Holy crap, where do u people live ? 8 mile road in Detroit??
I live in a suburb of Minneapolis approximately 15 minutes from downtown. I've had 1 pedal bike stolen in my life ! Most my neighbors park outside. I've read about 1 catalytic converter being stolen 2 blocks away in our local paper under the crime section. I park in my garage, but like I said most leave their vehicles in their driveways all night without any problems. My next door neighbor had his wallet taken out of his van he left unlocked 10 years ago. That's the extinct of the crime in my neighborhood. Geez, maybe consider moving!
Nowhere is truly safe. Not to mention, it's not always going to happen at home, it can often happen when you're in a parking lot of parking garage. Thinking you live in a "Safe" neighborhood is nothing more than false security.
Most crimes are crimes of opportunity. A good amount of break-ins in my area are not *smash* and grab, rather, it's just people casually going around at 1am and trying door handles. Betcha 1 in 20 are unlocked. Another thing they may be doing is actually checking in windows or profiling vehicles. My next door neighbor had 2 guns stolen out of his truck, I'm not sure if the criminal knew they were there or if he was just checking handles and got lucky. In either case, when the police came by asking for footage (I have cameras around my home), I turned up NOTHING. The criminals didn't enter my yard or even check my truck despite them being only a few feet away. Chances are they avoided my stuff because they saw the cameras.
Deterrents are your friend. They're not 100% effective, but they're more effective than nothing:
-Park in a garage, behind a fence, or somewhere that restricts casual access.
-Always lock the doors and close the windows
-Never keep a single item visible.
-Secure more valuable items in a trunk or locked bed, or hide them where criminals might not check.
-Bright lit areas, particularly with motion sensors.
-Cameras, Alarms, Trip wires
-Loud Sirens, Flashing Lights, Oh yes, and plenty of special effects, if you know your way around an Arduino and some mechanical know-how to make some fun noise-making or visually startling gags around your home.
If you're wondering why I love special effects, I used to design and build special effects for a company about an hour from Disney. Flame, fog, water, and motion effects were our specialty. I was part of the small team that designed, built, and delivered 2 'Magma' flame effects you see at 2:02:
Not that I'm suggesting you build a 150ft fireball in your back yard, but maybe something that makes noise or a spring-loaded fence that plops down to reveal some mannequins could be fun.