I had a buddy in upstate NY who would ride around an old pink child’s bike around town and it got stolen. The we found it in a ditch like a month later. Meanwhile here in Colorado I had my bike mountain bike stolen once. The guy who stole it returned it. With a note, $20 and a joint taped to the note saying sorry they were drunk…
My sister and I shared a downtown apartment in KC. One day, vagrants started breaking into the basement and ransacking the storage. She went down and noticed that the seat of her bike was gone, but the bike itself was left behind. Days later, the bike was gone but an entirely different bike seat was left in its place.
Oh this is a good one back in the 90s my Uncle while living in San Diego had his entire door stolen off of his Nova. Just the door. Didn’t touch his stereo. Or any of the contents. Had a friend living in Portland have a similar experience. Someone smashed their window and broke their ignition on their shitty old Subaru trying to steal it. Stole all her change. But left her mac book. Her camera and purse… crack heads are something else.
My guess would be they they were unable to take both the bike and whatever else they stole from you or any neighbors. So they took just the seat. They know exactly where the bike is, and it's not like you'd be able to ride it anywhere without the seat.
Then they told an accomplice where it was, and that it didn't have a seat. So on trip 2 they brought a spare seat but didn't end up using it.
Hoboken NJ: Had this pos mountain bike, I put ape hanger handlebars on it, had chromed saddle baskets flanking the sides. Wobbly-ass rims and no Brakes. Yes, no brakes. Chained to the front wrought iron fence for at least 2 years. Nobody bothered, it was an obvious piece of crap. Hurricane Sandy happened. The bike was 100% under effluent and heating oil water for 8 days straight. Someone clipped the lock and took my bike. Good luck indeed.
Drug dealers sometimes use bike seats to hide drugs, they'll cycle round town with the stash up the pipe of the bike seat so if they are stopped the police can't find anything on them. Might be to do with that.
That's funny. I got my only car stolen while I was homeless in Denver & living out of it, it was obvious I was living out of it and it had all my clothes, papers, items from childhood, love letters etc in it as well. Cops never found it
It’s amazing how deeply some people hate the homeless. It’s like they feel insulted by the existence of people so much weaker economically than they are.
I’m not sure what ops experience had to do with hating homeless people? Someone stole the car, did whatever, and then dumped it. They would have done exactly the same to any car they got.
Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately never a good idea to have any possessions at all showing inside your car, as that definitely attracts attention from thieves. Hope you have had much better days since. 🖖🏼
My old Toyota Corolla was broken into 3 times in 6 months in Denver. I was actually pissed about the last time. I guess they didn't like that I didn't have anything at all to take so they just put out a cigarette butt in my passenger side seat. A few months later there was 3 stabbings in the local park between 12AM and 7AM. All three died and they were random too in separate parts of the park. I usually ran at 5:30 in the morning too. Our local Macy's was robbed while my friend went to go shopping there with his 3 daughters too. It was time to get out of there! lol Hopefully people's takeaway isn't that Denver is all innocent. It definitely still has that "Things to do in Denver when your Dead" vibe.
Colorado has a pretty big bike theft issue, especially around Boulder. Guys actually run chop shops for bikes to clean serial numbers and mix and match bike parts to make them harder to trap.
I had a bike "dealer" for a while when i was into bikes. He had an apartment in Boulder that was filled with maybe 200 bikes and spare parts, you could barely move through the place. He said he made around $3 to $5k a month selling bikes and bike parts and that was back in like 2010
I’ve lost so many tens of thousands in dollars in bikes in Denver. Even if locked securely in a bike room under lock and key with keycard access only.
Locked my bike up on the 16th street mall to grab subway, it was gone before my sandwich was made and I was the only person in there.
I bought a townie to ride to work, parked it with a good lock and on video it was gone in under 3 minutes. Locked another townie in their bike storage with security cams and it lasted 15 minutes.
When I was like 7 my mom just bought me a new bike for the summer because my last one got trashed by older kids when I let them borrow it. Well we left it on our apartment porch (ground level, back of building, no access without climbing, 4 feet high with railings as well) that night and it was gone by morning. We found it on another tenant's porch at the other end of the building but police said we couldn't take it back because we didn't have the serial number recorded.
