Cooler, damp, although no rain in the forecast. We did get sprinkles and some wetness late in the day yesterday. The temps dropped from the high 70s to the high 60s and then even to 59F before bedtime. The first drop happened right on schedule according to openweathermap.org I don’t think that anyone needed a jacket though.
I spent the afternoon in meatspace. Spent over an hour with my buddy and his wife in the store talking. Inventory was down to almost nothing. There were a few consignment items, but they weren’t moving. Ammo? No. He’s hoping to get some inventory in soon. Most of the local stores are in the same condition. You can’t sell what you don’t have. Transfer fees are all that’s keeping the lights on and yesterday was slow while I was there. As a sign of the times, they had a almost attack by a lone wolf last week. They get scoped out fairly often, but the bad guys see the cams and the setup and decide to try elsewhere. THIS guy was gonna go for it, and only changed his mind when an extra gun showed up. People are getting more desperate. Take a look at your threat assessment with this in mind. Take a good look at your physical security too, I’m sure there is some way to improve it for little cost.
Again, things are unlikely to start getting better tomorrow. They are much more likely to continue getting worse. Start acting on that idea. Start by making yourself and your stuff less attractive as a target. Get rid of the bling. Consider that to a third world migrant, any jewelry is worth money and marks you as ‘rich’. Consider carrying some “throw down” money. I keep cash in a money clip in my pocket with the specific intention of giving that up. “throwing it down” and running, if possible. You might want a fat envelope of small bills in the desk drawer to satisfy the guy who is rifling through your house so he hopefully grabs it and bails. I don’t know if any one strategy will work or not, so I’m layering, just like I approach prepping. It’s very common to wear a silicon rubber band in place of a wedding band now, for sporting or work reasons. Think about that, and what your watch or phone says to a thief. You might want a case for your phone that makes it look a lot less attractive or expensive. Back in the day, in certain areas, white earphones were a great way to advertise that you were carrying an apple product… their design is iconic to catch the eye of customers, and it works on thieves too.
Right now the simplest things will likely pay the most dividends. Visible cameras. No visible high theft items. Don’t leave a bag, coat, or valuables visible in a vehicle. Don’t leave guns in vehicles. Get a consolevault or equivalent if you must. Lock your doors, all the time. Car doors should always be locked. House doors should be closed and locked. I put keypad locks on our doors. If you go through the door, you pull it shut behind you. It’s easy enough to code the door open. There are times when we don’t but it’s usually when we are working in front of the door. Absolutely don’t leave the front door open and then go out and work in the back. The doorknob rattlers are out every day looking for open doors and making lists of what they see. I’ve got that from our Constable’s loss prevention specialist. They bust these guys with notebooks full of info on their potential targets.
Consider getting an alarm system. At a minimum, get door chimes, or set the alarm to chime when the doors open and get different tones for the front and back door. When the kids were little, we had different bells and noise makers on every door in the house. You could track the little ninjas just by sound. Get a driveway alert system. If you’ve got a remote gate, put a chime on that.
This is just the easy and cheap stuff you can do with little impact on your ‘normal’ life. Think about what you’d do AFTER a home robbery, and save yourself the trauma by doing some or all of it BEFORE you need it.
Home and personal security is a huge topic and there are lots of resources. Your insurance or local PD might offer ‘security audits’ for free. Take advantage of that and get a fresh set of eyes as well as some experience applied to the issue. We’ve discussed various aspects of it here, and although there isn’t a particular keyword, some searching should bring up good info. Resolve to take some concrete action to improve your position…
and keep stacking.
nick