The outward-facing edges are probably from the fink using a twisting motion with a screwdrivery, or pocketknifey kind of item. I’ve seen holes made in soft plastic like that before. I’d suggest either a webcam with “motion detection” software coupled with a security lamp out of reach, or one of those “motion detecting sprinklers” that you can buy in the pond section of the local Home Despot. Fill the hose with Rid-Ich (go to a petstore, in the fish section), which is an organic dye that doesn’t wash off your skin. On the other hand, just coat the outside of the tank with the stuff- someone will have unusually blue hands for a week or so.
Ooh, I just love to see American ingenuity at work.
This is a plastic tank, yes? A puncture caused by a heated object will do that as the plastic sticks to the object when it’s pulled back.
Using a heated object to puncture a gas tank? Is that a good idea?
If all the speculation is right, and someone has been stealing gas this way, I’d love to see him get caught. But he may have figured that if the car has been gone this long, it could be at the mechanic and the jig is up. I mean, if you were him, would you come back to a place where people may be lying in wait for you, or just pick someone else in the neighborhood and poke a hole in their gas tank. Plus, if he sees the car is back in the next few days and comes back before the trap is in place, he’ll see the tank has been replaced and never come back.
You want this guy bad, he’s on the hook, be careful how you reel him in.
You know the thing about this that shocks me the most is that someone would go to so much trouble to steal petrol when it is so cheap in the US! Now here or Europe I could understand.
I thought of the motion sensor Santa too - or what about a singing salmon?
Oh man do I feel your pain!
last year some asshats went down our backlane, shooting out car windows with a BB gun. They got nine cars in all, hit our back and side windows, the windsheild was spared.
It was so upsetting to see my daughter’s car seat covered in shattered glass.
Insurance wouldn’t pay the deductible because it was vandalism, not theft.
Then this year same thing again! They also took the faceplate from my car stereo, I guess they thought it was a removable one. NOPE!
At least this time it was sort of theft, insurance covered it.
Then a week before Christmas I come home to…drum roll…broken glass in our door. I guess the brainiacs opened the outside storm door (ignoring the alarm sticker) and broke the window intending to break in, then DUH realized there was an alarm panel on the wall.
I am so sick and tired of this fucking neighborhood.