Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Thieves

Put a shipping container down on the farm this last fall for more "secure" storage.

Had two padlocks on the door-bolt cutters got one of them, they tried to get through the good disc lock with a sawzall. That didn't work so they sawed through the bracket to get in.

Stole fencing tools that they could carry to the road over the 5-barb fence. I think that's all they took. Must not have had a way to haul the ATVs

There's no electric power where this is. I guess I need to look at solar powered lights/cameras and put a pole up close to the door.

Any suggestions or advise?

Doctor Dan, locks keep honest people honest. Cameras have been stoles as well.

They may be back.

I have some really good solar motion activated lights around the place here, as well as some pretty inconspicuous cameras.

Sheriff's dept caught 3 turds here the other day who were a multiple county burglary/theft ring. They were caught because one morning one of my neighbors called in that two men were running across the road and hiding in the brush...

Druggies, of course.



I have multiple no trespassing signs up, and even a wireless video camera at my gate with a sign warning the place is watch by video camera.

Motion lights tend to make crooks nervous, and battery / solar = are about $50 or less on Amazon. Warning signs about video surveillance have helped around our place, Cameras are good, but an obvious target.

Yeah, cameras are target as well. But I use a very small camera and screw the base to a tree, and people just don't see them. I have a platoon of these working for me throughout the ranch.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PM93B7K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Over the years we've tried a variety of things to deter theft. Thieves are generally lazy and look for the easiest score so any type of determent helps. Setting a few round bales in gateways and in front of doors helps. Most of our tractors have quick disconnects on the batteries for easy removal. Game cameras have never led to a conviction but did alllow us to recognize the thieves. Once we had a neighbor, would sneak on the property to hunt a little, didn't mind really but he shoulda ask first. The hot wire accidentally got laid against the gate and I never found it open again.
Son had a bunch of steers he was grain feeding, they would come running whenever someone stopped at the gate, neighbor said he saw someone climbing the gate once but a bunch of chowhound steers changed his mind.
Gotta be inventive.
I hate a thief.

a live wire is your friend . i wish i could remember how to use a coil from a car to shock the crap out of some body

Gotta have a camera on that!

If you can, weld a steel box absent the bottom over the lock. Leave enough room to reach up to lock/unlock, but not enough room for any tools.

It's extremely easy to hide a trail cam and be able to take pics of what's going on around your property. Just be sure and get the IR models, as you don't want any flash.

#3 bear trap.

Damn thieves

No box over where the lock goes at the point where the doors meet in the middle?

We keep 1 lock out on the handle and 1 up under that center box. They have cut the outer lock off but never have been able to get to the center lock.

Gotta laugh at people's ideas about rural life.
They think it's safe, secure, placid.

Fewer witnesses make more opportunity.

Live in a 8 home development now, used to be rural.
My shed is never locked, but should be.
No issues. Guns left in cars, unlocked. Cash in the ashtray, no issues.
Dad lives rural, locks his car tighter than a bulls ass when they come here.

If I did the stuff I do, there, everything not nailed down would be gone.
Even the nailed down stuff is at risk.


Brother in law has an isolated farm.
He has people ATV'ing into his place all the time.
Can see tracks where they "explore". Amazed no one has
broke into the house yet.

I think that’s a great deterrent. Another thing about rural areas, if you get caught breaking into someone’s property, a lot of places to leave the bodies.

Where I live there is no use to lock your doors as they will just break in if you are gone. From my house you see no neighboring farms and they could drive a moving van up my driveway and take everything unless a neighbor happened to drive by. I like living in a sparsely populated area and so far we have had no issues but I am also sure that eventually there will be.

Happened to a friend. They rolled a semi up to his pole building and took everything from tools to a car. He went to the Rutledge flea market, found some of his stuff at several booths. The cops arrested them for felons in possession of firearms.

Dads neighbor went to church one Sunday.
They used a sledge to break down a steel door,
opened his garage door and parked inside.
Then cleaned his house from top to bottom.
Everything of value, gone in 2 hours.

Dam sure they knew him.

A friend used to say

Friends or friends of friends are most likely.

Today with the professional thieves and meth heads that probably holds true somewhat, but then there is just the scum layer of society out there wasting oxygen.

Howdy brother Daniel,
Had a thought on the trail cam idea, put one of the cheap fake cameras where it's pretty well noticed and put a functional cam well concealed.

Here’s something I learned about trail camera’s. If you have it set for only 1 picture instead of 3 its hard to tell where that flash came from.
I used them to keep thieves from stealing fuel on a Logging operation.
I guess the infrared are pretty cheap nowadays.

Put your cameras up high in a tree or on a post on the barn, most s-it bags wont look up. Heck even the game wardens around me have ladders in there truck just for that reason.

This is what we did on our rural property. Put a decoy lock on the shipping container "handles" just to show that they are locked. Eventually we stopped doing that because those decoy locks were always cut. I guess they never bothered to notice the lock box before doing that much... But they'd always be stopped by the lock box over the REAL lock. The place we bought the containers from did it as a standard upgrade. Even if the thieves pop the rivets and get the latches of the container open, the doors still won't open more than an inch or two due to the lock in the lockbox.

Edit to add: We've had no luck with any prosecution, even if we have vehicle descriptions and license plate numbers. Without trail cam evidence that they removed the chain and drove onto the property, it's he said/she said, and they "can't do anything." We haven't found an even relatively secure place to put a camera that wouldn't just get stolen, and yet would still have visibility to the driveway access point, so we haven't gone there yet. It's a PIA.

Sort of like this:

Lock says there is somthing to steal.

I may have ran across the dumbest thief ever. I've got a velcro bed cover mainly to keep stuff dry and a locking tailgate. Yesterday someone tried to pry the tailgate open instead of just undoing the velcro to see what was in the bed.

Was there anything in the bed? Or do you now have to pay hundreds in body work on account of the thief's stupid for nothing?

Not a single thing in the bed.

I leave my Topper unlocked and unlatched in hope the dummy will just open it and steal whatever attracted them without damaging my truck

Still think it should be legal to place a sniper with 22 or high powered air gun on overwatch in high theft areas.

"That right officer, I was storing the bouncing betties in there and even put up a sign as a warning."

"Now I gotta clean up this mess. Shuda put the signs in Spanish too I guess -----"