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Comment by 2OEH8eoCRo0 | Hacker News Reader

Where the hell do you all live where this is a common problem? Out of all of my friend and relatives, 100s of people, none of them have ever complained about vandalism/theft.

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I was in a similar situation until a rash of thefts began happening around my apartment complex a little over 10 months ago. Something changed, whether some porch pirates moved in to the complex, or some crime ring decided to start exploiting our area. The police and apartment management had no answer, and it turns out their security cameras are absolutely useless.

Yeah a similar thing happened at a rental property we own. Someone in the neighborhood learned the code to get into the building and started stealing packages. Changing the code would help for a few days and then it would happen again. I haven't heard about the issue in a few months, so it seems like they've fixed whatever the problem was. My guess is someone was watching people input the code and then using it later to get in. Another owner recently moved out, so maybe they were the weak link? Who knows.

I live in a big city and package theft is fairly common here, happens to me a few times a year. The shipping company always replaces though, this has never cost me anything and so there's not much pressure on me to contribute to the police surveillance apparatus over it.

Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. We don’t have it as bad as some other neighborhoods (like Bitter Lake or Queen Anne, or anywhere South Seattle), and the part of Ballard I live in is pretty nice for the nearby area, but property crime is still a huge problem. It was worse last year when there was a huge encampment set up at the Ballard commons.

I’ve been hearing similar problems in many big cities as well (Portland, SF, LA, Austin, …) but you might be more immune to the trend if you live in a suburb instead (eg Bellevue or Kirkland rather than Seattle, but thefts are beginning to intrude even there).

It’s mostly Ballard. You won’t experience the level of these problems in much of South Seattle. Neighborhoods such as Seward Park, Mt Baker, Madrona, Leschi, and Columbia City are quiet and low on property crime. Never had a car break in or heard of a package theft in a decade of living on the south end.

All the biggest cities in the UK and the USA suffer increasingly severe property theft problems and lack of interest from the police in prosecuting them

Probably any large metropolis.

I have friends in NYC, Boston, Houston, Dallas, and Seattle and they have never mentioned package theft or vandalism. Maybe I'm wrong in assuming that since they don't mention it that it must not be a problem for them.

I'm sure we could pull up ring footage of thieves in each of those cities as anecdata, but it would just be pedantry. At least here in LA, the looting of our train cars got so bad that some companies just started bypassing the city.

Personally, I live in the valley (SFV of LA) and haven't had issues, but I live in a low-middle class area full of russian/persian immigrants. I wonder if wealthier areas are targeted?

> I wonder if wealthier areas are targeted?

Maybe, but it's also probably still extremely rare and internet discussions oversample people who have been victims. I've only known one person here in LA who's had any of their packages stolen in the past few years, and that one turned out to be due to a bizarre personal vendetta.

Lower class neighborhoods usually have a lot of safe guards built up over time because “they are used to the problems” whereas middle and upper-middle class neighborhoods are just getting their first taste of the problem in the last few years and are still pretty soft as targets. If you are a package their, go after the rich people who are less likely to have some kind of protection.

I live in a big metropolis (Birmingham, UK), and have had no issues, The place I had it worst was when I lived in a cute 17th century village in the Oxford countryside. Had several packages stolen in the year I lived there.

Yeah, maybe it's more of certain problem people. It probably takes one bad apple to create a culture of theft.

Bikes are stolen often here in Southern California. There is a camera system here, but thieves wear hoodies/hats/look-down, and in any case no one bothers chasing after them anyway.

Currently a huge problem in San Jose, where I suspect a lot of people here post from.

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