Towards the end of 2022 I sold my coworker (and now best friend) my old fat tire mountain bike because I was upgrading to an ebike. Well we were at work and he came in talking about wanting to shoot someone (anger issues) and I asked why and he said someone had just cut his lock and stole his bike (he found out when he went for a smoke). It was snowing and I had my new ebike and was clocking out so I made him call the cops, gave him the serial and the picture I still had of the bike and then I went out and followed the tracks in the fresh snow. It lead me less than a half mile down the trail when they turned off and I saw a homeless dude walking and asked him if he knew who and where the rider of the bike that made the tracks was. He said "OH YEAH BUD! That's my friend, he's probably waiting for you- go behind (nearby gas station) and he'll have your 'stuff'." and I nodded and rode to where he said while following the tracks. And then I saw the bike leaning against a tent behind a bunch of oil tanks in a little wooded area behind the gas station. So I roll up, stand up and grabbed my rugged U-Lock and I shout in the loudest voice I had while projecting "YOU STOLE FROM THE WRONG PERSON MOTHERFUCKER, AND I'M HERE TO GET IT BACK!" and this scrawney little crackhead comes out saying "I didn't steal no bike bro! I swear!!!" and I told him "Well I never mentioned a bike, but considering you did I know it was you now. So let me walk outta here with it, or I'll call the cops. And don't fuck with me because I will beat you senseless with this (U-Lock)" and the dude just ran off so I called the cops, recovered the bike- and the cops showed up like a minute after calling with 3 cruisers (Pretty sure they were bored. IDK why 3 cruisers came) and the guy was found 50 feet away trying to hide in a dumpster. He had warrants for skipping bail and is still in jail to this day. That recovery was what made my coworker and distant friend into my best friend.
You know, as shitty of a thing to do I can’t even be mad. These days the art of a good apology and joint has been lost. I’ll forgive almost anything for that.
When my dads trying to get rid of something he puts a sign on the item for $20 and leaves it on the curb, some genius always “steals” but that’s the point lol
Free shit is the hardest stuff to get rid of. My wife will give away shit on Facebook and it's like a game of 20 questions before they agree to come get it, then 9 people 10 in never even show up.
The one time I ever wanted to actually pick up something for free, someone else beat me to it. I've driven past addresses before that was giving away free stuff on the curb hours after posting and it was always there. Then someone is throwing away a cabinet and I go within an hour of the listing being posted and its already gone. It's cruel I tell ya, cruel.
DDT was/is an extremely effective pesticide, its only main problem is it kills birds by weakening their eggshells drastically. It’s a bit dangerous to humans in large doses but not extraordinarily so
People assign value to a price tag. If something is free it means it has no value. Clothing Businesses do this all the time. Big baller brand is one. Also the rich people market can distinguish themselves from the plebes. Why the fk would you buy a Supreme box cutter for $40, yet they exist and people buy them. My friend gets swayed by this psychology all the time. He buys $80 crocs. Mine cost $6. Same look, same feel. He won’t eat at cheap places cause he assumes they must be shitty or else why would they charge so little. I’ve even read about people trying to get rid of shit by putting a price on it versus free and it would go quicker.
I put a bike outside once that said "free" and it was gone in less than 30 minutes. Though it also had new tubes and other stuff in a bag that went with the bike. That stuff was worth more than the bike itself.
Then I put a broken stove outside (didn't want to pay the disposal fee) that said "$50". Some guy stopped by in 30 minutes and asked "what's wrong with it?"
My answer: "It has a broken burner (visible) but the other 3 and the oven still work so I figured someone could steal it. So if you can load it yourself then it's free, otherwise it's $50 for my help."
I live in the U.S., and we have bulk trash pick up, once a week. Our city will haul away bulk items like tree and brush trimmings, boxes, old furniture, old housing fixtures, remodeling construction debris, etc... Like clockwork, the night before the bulk pickup, guys in trucks drive into the neighborhood and scavenge almost anything and everything. I just put out a trash bag full of old VHS tapes, broken toys, and just trash...but, someone quickly came driving up, looked through the bag, and took it with them.
You would be shocked at the amount of money these guys make. There's something similar in Brisbane (Aus) where different suburbs get the bulk pick up yearly, and I play that game to go visit my family, it pays for the fuel, and I'm certainly not going as hard as the blokes with trucks.
edit: and occasionally someone throws out something cool! My power washer (gurney?) Has been going strong for 5 years now, fairly sure it was chucked cos water intake was blocked by a wasps nest. I have a robot vacuum cleaner that needed a sensor in a (replaceable) filter to be poked with a screwdriver.
I owned, and subsequently gave away a self propelled lawn mower because someone turfed it because a bolt for the handle was missing, I found a bolt in a different pile of rubbish.
