Monday, January 10, 2011

Will Now Have To Ask For Directions


Someone broke into my car last night and stole the GPS out of the compartment thingy.

They must have jimmied the door open OR somehow gone in through the trunk windshield. Tonight, when taking my golf clubs out for safekeeping, I noticed that one of the wires that attaches to the rear defrost mechanism was broken off. So perhaps they pried that open, crawled in - kicking off a wire(?), and then exited out the driver's side door.

This was bound to happen. I've heard that in NYC anyone with those circles from the suction cups on their windshield gets their car broken into for their GPS. This is what pisses me off - that I was lazy and never got around to regularly washing those conspicuous marks off.

But heck, we're in a gated community down in Naples with only 16 units here. Someone either jumped the fence or a contractor with knowledge of the code came back for a $40(?) propina. The key code to enter here is simply the numerical address of the building. No doubt whoever the 'old coot' on the HOA board is who set that up....I'd wager that they not only use AOL for their email, but also that their password is *password*!

I'm just about 100% sure that I did lock the car last night - y'all might not believe how anal I am with that habit. But I'm going to do a little detective work nonetheless. From the web:

If they used a slim jim, they probably damaged the weather strip at the lower edge of the door glass.

If they went through the door frame, they damaged the door-to-body weather strip.

If the pried the door frame out, usually the upper rear corner, they may have actually bent the door.
I'm also going to keep my eye on Craigslist. A guy in the condoplex told me today that someone once jacked his scooter out of here but he tracked the crook down because the Moron tried to sell it on Craigslist!

I'm not going to replace the GPS - I don't think.

I'll probably just have to use my Droid phone for navigation. I wonder if there's a dock/charger that doesn't break the bank AND doesn't advertise itself to thieves...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

GPS is so 2005.

i always use phone. google is a freen one, but it needs online. (on android u can get google offline map nav. but u need to chart out directions before u leave or before phone goes offline)

you can also find offline map navigtion free on internet for any cell phone.

CaptiousNut said...

I just walked past four cars in a row today at the beach - ALL had left their GPSs on the dash!

Mine was stowed away, in a locked car, in a gated community!

The mounted GPS I liked for a couple of things. One, it had the posted speed limit. Two, my kids could see our arrival time so I didn't have to listen to, "How much further Papa Smurf?" - not as much anyway.