Smooth Criminal

Christmas morning, 9am, I came upon my car with the rear passenger window smashed, ruining my plans to visit family down in Carlsbad.

Is this what happens when you don't leave out milk and cookies for Santa? I will get that fat red bastard.

If it was Santa, perhaps he was short on presents because my GPS unit and bowling ball were stolen from the car.  I'm sure some 5 year old will be thrilled with my 2004 model GPS with outdated maps that is so bulky and heavy it falls off the windshield if you turn the car too hard.

As for the bowling ball, the thief must have had a good time lugging its heavy bag while fleeing from the scene only to be disappointed when he opened it.

There were some gift cards in there as well, but luckily I copied down the numbers on most of them prior to the theft and was able to transfer the balances to new cards. 

So the thief caused $250 in damages to acquire items that are expensive to replace, but have little value on the black market. If he'd spent a few more seconds in the car, he might have found the money I had stashed for an emergency or the spare valet key. Although anyone who expects a treasure trove of goods in a 7-year-old Civic is setting themselves up for disappointment.

Getting the window replaced was an interesting experience. Surprisingly, the amount of effort required to install a fresh window is roughly on par with changing your oil.  On most common model cars, it's as simple as removing the interior door panel, unscrewing the bolts holding the remaining shattered glass, re-attaching the bolts to the new glass (which glides right in), and mounting the door panel back on. A competent shop can usually complete this in less than 20 minutes including the clean-up of the broken glass.

The only real challenge is locating a replacement window. I discovered most of these glass repair shops are more of a concierge if anything. The 2 hours you spend in the waiting room is because the owner is on the phone with his competitors or a supplier trying to track down a window that will fit your car.

So lessons learned:

-My building manager doesn't care about break-ins or vandalism, even though he lives in the building.
-The police wanted me to value my property that was stolen. Not the replacement cost. Not what I paid for it. But what I could sell them for in their condition. Interesting, as I have no qualifications to appraise the value of a used bowling ball or 6-year-old GPS.
-Xeroxing the front and back of all your gift cards (as well as credit and ATM cards) comes in handy if you ever lose them.
-There is some sort of shadiness in the car window replacement industry. Many of these repair facilities are part of a network and share the same call center. They don't seem to carry inventory,  and charge quite a bit for a $50 part and 15 minutes of install time.
-Don't leave anything visible in your car. The cleaner it is, the less likely it will be broken into.