Went to our property today where we are building a home. I was meeting a guy to help me install a new dipper cylinder that just arrived. When I arrived I see my backhoe sitting in the driveway with my farm gate laying behind it all mangled up and twisted. Someone cranked it with a key then drove 1200 Ft to my gate and drove through it. There are tire tracks out by the Hwy like a heavy truck trailer was parked and waiting. I'm confused as to why they did not load it up? I have no insurance on it so thank God I still have it. It is parked far from the road so I guess its someone that has seen it like the crew that did my footers last week or maybe someone from the logging crew a few months back.
Thank your lucky stars. Likely they got frightened by someone investigating the noise of the gate being crashed. Check with your neighbors or anyone close by. Construction sites hidden from view are prime targets for thieves. This was a warning to you. Take precautions now.
They'll be back, they decided to wait for you to get the dipper cylinder reinstalled. Or they loaded something else heavy worth stealing with your hoe.
sounds like a cutoff switch needs to be installed somewhere
Whenever I have to leave my old hoe sitting somewhere vulnerable I shut off all the fuel valves I can reach, it has one at each filter and one on the tank... only tricky thing is to remember I did it cause it will run for a minute or so then starve for fuel about the time I remember what I did!!! So, like lantraxco says they will be back!!! I would do everything I could to make it harder to steal... battery cutoffs, fuel cutoffs, maybe some simple padlock weldments on linkages or somewhere else that will make it inoperable... cause it sounds like you got very lucky this time
Time to install a battery cutoff switch somewhere, not guaranteed to prevent theft but it's one more hurdle. Many years ago had a project downtown on a brownfield lot. Had my loader, dozer, CTL, compactor and backhoe on the site. We lined the equipment up front to back at quitting time on Friday. The wife and I were out and about on the next Saturday and decided to drive by the site, as I pulled up to the site I immediately noticed the backhoe was gone. Got on the phone with the Birmingham PD and they dispatched an officer to the scene. Officer shows up and goes through the motions of questions. As I am filling the officer in, I hear my backhoe coming over the hill. Sure enough there it is heading down 30th street straight towards us with a white Ford crew cab behind with flashers on. I immediately go into a fit (that's a rage for the non southern folks ) and start jumping up and down, waving my hands for the guy in the backhoe to get his ass here now, all the while making up new curse words. He drives the backhoe down the street and proceeds to cross the intersection, the guy driving the crew cab makes a left turn and leaves him high and dry. I did find that part comical. The guy proceeds to apologize and explain that they are from Georgia and installing fiber conduit a few blocks over and their rental backhoe broke down late Friday night. Since the rental stores were closed and they were almost finished he thought he would just "borrow" mine. Yeah you can't make this **** up. After calling him a thief in English and pig latin, I wanted the officer to press charges. The officer either didn't want to do the paperwork or didn't care and stated "since he brought it back, it's ok." Needless to say that didn't calm me down. The thief apologized and promised to send a check for the "rental", of course that never happened. Moral of this story is a battery disconnect was installed on the following Monday in the battery box with a heavy duty master lock on the door. Haven't had the issue since.
think id be in cuffs cause the guy would of been hurt lol
I hate that machinery has universal keys. Everyone in the country has a cat key. I have a ring of keys in my lunch can that could help me steal most makes of machines. Our little bobcat mini needs a number code to start. A good idea actually. Most of the time all our equipment has the key hidden on it. Every truck driver in the country knows our loaders have the keys under the cab. Some people have balls. We had milled asphalt stockpiled in a pit on site on a paving job. It was on a main highway, but in a wooded area. It was screened and ready for shouldering. In the night they used our loader, and hauled about 25 tandem loads. They must have finished shortly before we landed on site in the morning because you could still see the mud on the road where they were hauling out of the pit.
Ohh the rage crossed my mind many times in a short period. The way the system works, I would've been in jail...
Lockout switch and I'd even go one step further and wire in a hidden switch to shut off ECM power if it was electronic. No power to ECM = no starting.
Ah hell, just chain your hound dog to the hoe at night, unhitch him in the morning, lol. I heard once of a store that had break in problems, even with a silent alarm the police never got there in time. They hired a local snake lover to bring a couple rattlers in at night and collect them just before opening in the morning. Couple signs and some heat lamps to make warm spots close to the windows put an end to that crap, lol.
Yesterday, I moved it to a neighbor that is the closest one to me at 1/2mile. He has a small trucking co. with bright lights and he is known to shoot first and ask questions later. Today I'm taking it to a friends grading co. where it will have top notch security and can be sold. A friend said I should park it back were it was and surveil for a few days with my 5.56 and night vision. I would like to catch the a-holes.
I think it's been plenty long enough for the statute of limitations to have run out, so here's a little story... Many years ago, waaay back before the turn of the millenium. I lived in a trailer park and subscribed to the local newspaper. There were a number of identical newspaper boxes lined up next to the USPS mailboxes. Began to notice that EVERY Sunday morning my paper was missing. All the neighboring tubes had theirs. I got pissed. One Saturday night [early Sun AM actually] I made a point of waiting up for the papers to be delivered. I took mine home, poked 3 holes in it with an icepick in a triangular pattern, and inserted 3 strike-anywhere matches with the heads facing outward. I put duct tape on the edges of a strip of sandpaper sized to fit the tube. I poured about 3/4 of an ounce of IMR 4895 in the middle of the sandpaper, placed the sandpaper in the bottom of the tube, rubbed the taped edges down and carefully set the paper on it's matchhead tripod inside the tube. I went to bed. When I got up about noon and remembered the paper I walked to the road to check it out. The paper was still there, hanging halfway out of the tube and well-charred about 4 sheets deep. Never missed another Sunday paper...
Now that's funny. Reminds me of something my dad would do. He once had a guy stealing his sandwiches at work. He saw a dead cat on the way to work and sliced some off to ad under the ham... problem solve :
update. Guy that tried to steal my backhoe,did steal my son's turkey blind and broke new lock on new gate and entered my property. I got pics of his truck and posted on facebook. Helpful local identified the guy and I found his address and went and had a talk with him..a short talk. I filed charges on him but did not stick because I had no pic of him breaking the lock. A friend who's brother is a sheriff arranged for him to be picked up after finding out he had three warrants for arrest. He also has two felony convictions for past breaking and entering cases. I hear he might get some serious jail time if one of the new warrants turns into a 3rd felony.
Time for gps tracking. You can buy self contained units the size of a pack of gum. I had a larger one I put in a telehandler which had input for notifying you if it was started. You can also specify a gps fence to know if it has moved outside of those limits so you don't have to constantly monitor it.
Good idea, I'll look into them.
glad you found out who it was. IF I ever found out he might not walk again but thats me
The newspaper story reminds me of a fella in Spokane yrs ago who had someone stealing some of his firewood. He drilled a hole in the end of a smaller round piece with a spade bit about 4" deep, filled it with black powder and made a tight fitting plug to drive and glue in and placed it in his wood pile. Wasn't many days later he heard someone down the street had a mysterious explosion in their wood stove. needless to say the firewood theft stopped!! Mike
nice pay back bet his stove was bad after that
Speaking of firewood.. I had a camper set up at a permanent site.. lots of party friends around.. I ALWAYS had PLENTY of wood for late nite bonfires.. it started disappearing ALOT.. I'd just order more.. it got to the point I had to put a sign up.. "borrowing is the SAME as stealing, IF you don't tell me about it".. the wood never went missing again..