Raymond
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 4, 2003
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I climbed Pierce and Eisenhower on Veterans Day, leaving my car in the ‘‘new’’ Crawford Path parking lot, the one off Mt. Clinton Road. When I came down, I followed the Crawford Path to its end, and took Route 302 to Mt. Clinton Road and the lot.
On the lot’s access road, a car, with its engine revving, roared out of the lot, slowing down when its headlights (it was about 5 p.m.) hit me. Suspicious, I tried to get its license plate, but caught only some of its numbers.
Expecting the worst, I approached my car with trepidation, and was relieved to find all its windows intact. But, a sign I had placed in a rear side window was askew, and when I opened the trunk, my little cooler was upside-down, and stuff that is usually way in the back of the trunk against the seatbacks was right there by the trunk opening.
I became even more anxious when I noticed that the big cooler, in the back seat, was facing the opposite way it had been the night before, but I couldn’t be sure if I had moved it or not. Still, it sure seemed that someone had somehow gotten into my car and moved stuff around. Either that or there had been a weird earthquake.
After putting my hiking things inside and changing out of my boots, I noticed that the fuel filler door was open! I had filled the tank that morning, but I certainly hadn’t left its door ajar.
The tank still appeared to be full, however, and as of today, Sunday, I still haven’t found any of my belongings missing.
I checked the doors, and discovered some scratches at the top of the driver’s door, which it was easy to imagine could have been made by a coat hanger being forced through.
I drove up to Gorham and got a room in a motel and called Susan, who suggested a couple things that may have been stolen. I checked; all there. But after I hung up, I went to get my little scrub brush out of my duffel bag so I could clean my hands, and noticed that one of my coat hangers was sticking out of the bag’s zipper. It was bent out of shape a bit, too. That clinched it, for me. Someone had definitely been in my car, and messed my stuff up, but not taken anything and locked everything back up again. (I do not mean to suggest that my coat hanger was used to gain access to my car; I just know that when I zipped up my duffel bag that morning, I hadn’t left anything sticking out of it.)
I forgot to mention that when I was first emptying the trunk at the motel, I saw that a little reflector I had had on the rear window ledge had fallen into the trunk, which made me notice that one of the rear seats had been bent out of shape on either side, so it no longer rests squarely against the window ledge.
While driving home yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the paint on the inside part of the door by the door lock was ripped from the bottom and hanging loose, so the person was clumsy with whatever he or she used to pull up the lock. Still, it confirms for me that that was the door through which access was gained.
So whoever it was had gotten into the passenger compartment through the driver’s door, probably tried to pop the trunk with the remote release but couldn’t (because I had locked it with the key), thus had pried and bent one of the rear seats enough to release the cable lock so the seatback could be dropped, and my stuff ransacked. And it’s not as if there weren’t items in the passenger compartment that could have been taken. So what the object of the search was, I don’t know.
I stopped at the police station in Twin Mountain, and the patrolman with whom I spoke told me that seven cars had been broken into on Zealand Road. I don’t know if they were broken into relatively cleanly, as mine was, or if their windows were smashed.
How was your holiday? I hope no one here was one of the folks who had trouble on Zealand Road.
On the lot’s access road, a car, with its engine revving, roared out of the lot, slowing down when its headlights (it was about 5 p.m.) hit me. Suspicious, I tried to get its license plate, but caught only some of its numbers.
Expecting the worst, I approached my car with trepidation, and was relieved to find all its windows intact. But, a sign I had placed in a rear side window was askew, and when I opened the trunk, my little cooler was upside-down, and stuff that is usually way in the back of the trunk against the seatbacks was right there by the trunk opening.
I became even more anxious when I noticed that the big cooler, in the back seat, was facing the opposite way it had been the night before, but I couldn’t be sure if I had moved it or not. Still, it sure seemed that someone had somehow gotten into my car and moved stuff around. Either that or there had been a weird earthquake.
After putting my hiking things inside and changing out of my boots, I noticed that the fuel filler door was open! I had filled the tank that morning, but I certainly hadn’t left its door ajar.
The tank still appeared to be full, however, and as of today, Sunday, I still haven’t found any of my belongings missing.
I checked the doors, and discovered some scratches at the top of the driver’s door, which it was easy to imagine could have been made by a coat hanger being forced through.
I drove up to Gorham and got a room in a motel and called Susan, who suggested a couple things that may have been stolen. I checked; all there. But after I hung up, I went to get my little scrub brush out of my duffel bag so I could clean my hands, and noticed that one of my coat hangers was sticking out of the bag’s zipper. It was bent out of shape a bit, too. That clinched it, for me. Someone had definitely been in my car, and messed my stuff up, but not taken anything and locked everything back up again. (I do not mean to suggest that my coat hanger was used to gain access to my car; I just know that when I zipped up my duffel bag that morning, I hadn’t left anything sticking out of it.)
I forgot to mention that when I was first emptying the trunk at the motel, I saw that a little reflector I had had on the rear window ledge had fallen into the trunk, which made me notice that one of the rear seats had been bent out of shape on either side, so it no longer rests squarely against the window ledge.
While driving home yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the paint on the inside part of the door by the door lock was ripped from the bottom and hanging loose, so the person was clumsy with whatever he or she used to pull up the lock. Still, it confirms for me that that was the door through which access was gained.
So whoever it was had gotten into the passenger compartment through the driver’s door, probably tried to pop the trunk with the remote release but couldn’t (because I had locked it with the key), thus had pried and bent one of the rear seats enough to release the cable lock so the seatback could be dropped, and my stuff ransacked. And it’s not as if there weren’t items in the passenger compartment that could have been taken. So what the object of the search was, I don’t know.
I stopped at the police station in Twin Mountain, and the patrolman with whom I spoke told me that seven cars had been broken into on Zealand Road. I don’t know if they were broken into relatively cleanly, as mine was, or if their windows were smashed.
How was your holiday? I hope no one here was one of the folks who had trouble on Zealand Road.
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