How do I keep thieves out of my yard?

In My Humble Opinion
1

While this might have factual answers, I thought I’d do better in IMHO with people’s experiences and opinions.

As some of you may recall from earlier threads, I bought this house in August. It’s not in a bad area, but it’s on a road people use as a cut-through, and the ghetto is not far away. I’ve called the cops on two sets of neighbors - one because I thought (and still think, damn it) they’re drug dealers, and one because of the barking dogs. It’s the kind of area where there are still a lot of renters but the rental houses are being bought by young homeowners. Up and coming.

So. Stuff keeps disappearing from my yard. The first time, it was a ladder, a rake, and a pair of loppers. Obviously, I shouldn’t have left them on my porch, but I thought they were safe there and that people wouldn’t come onto the porch to take something. My bad. It was accompanied by a homeless guy ringing my doorbell at 11 at night (I wouldn’t have answered, only I was expecting my boyfriend and was very stupid and didn’t look through the peephole.) He was looking for yardwork, I told him no, and that’s the last time I saw my ladder. I don’t know if it was him or not. Called the cops, they wrote up a report.

Shortly after the last time I dimed the po’ on my barking dog neighbors (and this time I think they knew it was me), I bought a wonderfully tacky light-up palm tree as a Christmas decoration. Didn’t have it 24 hours before it disappeared. Kids? The people next door? The cop this time said they almost never get stolen decorations, and that it was probably personal. No proof that it was the neighbors, though.

So today is the first day that I’ve really looked at the yard since I returned home from my beloved grandfather’s funeral, as I’ve been down with a cold, and I see my plastic flamingoes are gone. My fury knows no bounds! Even the little whirligig one! Kids? Neighbors? Who knows, but that is low, to steal from a greiving woman! I left my car in the driveway, so I wasn’t obviously away, but it would have been trivial to run up and take Agnes and Edna.

So what can I do?! I’m replacing the flamingoes. If I don’t, they’ve won! In fact, I’m getting extra sets so if the new ones get stolen I’ll put some more damned flamingoes out. But what can I do about it? There’s really nothing the cops can do. I refuse to put a fence up in my front yard. I’ve got security lights, although not specifically in the yard. I’m near a streetlight. Other than “scorched earth yard campaign”, what are my options (that are legal)? I don’t see a way to chain Agnes and Edna to the ground! Also, this summer I’ll be growing a lot of vegetables - what if they steal my tomatoes?! The back yard (side yard, really) is fenced, but the good sunny spaces are all outside the fence. What about when my daffodills come up? My crinums?! Are they gonna steal my crinums?! (Can you electrify a lily?)

I need some ideas, because I am about at my wits end about this. I don’t feel in any danger in the house - I have a security system, and I really don’t fear the flamingo-stealing type. But isn’t there anything I can do? This has all happened since August! (Probably since October or November, really!)

2

Update - believe it or not, but I just went out there and surveyed my domain, and would you believe my wheelbarrow is gone too? Yeah, it’s the rustiest bucket of crap in the world - came with the house - but I’d had it hidden behind the foundation shrubs and somebody made off with it. No idea when except that the last time I used it would be sometime in November when I planted my sweetshrub.

3

I would fence my yard with electrical fence, get a guard dog, put motion sensor lights all around the property, put up motion sensitive cameras and signs that say tresspassers will be prosecuted. And I would hound the police every single day, every single time you notice one tulip bulb gone. How infuriating! I hate theives almost as much as I hate murderers. The feeling of being violated like that is indescribable. OMG, I’d be steaming mad.

P.S. My condolences on your loss. May your grandfather rest in peace and your heart heal soon.

4

Feh – The above post was by me. Didn’t notice I was logged in as my husband – sorry.

5

Fence the yard.

Better still, dig a 7 foot deep, 7 foot wide trench along your back yard. Line the sides with brick, the bottom with sand. This is called a ha-ha, & will discourage people cutting across the land, without spoiling the view.

6

Isn’t there a way to keep people out of the yard without fencing it? Fenced front yards seem so ghetto to me! (Although I guess now I see why people in the ghetto put up fences!) Maybe one of those newfangled vinyl fences? Probably expensive, though. No cheap ideas?

Thank you, Shayna - he was 92 and went mercifully fast, but it’s still hard. It’s a good thing he didn’t live to hear about the Case of the Missing Flamingoes - he’d be the first to sleep on my porch with a shotgun!

If I did put up a fence, with or without a front gate, do you guys think it would cut down on the number of homeless guys ringing my bell to beg me for yard work? I’m thinking of a psychological barrier here more than a physical one.

7

Motion sensors and Claymores are your friends. And a Vulcan with an IR seeker on each corner of the house. :smiley:

Seriously, that sucks. I suggest exterior lights linked to motion detectors and properly fencing in your yard.

