Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

So thieves broke into your storage unit again

oldvcr.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 317 posts

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#171

Post by dylan604 »

cantSpellSober wrote: post #163
treflop wrote: post #85

Don’t buy insurance from the same company giving you the service. Insurance is for you and you should pick it from your own choice of company and you should tailor the policy for your own needs. Same with financing. In my case, I get a lot of my insurance from a guy in my town and he has an office that I can walk into if I need help.

How to with rental cars? I don't own and no local insurers will offer me non-owner insurance. I have to get the crappy expensive insurance at the rental car desk.

When I canceled my insurance after going carless, I was told that there would be a lapse in my coverage causing my rates to increase. So naturally I asked why would I cover a car I no longer own. Apparently, there is a type of insurance that covers you as a driver of other cars. Of course there is. Going on 4.5 years now with no insurance payments. It's been glorious

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#172

Post by crazygringo »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #113
bombcar wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're likely trying to prevent the situation where the pawn shops become entirely uncooperative, but there's still a tragedy of the commons situation occurring.

This is a periodic public service announcement that there is not, and never has been "a tragedy of the commons situation". Even the author of the concept, Garret Hardin, has acknowledged that he made mistakes in his understanding and research. Resources held in common have historically been subject to significant control via social, civic and legalistic processes. What is typically referred to as "a tragedy of the co…

Can you elaborate?

My understanding is that overfishing and climate change are prime and valid examples of the tragedy of the commons.

You seem to be claiming that the problem is with systems of management, but the entire point of the tragedy of the commons is that it happens when there isn't management. Which is abundantly the case at the global level of international waters and a shared atmosphere, because there is no such thing as a world government, nor do most people want one.

So how exactly has there "never... been a tragedy of the commons"? How are overfishing and CO2 not exactly tragedies of the commons? What other principle explains why they weren't solved decades ago?

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#173

Post by crazygringo »

toast0 wrote: post #103
crazygringo wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have space in your apartment or home for items you want to keep, then where else are you supposed to store things? Obviously it's up to you to figure out if it makes financial sense. But for people in urban areas with small apartments, it can be a heckuva lot cheaper than upgrading to an apartment with another bedroom.

> If you don't have space in your apartment or home for items you want to keep, then where else are you supposed to store things? On ebay? Sell the stuff now, buy it again if you need it. Doesn't work for everything, of course, and I don't practice it, I've got tons of space and tons of clutter.

So you're going to sell your surfboard and buy new ski equipment every winter, and sell your skis and buy a new surfboard every summer? As well as the rest of your bulky seasonal gear?

Sounds expensive.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#175

Post by araes »

So many of these stories sound like some JRPG.

Your reward for being such a diligent and highly achieving collector ... is the thieves target you preferentially. "You gained a Torture++ Level, Congratulations!"

You spent so much effort solving the last burglary, and chose such a highly secure location ... that now the thieves view your collection as a high level challenge.

... and are immediately notified of the available achievement. Some Prison Warden voice announces "There's a griefer, diligence punishing achievement available in Borg sector # of #." Their thief tools immediately 0-Day, exploit, jackpot, lottery level up to be better than your facility.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#177

Post by snozolli »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #126
bko wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain to me why someone that's been arrested 15 times should be let go to terrorize others. That person that has been arrest 15 times before cannot continue to commit crime if he's behind bars. You don't need to "read" the data to come to this conclusion. People commit crime in large part because they can get away with it. It's not complicated.

That's not really the issue though (and for the record, I agree that a person found guilty of what they were arrested for 15 times should be incarcerated). The problem is: why is this person doing this, because there are at least two outcomes: 1. we lock them up, and a part of the problem is gone 2. we lock them up, and someone else steps in to do the same thing From my perspective, there's ample evidence to suggest…

we lock them up, and someone else steps in to do the same thing

Crime isn't an internship program.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#178

Post by dpifke »

nytesky wrote: post #90

In general isn’t the consensus that storage units are a very bad deal for “storage”. It can be useful for temporary storage for bulky items like furniture when renovating your house or in between houses, but the fees would quickly accumulate and pay for almost any reasonable contents. If the fees wouldn’t cover replacement of the contents within 6 months, they are too valuable to store in a storage unit.

When I lived in a condo in San Francisco, I had a storage unit for my camping and outdoor gear. The alternatives would have been: a) buy a new tent/cooler/propane stove/etc. every 2-3 months, or b) not go camping regularly. I absolutely did not have room to store a kayak at home, and my neighbors would have been annoyed with me dragging muddy/dusty gear through the communal hallway to my unit.

When I left SF, I spent about 18 months traveling before permanently moving in anywhere. I did the math on "cost per cubic foot to store vs. cost to replace" then, and interestingly, furniture and most housewares didn't make the cut—except for a few sentimental items. An unexpected bonus of instead donating that stuff to Goodwill was that when I moved into my new place, I got to outfit my kitchen with much nicer stuff than what I had previously accumulated.

(Now I live in the Midwest and have a garage for the outdoor gear, which in addition to vehicle storage, also doubles as machine/metalworking/woodworking shops.)

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#179

Post by cromulent »

floydnoel wrote: post #75
asveikau wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most insurance in most industries is a racket.

The famous Lloyds of London started as a gambling coffee house. Gambling and insurance are closely related, and offer the same bargain: the house always wins.

> the house always wins

Well, until Lloyd’s did lose a lot of money in 1991, and the Names had too much exposure. Berkshire Hathaway cover them now, I believe.

Re: So thieves broke into your storage unit again

#180

Post by peppermint_gum »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #158
peppermint_gum wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AFAIK, there is reasonably clear evidence that deterrence has a very low impact on this sort of crime, Could you share some of this evidence?

first result from google come for "effect of deterrence on property crime" https://www.house.mn.gov/hrd/pubs/deterrence.pdf second result, summarizes and links to several review papers: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/five-things-about-deterr...

Then I'm not sure what you mean by "deterrence". Both of the linked articles argue against increasing the severity of punishment, but they also say that the certainty of getting caught is a strong deterrent.

This doesn't seem to be in conflict with what the GP said ("supporting laws and politicians that catch and punish criminals effectively"). It seems to me that many people have a problem with thieves not being punished at all.

Post reply on HN