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Comment by eurleif | Hacker News Reader

Presumably it's easier to rob a house at night. If someone is away, you can do that.

Between 60%[1] and 75%[2] of burglaries occur during the day.

I've been burgled before. They dressed up in white "painters" overalls, carried some tools and no one asked anything. Broad daylight, broke the door.

[1] http://homesecurity.lifetips.com/faq/139392/0/do-burglaries-...

[2] http://www.apartmentwiz.com/houston_apartments_information/w...

Steel toe-caps, a hi-visibility jacket and some emulsion-spattered trousers will allow one to get away with pretty much anything, even in the broadest of broad daylight.

We once cut the lock on a friend's very nice bike (she lost the key) using an angle grinder and a miniature generator, in the middle of the high street in the middle of the afternoon, and nobody batted an eyelid. We were dressed in normal clothes. TBF we probably got away with that because it was so blatant. Still, it's amazing what people will ignore. Bystander effect and all that.

> We once cut the lock on a friend's very nice bike (she lost the key) using an angle grinder and a miniature generator, in the middle of the high street in the middle of the afternoon, and nobody batted an eyelid.

What should have they done?

Call the police? What would the police do? Question you? Ask about your identities? How would they identify your friend as the owner of the bike?

Well, nice bikes are commonly engraved with postcodes here, so that would be something. I'd have expected for some people to at least stare at us or something, but it was like people were trying their best to ignore us, like we had the Somebody Else's Problem field from hhgg, which I suppose we did.

I suppose that's my point really: most of "security" is just the social contract in action. The reason you don't get robbed is because nobody wants to rob you.

> What would the police do? Question you? Ask about your identities?

That might actually be useful if the record your ID and later connect it with a bike getting reported as stolen at that location.

Since moving to Toronto I've witnessed three people trying to smash locks in street. I stopped them all and asked "Should I believe you should be doing that?"

Two of them said they owned the bike and gave some plausible explanation and way to back it up, and were prepared for me to check. They both thanked me for asking.

The third one told me to fuck off, and ran away.

Certainly the first two could have been thieves, I'll never know.

Props for trying. I would like to think I would do the same in such a scenario but it does seem like a personal safety risk. Although I'd hope to not get shot over a bike, there are people who have been shot over shoes before.

Being in Toronto probably helps that. I'm sure there are parts of town where it'd be better to keep walking, but downtown isn't like that.

> Call the police? What would the police do? Question you?

Yes! And then you can write a blog post about living in a police state and getting interrogated for going about your business.

Two relevant videos. This guy attempted to 'steal' his own bike in NYC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGttmR2DTY8

There's also this one. First, a white guy. Then, a black guy. Finally, a woman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7i60GuNRg

Same experience. Nobody even questioned why I was trying to break into a car with a coat hanger at the gas station. Maybe the attendants inside saw me get out of it but one guy actually stopped and tried to help get it open (he admitted he had less experience than me at it). It was at least half an hour on one of our main streets.

Many years ago a friend was arrested for tampering with ATMs, at the jail they told him it was his fault because he was doing it late in the night. According to the crime scholars there, everything you do late at night is suspicious and likely to get police attention. Indeed, he was arrested when he was leaving the ATM and the officer spotted the packs of bills on his jacket in a routine frisk (in Brazil an officer can make arbitrary pat downs).

It might be easier to burgle a house during the day, when the target and the neighbours are more likely to be at work. Anecdotally, my house was burgled around 3pm and my friends was also burgled whilst at work.

Most robberies happen during the day when people are in work and streets are noisy. Attempting to rob city house in night sounds like even more stupid thing then daytime robbery.

There are valid scenarios for robbing during the night - for example in many holiday destinations with villas, holiday apartments etc. it is expected that when there are people inside the house, there is also cash money, laptops, tablets, smart phones and other small easily carriable items with value worth the effort available.

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