My large flower pots (about two feet high) are stolen from my front yard every once in a while. Yesterday, someone quietly pulls into my driveway and lift two away. These pots contain rare plants from all over the world. The foam pots appear heavy enough, and pack with dirt, and seems almost impossible to carry, but yet they manage. I plan stop the problem peacefully. How would you aproach this problem if it happens to you?
Thanks for your patience.
Mad.
Thats what the shotgun and attack dog are for.
No one has ever been stupid enough to try it a second time.
Plonk. Pretty clearly inventing problems. Which is at least a _creative_ form of trolling, yet trolling none the less.
Set up some sort of camera and bust em.
Place a couple of pieces of 3/8" rebar in the bottom of the pot, threaded through a couple of links at the end of a piece of chain to form an "X", with the rest of the chain running out the drain hole in the bottom of the pot. Wrap the chain around a column or similar immovable object and padlock. Fill the pot with gravel and potting soil, set the plant in, threading a couple more pieces of rebar through the roots.
For more fun, a trip switch under the pot which will trigger an alarm when it's picked up would help discourage thieves, especially if it's connected to a very loud horn.
Gary
Motion detector floodlights are fairly inexpensive. You could also have it activate a video recorder.
I assume there's some sort of drain hole in the bottom of the pot. You could run a cable or chain thru that hole and either attach it to a larger piece that can't be pulled thru the hole or loop the cable or chain back over the edge of the pot. Then attach it to a ground anchor. It won't keep someone from destroying the pot, but at least it will slow them down.
Another option is to rig up a burglar alarm siren that will sound off when someone moves the pot. This will increase the odds that the vandal/thief might be noticed by someone.
Don
If you could get one of those exploding ink capsules that banks put in money and put it under the pot, you might have fun searching for someone who is all blue.
Have you ever thought of Moving ?????
I would not live in a neighbor hood like you describe,, and I don't believe you live in one
I think you are a troll, just wanting to get people to answer your post
Next your going to ask us how to keep people from stealing your grass .(sod) then even your dirt.
Then one day you will claim your septic tank was taken
On Thu, 05 Aug 2004 01:44:13 GMT, "Section 8" snipped-for-privacy@cu.soccer.edu>
wrote:
Aside from catching the thieves or moving, a different solution is to make the pots difficult to steal. Though theft isn't a serious problem where I live, when a neighbor had a small but expensive statuette put in her yard the guy who put it in staked it into the ground. I didn't see how it was done, but it isn't hard to figure out how to apply staking to your problem. A wrought iron frame for a pot, with stake holes at the bottom would look nice, but would be fairly expensive. Since my wife has *thousands* of flowers growing in our yard, and in pots scattered about, I think I'm familiar with the foam pots you have, which cost from 10 to 30 dollars, and look pretty good. You might try this: Buy some 1" by 1/8" steel bar stock. Any hardware store should have it. Buy some steel staking nails. If you can't find those make your own from 3/8" steel rod stock or rebar. Bend a suitable length of bar stock in a vise to form a hook that will reach a few inches into your pot. At the other end of this piece bend a right angle where the bar will touch the ground. Drill a 1/2" hole here if you're using the 3/8' rod for staking, or a size suitable to the staking nails if you've bought them. It's better to measure carefully and do the drilling before you bend. Paint the bars with a suitable paint. Use a bar on each side of the pot, hooking an end into the pot and staking the other end into the earth. You want your stakes to be long enough so they can't be easily pulled out by a thief, but not too hard for you to remove with a crowbar and fulcrum when you want to move the pot. Bend a right or acute angle at the hammering end of the stake if you made your own, so it won't pass through the hole you drilled. Probably have to drive the stakes in at an angle so you don't hit the pot with your hammer. Experiment, as the sizes I used are just ballpark, but keep in mind that if you're driving the stakes at an angle, the hole size or the bend at the bottom have to account for that.. These materials are inexpensive. Maybe 10 bucks to tie down 2 to 4 pots. Might keep the thieves away, or they might get your pots *and* your bars and stakes.
--Vic
Hi Rodney,
I collect exotic plants and still have enough in our collections to grow more. Our neighbors are decent people but the new legislations require that a few Section 8 residents are to be part of our neighborhood. We have to raise our security when there's nothing we can do to change the laws. I'm not a professional when it comes to securing our valuables but, traditionally, I resort to paranoia but it just gets worse.
