You should ALWAYS, ALWAYS report thefts, vandalism, etc to the police. Mind you, in my 7 years in Highland Park, my house has been vandalized several times, as well as an attempted break-in, and a theft. Although I reported everything, and the police came to the house and took formal complaints, I have yet to hear back about any of these incidents. Did they look, investigate, find any suspects? Or just circular file my complaints? I'll never know. I have heard, though, that the more incident reports they receive, the more patrols go through the neighborhood, so I report away. Maybe, someday, the calls will do some good. From: John Porche <john.porche@gmail.com> Subject: [Highland Park] porch thefts (continued) - hampton st To: neighborhood@highlandparkpa.com Date: Tuesday, January 6, 2009, 12:17 PM today between 1100-1130 an item was stolen from my porch. It was a freebie I was leaving for someone to pick up- so it had little/no value to me (an extremely old laptop)... anyway, as my babysitter left the house she confirmed the bag was on the porch (well hidden from street view and at the dead end of hampton east of heberton), and she also saw some people taking the footpath from my street over to winterton. I didn't try to extract the exact identities/ number of people from her, but it looks like they saw her leaving (assumed the house is now unoccupied) and decided to snoop around - and saw the item on the porch and removed it. Perhaps this is the mystery behind the ups boxes missing from other porches. My house is rather tucked away, so it may be a bit more vulnerable than most, but still, a somewhat brazen act considering. I am not really interested in filing a report unless someone can convince me it would help.... its best just to keep an eye out for those opportunistic folks wandering our neighborhood during the day (during freezing rain - at that!) one thing to remember: if strangers/transients see you leave, you are exposing an opportunity, attempt to delay departure or tactically dis-inform (leave a house light on, etc) to dissuade 'snooping'. John 6307 hampton st --<http://lists.highlandparkpa.com/mailman/listinfo/neighborhood>