8

As far as the fencing thing goes, if this makes more sense, here is a picture of the house. (From before I put the flamingoes in and did a LOT of work.) It’s quite close to the road. What you can’t really see from the picture is that this is the original house on a huge lot, which was later subdivided. So I have maybe ten feet between my house and the property line in the back, and a huge side yard. I’ve got about a hundred feet of street frontage on my lot - I could sell the side yard as an extra lot if I wanted to. So psychologically, my yard isn’t private and behind the house. Also, a nice fence would be pretty expensive, considering all the street frontage. I am trying to build a garage in part of my side yard, but am stuck in bureaucracy hell with the historical commission, as this is a historical district - which might also bring problems with a fence.

My security lights are on the porch (and back deck), and they don’t come on when somebody’s just in the yard. It would be difficult, although I guess not impossible, to put more on the front of the house. It would take some care to make sure it didn’t go on every time a car passed. Changes that require drilling can be hard, though, since the house is so old and a little… unpredictable.

9

During the 2004 election season, our political yard sign got stolen, so we got even. We replaced it with one that was a plastic sheath that slid down over the wire frame. Inside it, we’d put wire mesh, attached to the frame with zip ties. Then, through the plastic sign and wire mesh, and around the wire post, we put one of those tree anchors that are made of wire and have an anchor that gets sunk deep into the ground. Then we moved our bench and put a bright spotlight on the sign.

The theives stayed off our yard for the rest of the campaign season, right up until election night. Around midnight, someone either got the shit scared out of them, or possibly hurt pretty bad. You see, they hadn’t noticed the tree wire that was coiled on the ground near one of the posts, so they were able to pull it up out of the ground and start running off with it. Problem was, there was only enough wire to get them about halfway down the cement stairs, at which point, not knowing it was tied and anchored, they certainly were thrown off balance when the sign was yanked out behind them as they went barrelling down the stairs. And without wire cutters and/or a screwdriver, they had no choice but to abandon the sign. HA!

So anyway, go get a set of those tree anchors and attach them to Agnes and Edna! Good luck – I hope you catch the fuckers.

10

Dig that deep, wide trench.

People will go around, or elsewhere, & many petty thieves are too darn lazy to go around.

11

I don’t have any advice for you, but I have lots of sympathy. We recently had a theft from our yard. We live in a house that’s on a busy street. Our yard has a five foot brick wall around it with a gate that latches. My son and I went to the grocery store one morning the week before Christmas and came back to find that his little tricycle had been stolen. This thing was one of those $10 plastic, hideous, blue/yellow/red things that you pick up at KMart. His (late) grandfather had given it to him and he LOVED it. Rode it all the time around the yard. This was by far his favorite toy. It was all faded, the wheels were pretty trashed, and he had stuck stickers all over it. Someone actually bothered to enter our walled, gated yard to take it. It just completely flabbergasts me. Sigh. Now, we don’t leave anything out there except the swingset that’s dug into the ground.

12

How about a barking dog sensor? (I googled for barking dog sensor.)

13

You ever had horses? You know those electric fence thingies? Is there any way to rig up something like that, out of sight and attached to a new ladder or wheelbarrow?

Barring that, how bout a security camera? Then you’d at least know who they were. And could give the tapes to the police.

14

You know, I was thinking at dinner, didn’t we once have a thread here on front yard fencing? Where we all learned that it’s a regional thing, and that in some places everybody has it and in other places only the real ghetto fences front yards? Well, here only the real ghetto fences front yards.

The trench would be a great idea, not to mention get rid of some of my grass, but I think the city (not to mention the historical commission) might object.

You know, I hadn’t thought I could anchor flamingos, since they’re kinda flimsy and their legs are just stuck into little holes in them, but I bet if I drilled a little hole, maybe that tree anchor thing would work! Still no promise that anything else wouldn’t walk off, like a tomato or a crinum, though.

It looks like some sort of decorative fencing is the sad and only solution. That makes me so angry! I don’t even know if the historical commission will allow it, and it looks all ghetto, and it’s expensive, and even if I got the nice vinyl stuff I don’t know how hard it’s gonna be to match the style and scale of the house. Especially since it would have to go all the way down to do any good. I am so filled with grr I can barely speak! Also I couldn’t do any fencing until I know about the stupid garage, as that would change where it would go.

But another security light, that might be arrangeable. And some lawn ornament tie-downs. Perhaps I should take a hint from the good people of New Orleans and spray paint “You loot, we shoot!” on my house? Or maybe “Beware of bear traps!”

15

By the way, your house is darling. I’m so jealous of that porch/veranda.

16

When you nail one, bury him in the front yard with a tombstone that says “HERE LIES A DIRTY NO-GOOD THIEF.” You should have little trouble after that.

Just remember to turn off the defenses before you go out to mow the lawn.

17

Thank you! Now what I’m going to do about all those exploded chunks of thief, I don’t know. Get a pressure washer, I guess.

18

What a lovely house. I don’t like the idea of a fence in the front either. I would like to suggest a hedge of pricker bushes of some sort. Make the little vandals pay with bits of their flesh! Maybe an arbor with a gate at your front walk would pass with the historic people also. How about some well placed rocks?

19

Some type of fence (what ever the historical people will allow) and a dog. The bigger the better. A dog that barks. Loudly.

20

Have you looked into setting up a webcam or some other kind of security camera? Put it in a discreet place, but something somewhat juicy out, and see who’s taking it.