If you live in the Tampa Bay area, you probably like to keep your patio lovely with nice potted plants…maybe some wind chimes.
We assume things on our property are going to be safe, but there’s a problem in a St. Pete neighborhood right now.
Monica Dulin lives in the Central Oak Park neighborhood in St. Petersburg and she described her problem to 10 Tampa Bay. “It’s just sad to see it happening over and over again and it’s just a little bit discouraging.” She’s had things stolen three times already this year. She’s made her yard beautiful with a faux coy pond, beautiful flowers, and multiple bird feeders.
She used to have her favorite tall wind spinner, but in April, someone stole it. She bought another and placed it in concrete, but someone stole that one a month later!
Police believe the thief (or thieves) live in the area.
“It makes me sick to my stomach to think that someone just has such disrespect for not just my home and my property but for their community and the area that they live in,” Dulin said. “A lot of our neighbors are experiencing things like this. One of our neighbors had their bicycles stolen out of their front yard while they were standing in their garage.”
There are steps you can take to make sure this doesn’t happen at your house. According to St. Petersburg Police Crime Prevention Specialist Chip Wells, here are some things you can do:
Light your property well.
Make your home camera system visible.
Use concrete to secure lawn ornaments.
Wells advised, “First thing is to keep it close to your house, because the further out, the easier it is for somebody to grab and go. We want to keep it close to lighting. If you have one of the ring cameras or a similar product, keep it lit so that they can see it. That’s also why we want to keep the light on, a lot of times the ring camera can see at night, but it’s not really good enough to identify the people.”
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