I post ten percent of my stories, unwillingly, in hopes of fighting back. People here have great ideas that I can never come up with them alone. One individual had pointed out a specific way to ask a question, and I think that's good information but obviously I'm not gifted with words.
Bill Taylor P.S. Sorry for the disrupting post, I'll keep them within the rules.
Drill bottom for re-rod, make a form & pour concrete around bottom of pot.
Newnsie
The pots are on a flat cement driveway. There are no places for ground anchoring or to large objects. I comb thru the lease agree- ment and the ordinance won't allow large cameras, floodlights, or sirens. I can drill a 1/4" hole on the cement driveway and try to anchor it on the pot like most suggested. The neighbor children also play around the pots and afraid they may trip over a cable or chain and I face a lawsuit. Yesterday was a restless day, we weren't home all day. I had my 92 Accord hacked into the other week and the insurance covers the ignition and door locks.
The pots and plants are not insured but I wonder what can thieves do with flower pots. Put them on their yard? Sell them? Who knows. I don't take plant thefts seriously, since that's how exotic plants survive, which is through desire, then thefts. Thanks all. Your ideas are all remarkable. Why didn't I think of it, I was thinking of gluing them to cement but the lease contract wouldn't allow it.
Bill T
<snip>
This might be too much trouble for flower pots, but I saw a technique for permanently fixing a bird bath in place on a home improvement show. Unfortunately I can't recall the exact details, but basically they dug a hole, poured in some concrete, affixed the end of a metal cable into the wet concrete, and ran the other end of the cable up through the base of the bird bath.
Start small - try a T~flash or art'y sim connected to a NO/NC switch with a short time delay .... guaranteed to scare the hell out of them. Failing that - clamor would work ....
Just make sure your gardener is forwarned not to lift or move the planter
Section 8 wrote: ...
...
Perhaps they want to grow things. It's not unheard of for some folks to grow plants which would otherwise cost a great deal of money and which the law frowns upon.
Security cameras do not have to be large and ugly anymore. You can, if you spend the money, find many very tiny things that can be hidden almost anywhere. At the very least, you should be able to place cameras in your windows. Folks also sell small gps transmitters that can be hidden in the pots.
Have you considered organizing a group of people from the local area to help in combating theft and other criminal behavior? This might be as benign as a neighborhood watch.
Anthony
"The Brown Family" snipped-for-privacy@cox.net verbositized:
That won't work at all! I know, been there and done that.
We had a neighbor use his pick-up truck, filled with debris, back into my garage (with the door closed) knocking the door off it's track and ruining it.
I had the garage door replaced!
The next weekend the guy came back and did the same thing to the brand new garage door.
A neighbor hearing the noise grabbed a video cam and made a movie of the guy unloading his truck and driving away.
We turned the video tape over to the police department and also pointed out the home the guy lived in to them.
What came of it?
About 15 days later he came back, filled the garage with debris again, and drove back home. Later that night he set the debis on fire! Clearly a case of Arson. The police classified this as an accidental fire due to debris accumulation.
Another similar case, different location, a neighbor across the street tore down a falling wood two car garage. He had his helpers carry the debris across the street to my house, broke in the kitchen door, tore down the basement door and tossed most of the debris down the basement steps until no more would fit, the rest they hauled into the living room and then filled the kitchen too.
A neighbor to the north video taped the many trips made to the house to unload their debris. Police investigators found solid proof of where the debris came from as they left their address on the siding of the garage on one of the pieces of debris.
What did the police do?
Told the guy he shouldn't ought to have done that. He was NOT charged with breaking and entering. He was NOT charged with illegal dumping. He was NOT charged with demolition without a permit. He was NOT charged with vandalism.
And, the police would NOT return the video tape so it could be used as evidence against the person ordering such disposal onto private property.
TTUL Gary
back into
track and
the brand
movie of
fire!
carry the
door, tore
basement
living
house
of the
used as
What on earth do you do to get these people so angry with you?
Bob
I don't know if you've gotten any _useful_ suggestions, but... anchor the pots with a toggling bolt or an ground screw (like the pet stores sell for dog leashes), connecting it to the pot with a rope or chain. To keep the pot end of your chain from being pulled back out the bottom of the pot, fasten it to a disk of plywood or possibly the cut-off end of a coffee can or similar.
.max
Get a huge bolt and thread it thru the hole in the pot and into the ground.
The name Section 8 does make it seem trollsh
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