December 27

Spate of home burglaries in north Maple Leaf

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The Seattle Police crime map shows a handful of home burglaries here since our last report. All four residential burglaries were within blocks of one another.

On Dec. 16 the front door of a third-floor apartment in the 10500 block of Eighth Avenue Northeast was forced open, police report. Stolen was a medium-sized, heavy metal safe.

The victim, who has lived in the apartment for 27 years, told officers she found it funny, because she had long since lost the combination and there was nothing inside the safe.

On Dec. 14 an apartment in the same block was entered and jewelry boxes stolen, police said.

On Dec. 15, one and possibly two units in the 500 block of Northeast 103rd Street were attacked, with doors kicked and windows broken, according to police reports.

Also on Dec. 15 the front door of a house in the 10200 block of Eighth Avenue Northeast was forced open by some type of pry bar, police report.

The suspect appeared to have gone in every room in the house. Drawers were left open, electronics moved off shelves, containers were emptied on the beds, $40 in cash was taken from a wallet inside a night stand drawer, $45 in cash was taken from a dresser drawer, a change jar was moved and all the change taken, an Xbox with 10+ games and 2 laptops were taken from the living room. Large expensive items such as a flat screen TV and electric guitar were not taken. A Nintendo DSi and two iPod Nanos were taken from bedrooms.

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Sara W

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  1. Please don’t forget apartment residents. When you do your annual Night Out every year? We’re always ignored, but I’ve lived here over 12 years, another neighbor over twice as long, another 10 years. The average stay in our building is 5-8 years and we stay because we like the neighborhood. Please include apartments and condo dwellers. We have been victims too and are just as concerned about crime.

  2. I agree that that there is not a new high level of crime in Maple Leaf, but rather an increased awareness of crime thanks to the internet and blogs like this. I have been monitoring Seattle crime reporting websites for the past 6 years and crime in maple leaf is lower than most other Seattle neighborhoods. There have also been more break ins city wide since the recession started, probably due to desperate unemployed people. This website reports when crime happens, but doesn’t mention the times when there has been little to no crime in maple leaf, such as this past week. I guess good news doesn’t result in as many website hits. Criminals will target a neighborhood for a week or so and then move on to the next neighborhood. For example, right now the view ridge / wedgwood area has had a rash of break ins. It is good to be aware of crime activity, but also be aware that maple leaf is a good neighborhood with a comparatively low level of crime.

  3. I’ve lived in Maple Leaf for 25 years, near the reservoir. My home has been broken into twice, not including the forced entry that occurred prior to closing on the property, while the house was vacant. My garage has been forcibly entered twice. My cars have been “prowled” twice (an asininely cute term for causing $$$ of damage and stealing shit).

    I have a security system and reinforced doors and windows. Last time the crook(s) climbed to a couple of high windows to gain entry, and wrecked both windows in the process.

    Most of my neighbors have similar stories, in some cases worse. I know of one unsolved arson that totaled a garage and two cars, and an attempted home invasion against an 80 year old woman that was thwarted by a neighbor.

    By the way, there has been a neighborhood watch on our block since the late 80s.

    Consequently, it is my opinion that there is not a new high level of crime in Maple Leaf, but rather an increased awareness of a crime problem that’s existed all along, thanks to the Internet and blogs like this.

    Will increased awareness help to improve the problem, or just make us all more paranoid?

  4. I’m curious “TerryParkhurst” why would your landlord care about a stolen car post? Does that say something about his property? And how/why was he even informed of said blog post? I just don’t get it. If I posted something & my landlord wanted me to take it down for no good reason…well… I WOULDN’T. Freedom of speech! Seems weird to me that you felt the need to remove the post.

  5. David,
    We don’t have a formal block watch on our street, but since we are both retired we watch out for our neighborhood.
    Since we have been in the neighborhood for so long we know this recent crime spree is serious and seems to be getting worse.

  6. I’ve been part of a block watch for the past three years and will attest to the fact that the situation in Maple Leaf is likely much more dire than people know. What is important is a free-flow of complete information.

    I had a drunk try to break into my apartment, at three a.m. on a Saturday in May. More recently, a car was stolen out of the car port, behind the building. There was no police report filed about the former (since the officers took the drunk to a hospital, rather than arrest him). A report was filed about the stolen car and I posted specifics at this blog about the matter; however, I was harassed by my landlord’s son, who insisted I have the entire matter deleted. Rather than risk further retaliation, I submitted his request to the publishers of this blog and they complied.

    When you have outlier property owners, who could care less about the neighborhood, controlling the flow of information, you can be assured that things are worse than they appear. Given that many of the incidents mentioned in this post involved rental housing, think about that.

    Note to David: if you want to discuss this with me, give me a holler.

  7. @David:

    The block watch list and organization tool sounds great. Any idea on when that might be ready to go?

    I know we have all heard it before, but we need to take all the necessary precautions like:
    -Don’t leave things of value in plain sight. Ex: laptops on kitchen tables, etc…
    -Install motion lights around dark garages and basement doors
    -Talk with neighbors and agree to keep a watch out on each others houses
    -Double check that you locked your car doors and don’t leave anything valuable in your cars
    -If you have an alarm, set it. It’s amazing how many people I know that have alarms and rarely set them.

    Of course my favorite, but not one that works for everyone is to leave our large dog freely roaming throughout the house when we are not home. My dog loves to bark at any noise she hears at any door in our house.

  8. Sunjoe, do you have a block watch for your block?

    One of the features we hope to put on the new MapleLeafCommunity.org web site is a block watch list and organization tool. Until then, talk to your neighbors about a block watch. If you need help, contact me and we can point you in the right direction.

    (David.Miller -at- MapleLeafCommunity.org)

  9. On 2003, We were renting a house in 105th block and our safe got stolen containing $2500 cash, all of our jewelry including our wedding ring, priceless family photos and passports. We reported this to SPD and until now it is still unsolved.

  10. I agree “Sunjoe”! Everybody keeps talking about it, but I suppose until one of us starts a block watch or something it will continue to happen. Makes me mad too.

  11. What can we do to stop this aggressive behavior against all of us? We have lived in Maple Leaf for many, many years, w/o problems.
    In the past several years things have grown to the point that we are not comfortable to leave our house w/o a car in the driveway. We have to stop these stupid people from stealing all that we have worked so hard for.

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