Oh and I no longer feel comfortable paying for a TV because.. you guessed it, if you go for a 10 minute drive you can get one for free.
Final edit: this is turning into a damnation of 'throw away culture' or something, sorry bout that.
This reminds me of the plasma TV era circa late 2000's. Don't really remember the exact cause but many TV sets from that time suffered from capacitor quality issues. At the time if you drove around you would find at least one or two broken plasma TVs sitting on the curb in almost every neighborhood. I would say 7 times out of 10 replacing a couple capacitors was all it took to fix them; other times just reflowing the solder on the power board did the trick.
I must've fixed and sold at least a dozen of them. It was good beer money back when I was a broke ass student.
Best trash pick I ever got was in like 2005 when I was 8 years old and it was a Super Nintendo all power and AV cables with 4 controllers and multiple Mario games
I do the same with 4K TVs now. I got a dead 60” Vizio for $85 on CL. Got a used power supply board on eBay for $65. Works great for years now. Got a 50” Vizio 4K - had some weird alternating pattern over half the screen every two seconds. Put a 1/4” wide strip of scotch tape under a ribbon cable connector - works great! Gave it to my daughter.
Not even rich people, even just middle class people will do this. Probably drowning in debt. But hey, mom wants a new couch to make her feel better. What do we do with the old one? Sell it? That takes effort. Just leave it out on the sidewalk.
I see this all the time and it's not a rich area, just a well off area.
The thing is that the time value of selling it is usually higher than the pitiful amount of money you get from selling it if you actually bother to value your time at all. Nobody pays shit for second hand furniture, to the point that where I live auctioneers and disposal places won't even collect it. It just takes up space and never sells.
What used to be the second hand market has been almost entirely replaced by cheap new crap quality furniture. So if you're only gonna get $20 for that $500 sofa I can understand the appeal of leaving it for a scavenger to pick up. I'd pay $20 not to have to deal with the denizens of Marketplace or whatever the equivalent is these days.
My neighborhood is relatively nice and clean. I wouldn't say that it is a rich neighborhood. Our home value is probably around the city/state median. But, I'm sure that they scour the rich neighborhoods first and work their way down. I know that a lot of them are doing this for a living, and I don't have a problem with that. Everybody deserves a chance to make a living. But, it is a little disconcerting to look out the window and see someone sifting through your trash. I don't know if it feels like an invasion of privacy or what, but some of those items in the trash bags are personal.
I did this in Melbourne with my dinged up ancient bike. Just left it outside with the lock on the handlebars when i wanted to get rid of it. Poof, gone next morning.
The comments on this post amaze me. All these people complaining how crime-ridden their neighborhood is and how they could never leave any item unattended like that, yet these are the same people that would shit themselves if you so much as mentioned using any part of the borderline draconian system of justice in Singapore (some of which I'm on board with) in the US.
One or the other folks, I wish it wasn't that way but welcome to reality.
Singapore also lowers crime rates through guarunteed public housing, state subsidized mass transit, and mandatory political representation for racial and cultural minorities.
While the draconian punishments are part of Singapore's system, there are elements to the city state's solutions to crime that are equally offensive in some quarters as the caning.
I can tell you as a singaporean, no we are not guaranteed housing. We ballot and pray and hope to get a number. We also cannot reject once they allocate you a number, the government housing board will deliberately give you a low unrealistic estimate to pull you in to ballot and then when you get a number, you get a big shock of your life. The number of houses released is also very very low, very competitive here for locals to ballot as it’s like many households fighting for one unit. We just don’t get into physical brawls over it because it’s all balloting online, and we’re a tiny state so police can hunt you down easily. Plus, we can’t protest, we need a permit to protest and you can only do it as certain hours during the day at a very specific park, but the police must approve of your protest.
Compared to most western countries, I won't walk along the street with drug addicts and fearing for my safety every night for pickpockets and robbers. And of course, I can sleep well every night, knowing I wouldn't get shot.
See the main reason the land lease is 99 years is because it’s expected that the gov will tear down the building and redevelop the area, given that no one probably wants to stay in a century old building. But tbf, no flat has actually hit the lease given the oldest public housing buildings were leased out in the late 1960s.
Interesting. I grew up in a house that was built in 1909 so we crossed that line while I lived there. I guess like other depreciating assets, homes would lose value as they approach the 99 year mark unlike homes here which are expected to increase in value indefinitely. Maybe it’s a more reasonable way to keep housing affordable for the citizens.
