Uninvited valet service

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So I parked my car Friday night outside my front door, right at the corner of the street and the alley. It was a totally legal spot (for those who are interested).

I come out Sat. morning to pick up Andrew (my 7 yr old) from his sleepover and my car is not there! I walk a couple feet in the street to see if maybe I parked somewhere else and just forgot and saw my car parked in the alley next to the building just E of mine. At first I thought maybe the Streets and San people moved it to plow, but the street had not been plowed. I was in a hurry to get Andy and drop off the dry cleaning so I have something nice to wear to the big party tonight so I didn’t notice until I was driving that my top three presets on my radio had been changed from NPR, XRT and the Drive to B-96, 107.9, and WCBR…not my cuppa for sure!

Here’s the weirdest part: nothing was stolen! I had a $200 Porter Cable cordless drill in the trunk, new corner and marker lights in the front seat I haven’t installed yet (retail around $250), a 5 D cell Maglite and and ASP under that, and a live Bela Fleck DVD also on the front seat.

No, wait there is a weirder part: my power mirrors have a fault in them so if I turn the little switch on to adjust them, they will automatically tilt all the way out and keep doing that till I move them by hand. I noticed the drivers’ side mirror was tilted in and not thinking I started to adjust it and realized the power adjustment now works perfectly?!?!

I called the police and talked to a friend of mine there. He hypothesized someone saw the car was open, pushed it the 50 feet or so, and got some warm shut eye for the night. This doesn’t account for the radio and mirror so I don’t know what to think.

Even weirder part: there was a wad of paper towels between the front seats, apparently the Mysterious Mover decided my slovenly car was not worthy for him to sleep in in its current state so he (I assume) cleaned off the mirrors and inside of the windshield!

It wasn’t the ex as she had a date and was not leaving the house at all, my gf was in her apt watching a video with may daughter and her daughter. No one has keys to my car AFAIK.

Another thought was that it was done in order to get a tow, the spot I was moved to was a Lincoln Towing controlled area so I could have been towed whcih would have cost me a lot. Perhaps LT moved me there, left it for an hour and were planning on coming around to tow it, don’t laugh they have done it in Chicago before!

Strangeness.

2

That is quite odd indeed… But it seems that someone must have had keys to your car, simply for the fact that they wouldn’t have been able to do anything with the radio otherwise. Once, when I was in high school, I noticed some odd things when I was leaving school one day… I soon figured out that my cousin, to whom I had lent my car a couple of weeks before, had made a copy of my key, and was spending his lunch hour smoking in my car. Needless to say, I was pissed, and I got the copy back without having to beat the crap out of him… But that leads me to wonder if you’ve lent your car (or even just your keys) to someone for long enough that they could have made a copy?

3

her thought was that it was done in order to get a tow, the spot I was moved to was a Lincoln Towing controlled area so I could have been towed whcih would have cost me a lot. Perhaps LT moved me there, left it for an hour and were planning on coming around to tow it, don’t laugh they have done it in Chicago before!

Way, hey! Tow them away! The Lincoln Park Pirates are we!

Brings back memories…

4

That is really strange.

I can’t explain why someone might borrow your car, fix your mirror, change your radio station, and park it just nearby…but…some of the japanese carmakers are not so careful about their keycuttings. When I was an actual real-live legitimate valet who was paid to park cars, it happened twice that a car was retrieved where the person’s key was in the ignition on their key ring, yet the car the ignition was attached to was not theirs. Honda, Acura.
My husband and his friend once got into a car and started it up, began to back up, before realizing that their stuff was missing from the backseat. And there were girly things wrapped around the shifter. The friend’s car was actually parked three or four cars up the row; they reparked the girl’s car and drove off in the right, messy, one.
Many times, cars are stolen just for joyrides or to go somewhere. Car thieves will drive them around 'til they’re empty and then walk off. You noticed no damage to the ignition at all?
Saturns are notorious for the ease of theft. They’ll go with anyone who’s got a screwdriver apparently.

If you ever find out what really happened, please update this thread.

5

My guess. Someone has a key to your car, whether it was made by someone you loaned the keys too, or it just happens to be a key that is common (like the Japanese situation). Just for kicks, try to write down the last 2 numbers of your odometer reading before you park for the night. Some (kid probably) is taking your car for a joyride. :slight_smile:

6

Maybe you’re driving someone else’s car now!

Or maybe you went through a portal to a parallel universe. You don’t happen to have a goatee, do you?

7

I think you’ve been pranked!

8

I think so too. Did you find a nice stack of pictures showing your car in different places?

9

Was the radio re-tuned to a romantic station? I’m thinking a couple of teenagers in heat and armed with a key for the same model car as yours used your car for a late night booty call. They could have adjusted the mirror so they could see from the back seat if anyone was coming up behind the car. That would explain the paper towels, too.

Yeah, I’m a big ol’ perv.