate scanner that cars entered street not long after the fed ex vehicle, but it was not close enough in time to be real obvious that they had followed the  vehicle.   I was going to look at videos for that tomorrow, but now there is no reason.

So what do you think?  Porch pirate or strange set of circumstances?

[Jay Hinrichs]

guilty as charged ..  we have a flag lot and constant deliveries every single day.. so far so good.. we are on a culdesac with only 3 houses ( built mine and the one in front)

someone would have to follow one of the vans to snag ours as you cannot see them from the street and I have not had anyone pull up into my driveway as you would have to back out.

In my development I am building a few of my clients have had packages stolen and one theif even took the welcome mat :)  but these are normal front yards etc. 

[Dan H.]

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

guilty as charged ..  we have a flag lot and constant deliveries every single day.. so far so good.. we are on a culdesac with only 3 houses ( built mine and the one in front)

someone would have to follow one of the vans to snag ours as you cannot see them from the street and I have not had anyone pull up into my driveway as you would have to back out.

In my development I am building a few of my clients have had packages stolen and one theif even took the welcome mat :)  but these are normal front yards etc. 

 My front is similar with packages delivered most days and being very confident if delivered to the front door that they are very secure.   You need to drive short distance on private street and then up ~150’ driveway.  Due to fleet of vehicles at the top of the driveway, it is not trivial to turn around.   Easies way down is to back down the driveway.  If fed ex driver dropped it off near front door, no one would be stealing the package.  

We typically do not lock our cars.  Too difficult to access our vehicles and the Fort Knox of cameras.   If you drive in, there is video of your car and front passengers, the license plate scanner records the license plate number and places it in a spreadsheet that is easy to see how many times the vehicle has driven past the first street camera.   

Recently some tools disappeared (not mine).   Cameras showed it was the pest control person.   Tools were recovered and pest control was terminated.

So we are naturally in a very secure area in one of the safest cities in CA.   Then the Fort Knox of cameras.  Yet somehow I did not have the lady taking the packages on camera (maybe she did not and it was weird set of circumstances with packages delivered to the wrong address).   

Life is busy, but I plan to add some more cameras at some point.  Not high on my priority list.

[Jay Hinrichs]

Quote from @Dan H.:

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

guilty as charged ..  we have a flag lot and constant deliveries every single day.. so far so good.. we are on a culdesac with only 3 houses ( built mine and the one in front)

someone would have to follow one of the vans to snag ours as you cannot see them from the street and I have not had anyone pull up into my driveway as you would have to back out.

In my development I am building a few of my clients have had packages stolen and one theif even took the welcome mat :)  but these are normal front yards etc. 

 My front is similar with packages delivered most days and being very confident if delivered to the front door that they are very secure.   You need to drive short distance on private street and then up ~150’ driveway.  Due to fleet of vehicles at the top of the driveway, it is not trivial to turn around.   Easies way down is to back down the driveway.  If fed ex driver dropped it off near front door, no one would be stealing the package.  

We typically do not lock our cars.  Too difficult to access our vehicles and the Fort Knox of cameras.   If you drive in, there is video of your car and front passengers, the license plate scanner records the license plate number and places it in a spreadsheet that is easy to see how many times the vehicle has driven past the first street camera.   

Recently some tools disappeared (not mine).   Cameras showed it was the pest control person.   Tools were recovered and pest control was terminated.

So we are naturally in a very secure area in one of the safest cities in CA.   Then the Fort Knox of cameras.  Yet somehow I did not have the lady taking the packages on camera (maybe she did not and it was weird set of circumstances with packages delivered to the wrong address).   

Life is busy, but I plan to add some more cameras at some point.  Not high on my priority list.

 do you have dog or dogs..  thats one of the best deterrents.

[Dan H.]

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

Quote from @Dan H.:

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:

guilty as charged ..  we have a flag lot and constant deliveries every single day.. so far so good.. we are on a culdesac with only 3 houses ( built mine and the one in front)

someone would have to follow one of the vans to snag ours as you cannot see them from the street and I have not had anyone pull up into my driveway as you would have to back out.

In my development I am building a few of my clients have had packages stolen and one theif even took the welcome mat :)  but these are normal front yards etc. 

 My front is similar with packages delivered most days and being very confident if delivered to the front door that they are very secure.   You need to drive short distance on private street and then up ~150’ driveway.  Due to fleet of vehicles at the top of the driveway, it is not trivial to turn around.   Easies way down is to back down the driveway.  If fed ex driver dropped it off near front door, no one would be stealing the package.  

We typically do not lock our cars.  Too difficult to access our vehicles and the Fort Knox of cameras.   If you drive in, there is video of your car and front passengers, the license plate scanner records the license plate number and places it in a spreadsheet that is easy to see how many times the vehicle has driven past the first street camera.   

Recently some tools disappeared (not mine).   Cameras showed it was the pest control person.   Tools were recovered and pest control was terminated.

So we are naturally in a very secure area in one of the safest cities in CA.   Then the Fort Knox of cameras.  Yet somehow I did not have the lady taking the packages on camera (maybe she did not and it was weird set of circumstances with packages delivered to the wrong address).   

Life is busy, but I plan to add some more cameras at some point.  Not high on my priority list.

 do you have dog or dogs..  thats one of the best deterrents.

 I have 3 big barking dogs (but one is very old) including one (great Pyrenees ) that bites intruders but they are behind a fence and packages are left on the other side of the fence.   Also the Great Pyrenees barks enough that we try to keep him in from 9 pm to 8 AM.   So he does not get to be guard dog at time when it is most needed (but the other dogs can go in the backyard 24/7, and they can bark and sound vicious).

My area is very secure.   Poway is one of the safest cities in Ca and we have the security cameras with license plate reader. Then there is that there are only 8 homes when you pass 1st camera, then private road, plus 150’ driveway with no easy turn around when all vehicles are present (7).

This would have been first time packages have ever disappeared. But maybe they were delivered to the wrong address and the lady in wrangler simply had behavior that seemed to match a porch pirate.  regardless, I ended up with all the packages, so none are missing.