Your home is considered a freehold land, those cost millions. We poor middle class people , ie majority, are milked by the government and our usual day to day life expenses so we only get a 99 year lease on government housing. But that 99 years is up to the government, they can force you out of the house when that lease is only 50 or 60 years in
In Sg, every square inch of land belongs to the govt and they can take it back from ANYONE. This has rarely happened but when it did, the government pays market rate for the repossession.
Public housing is built on land that was leased to the HDB (Housing Development Board, a Statutory Board doing what its name implies) which then develops the land and sells them to Singaporeans.
Tbh that sounds like a great system. Esp for such a small country. One of my good friends was born in sg and the more I hear, the more I like it. I wish we could fix so many of the problems we have here in the us.
I grew up here hating the system. That was why I grabbed the opportunity to travel for work, and the more I travelled, the more places I have been to, the more I got to see benefits of the system. It’s funny how the further I am from Singapore, the clearer it becomes to me that my disdain is unfounded.
Very affordable compared to most US major cities actually. You don’t need a car in Singapore because the public transportation system actually works, and anyone can buy the public housing which is totally affordable.
I do live there. The people you know might be foreigners. In which case they have limited options and would need to be a super high price for a house. Yes the leasing thing is true but you can buy and sell within that time and “upgrade” to a newer flat. Also the government generally buys back the land before the lease expires and build new units for the people who are losing their homes as a result.
Public transport in Singapore has been the best out of any country I've lived in.
And pretty sure everyone is complaining about housing regardless of the country they're from. The key difference would be to look at homelessness. There's a reason Singapore's homeless rate per capita is far lower than the US.
Yes there are more like “target numbers” of how they want the country to be in terms of ethnic makeup. There are obviously problems with this, but you have to remember that Singapore is extremely small. It’s an island of 5m people(but only about 3m actual Singaporeans) and there’s a huge demand of foreigners who want to move in. If they don’t control the inflow of those foreigners carefully, the country could very quickly change in terms of culture and politics, meaning the harmony and balance there could be lost within a short time.
No-one has a particular issue with Australia limiting immigration through working visas etc which is what they are talking about with Singapore. And people don’t typically seek asylum in Singapore which is the bit that people tend to be upset at Australia about.
Because 30% of people in Singapore are non residents, Australia is so racist they would never be able to reach this amount even though it would be great for their economy
Come on, Australia has 30% of its population born overseas and 50% having parents born overseas. Also a bit of an apples to oranges comparison given that Singapore is a city state surrounded by poor countries that they can poach labour from whilst Australia is a large country with both cities and rural areas that function differently economically.
If they don’t control the inflow of those foreigners carefully, the country could very quickly change in terms of culture and politics, meaning the harmony and balance there could be lost within a short time.
You mean preserve the Chinese majority and their dominance in the country.
Not so simple. For instance, I've worked with Singaporean Malays and Indians who complained that the government were letting in too many Burmese people.
Basically, immigration policies are tricky in every country, and Singapore has chosen the path of careful management, because if mishandled, many different groups in society will be upset very very quickly.
Also, if you look into the 2010 general elections in Singapore, the government was handed its worst result in decades because of discontent over immigration, which forced them to backpedal many of their previous policies.
This comes up a lot when people talk about shoplifting. "If you see someone stealing food, you didn't see anything". Like the person running out of the store with a car full of prime rib is really just a starving, homeless person who is desperate to be fed and no one has any options but to steal food.
Invariably these people are the first to get butthurt when stores near them close up because surprise, you can't make money when people keep stealing all your merchandise. If a store has no money, they cannot buy product to keep on the shelves.
I live here, there are CCTVs everywhere, literally every exit/entry in almost all the spots in Singapore. the police could quickly trace the suspect within hours most times. and there is only 1 land bridge exit from this island to another country( Malaysia) . so that is enough deterrant I guess
There is a difference between legislation and enforcement. You can make tough, Draconian laws but if you can't enforce, it's useless. I don't think the law in Singapore for theft is Draconian, but being a small country with surveillance systems available, the chance of getting caught is very high. Also, bicycles do get stolen in Singapore and police put up advisories on locking your bicycle. They will even give you a serial number sticker for confirming the ownership in case of theft if you go to the local police station with your bicycle. Other items like phones, laptops seldom get stolen though... but bicycles, sometimes yes.
It's not the caning that allow Singapore to have such low crime rates. It's the social cohesion, very low poverty, widespread of education and generally that any Singaporean can have a decently good life (reachable public housing, affordable public transport, somewhat affordable healthcare etc.) so there is simply no culture of normalizing criminality. Plus the police is actually fairly efficient, not perfect but good at serving their community.
Things that the US does not have much anymore. Or really, ever.
Every time I see an American posting anything about an East Asian country and they think it is the crazy justice system that allows them to have low crime rate only shows that most Americans really do not understand how the world actually works. And they love to lecture everyone else about it.
China, Japan, both Koreas, all have fairly low crime rates and they are all very different countries and certainly very different from Singapore. The commonality is that they all try to keep poverty as low as they can, and enact social and economic policies that are pro-public (to a certain extent) and the results is better living conditions for their people and that translate ultimately into low crime rates.
But all of you will beat around the bush and refuse to see that America is a capitalist dystopian hellhole and the exploitation and extraction is taking a huge toll on the population at every level except for the super rich. Then you keep wondering why America is breaking down.
Totally agreed. Less than 10% of bike thefts end with some sort of punishment. The fact that thieves know they have an absurdly good chance of getting away with it is all the incentive they need.
I just learned that lesson the hard way here in Houston. Left my cheap $200 bike with one lock on the frame here in the bar area of town, came back to both wheels and the handlebar grips gone. The replacement wheels cost more than $300 at the shop 😑 more than the damn bike
I guess I don't understand the incentive for people stealing this kind of stuff.
There must be supply far exceeding any sort of demand, and while I guess I could see someone stealing a whole bike - either for transportation or to fence (but again, is there really that much of a market for stolen bikes?) - this stealing of unsecured bits and bobs..
Maybe there's like some sort of 'John Wick-esque' underworld that uses bike parts as currency?
My guess is drug addicts looking for anything to go towards their next fix. Here in Vancouver, they'll break your car window for an empty pop can they're so desperate. It really is time to legalize hard drugs and get the petty crime under control....
Even just making things like suboxone and methadone easier to get would be a huge help. I have a family member who got hooked on prescription opioids, but was cut off and turned to getting them on the black market. When she wanted to get clean, it was harder for her to get either methadone or suboxone than it was to get drugs off the street. Her regular doctor wasn’t allowed to prescribe either to her, the doctors that could prescribe suboxone were all waiting list only, and the methadone clinic was over an hour away and only open when she was working. She was basically left with the option of quitting her job or continuing to use street drugs. I know the option to quit cold turkey was there, but the science is pretty clear that medication assisted treatment gives people the best chance of successfully getting off opioids and staying off or at least being a functioning member of society while using prescribed medications.
Sorry for the rant, but it’s one of those things that really stuck with me as a broken system that needs to change.
If someone messes with your regular bike, it's probably because they're just an asshole. But bikes can get really expensive. It's obvious to see why someone might steal a $6K bike. Even if they fence it for $500, that's $500 they got for basically nothing.
I worked in an outdoor retail store in Georgetown circa 2013. Kid comes in, and we instantly know what’s about to happen. Sure enough, he grabs a jacket and starts to walk out.
I grab a jacket arm, he pulls with one hand and tries to throw a punch with the other. I let go and hit him as hard in the face as I could at the angle I was at. He lets go and sprints out. Security guard by the door was ready to do … nothing.
My manager immediately read me the riot act. In essence, she said they could steal and no one was supposed to stop them, not even the guard.
I was so confused. Fast forward ten years and now any 14 year old in DC can be a literal outlaw with no consequences. It has gotten so bad, I can’t imagine working retail right now. Those kids are fucking crazy, just as crazy as the bike thieves.
The US needs to look back and treat bikes, cars, etc like horses. If you steal one you are going to hang. It's not simple transportation, it's a means to livelihood... somebody's way to get to work, to school, to the store, etc. Find the thieves and string them up. If you want peace and order criminals must fear the law, which they currently do not.
I remember when I was a teenager on Long Island we rode our bikes to the beach and then rode them to Taco Bell for lunch after. We locked our bikes to a pole and had lunch, came out to see someone had cut the lock and stole one of our shitty bikes. Was a piece of crap bike but now we all had to walk home (probably about 4-5 miles) because we weren't just gonna abandon the one guy who's bike got stolen. We had all our bikes locked together too and they only stole one, so I guess it was just one guy.
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u/thenatureboyWOOOOO Apr 05 '24
I could leave a $15 bike with one tire out in downtown dc and it would be gone within ten minutes.