House Burglarized

[sstuff3]

My house in Pakkret was broken into during the day on Tuesday, May 19 while I was at work. The burglars managed to escape detection of the house alarm by entering and exiting through the roof and dropping down through the ceiling. My entire house, 1st and 2nd floor was ransacked and the valuables taken out through the newly created hole in the roof.

Included with many other things, they made off with a couple notebook pc's and even managed to find my external back-up hard disk stored in another room. Every picture of my daughter from the night of her birth until now (9 years) are stored on one of the notebooks (which happens to be missing a keyboard which can not be purchased in Thailand) and backed up on the external drive. All the material things that the bastards took can be replaced over time but the thousands of pictures can never be.

I know that I will likely never get them back and the computers and hard disk will likely be reformated (erased) and the items sold off for quick cash but I still want to believe that there may be some way to get my pictures back.

Any ideas? I am literally sick over this. Of course the police were informed and reports taken but after living here for more than 3 years, I don't have much confidence they will be able to turn up with anything.

[JimmyTheMook]

Invest in a big heavy good quality safe , like a Chubb or the like of export quality.

It would have paid for itself after this loss of yours.

Keep the good stuff in the good safe - make it a bit more difficult to rob your stuff.

[t.s]

Invest in a big heavy good quality safe , like a Chubb or the like of export quality.

It would have paid for itself after this loss of yours.

Keep the good stuff in the good safe - make it a bit more difficult to rob your stuff.

wow, the man has lost a lifetime of memories and you offer hindsight.

[skippybangkok]

Sorry to hear about your loss.............

I am thinking about installinga system soon, have tons of windows in the house, so all these contact points for me are "pointless". Just wanna put 2 IR sensors down stairs, 1 in the hall way upstairs over looking the hall and main unit for the alarm, and one in the main bed room.

My thought is, cant stop em getting in, but once in, hopefully can catch their movement inside.

So..... my question is, how come they did not trip the alarm coming through the roof? If the master unit is in the beam of a IR sensor, would be hard to disarm it. If contact based, then i can understand it.

Sorry for your loss, i too have all pics in soft format ( and 14 years of business correspondance, sample contracts and anything you might want to accumulate )......... so I know how you would feel............

Tomorrow am going to open a safe in a bank - and keep on hard disk there - bit extreme, but i dont see anyother way.

Recon a super heavy safe would help too, very hard to move around

Edited May 24, 2009 by skippybangkok

[madjbs]

My house in Pakkret was broken into during the day on Tuesday, May 19 while I was at work. The burglars managed to escape detection of the house alarm by entering and exiting through the roof and dropping down through the ceiling. My entire house, 1st and 2nd floor was ransacked and the valuables taken out through the newly created hole in the roof.

Included with many other things, they made off with a couple notebook pc's and even managed to find my external back-up hard disk stored in another room. Every picture of my daughter from the night of her birth until now (9 years) are stored on one of the notebooks (which happens to be missing a keyboard which can not be purchased in Thailand) and backed up on the external drive. All the material things that the bastards took can be replaced over time but the thousands of pictures can never be.

I know that I will likely never get them back and the computers and hard disk will likely be reformated (erased) and the items sold off for quick cash but I still want to believe that there may be some way to get my pictures back.

Any ideas? I am literally sick over this. Of course the police were informed and reports taken but after living here for more than 3 years, I don't have much confidence they will be able to turn up with anything.

Very sorry to hear that.

Do you live in a moo baan? Or is it just a stand alone house?

[MJo]

Tomorrow am going to open a safe in a bank - and keep on hard disk there - bit extreme, but i dont see anyother way.

Recon a super heavy safe would help too, very hard to move around

It is more likely that your hard drive will fail than it get's stolen from your house. So keeping one in bank still does not guarantee anything.

Not sure, maybe there is something in the internet nowdays where you can store your files in secure servers that are backed up daily to various servers in different locations ?

I would be interested to hear if someone has any info on this as my whole life is in couple of HD's at the moment.

[barrybike]

sorry to hear that ...why would they bother taking photographs..probably fo the nice frames you had them in i suppose.......scum bags

[sstuff3]

Sorry to hear about your loss.............

I am thinking about installinga system soon, have tons of windows in the house, so all these contact points for me are "pointless". Just wanna put 2 IR sensors down stairs, 1 in the hall way upstairs over looking the hall and main unit for the alarm, and one in the main bed room.

My thought is, cant stop em getting in, but once in, hopefully can catch their movement inside.

So..... my question is, how come they did not trip the alarm coming through the roof? If the master unit is in the beam of a IR sensor, would be hard to disarm it. If contact based, then i can understand it.

Sorry for your loss, i too have all pics in soft format ( and 14 years of business correspondance, sample contracts and anything you might want to accumulate )......... so I know how you would feel............

Tomorrow am going to open a safe in a bank - and keep on hard disk there - bit extreme, but i dont see anyother way.

Recon a super heavy safe would help too, very hard to move around

Unfortunately the house is 10 years old and is (was) only equipped with contacts on all the windows and doors and panic alarms. I never knew it was so easy to come through the roof by simply sliding a few roof tiles aside. The thought never crossed my mind. By not opening any external doors or windows, they escaped detection. The system is now upgraded and they will be hard pressed to get by it now. Although that is somewhat comforting, it doesn't bring back the lost memories. Opening a safe at a bank to store soft files of pictures seems like a great idea to me, in hindsight, not extreme at all.

[sstuff3]

My house in Pakkret was broken into during the day on Tuesday, May 19 while I was at work. The burglars managed to escape detection of the house alarm by entering and exiting through the roof and dropping down through the ceiling. My entire house, 1st and 2nd floor was ransacked and the valuables taken out through the newly created hole in the roof.

Included with many other things, they made off with a couple notebook pc's and even managed to find my external back-up hard disk stored in another room. Every picture of my daughter from the night of her birth until now (9 years) are stored on one of the notebooks (which happens to be missing a keyboard which can not be purchased in Thailand) and backed up on the external drive. All the material things that the bastards took can be replaced over time but the thousands of pictures can never be.

I know that I will likely never get them back and the computers and hard disk will likely be reformated (erased) and the items sold off for quick cash but I still want to believe that there may be some way to get my pictures back.

Any ideas? I am literally sick over this. Of course the police were informed and reports taken but after living here for more than 3 years, I don't have much confidence they will be able to turn up with anything.

Very sorry to hear that.

Do you live in a moo baan? Or is it just a stand alone house?

Moo Baan just outside of Nichada Thani

[barrybike]

Sorry to hear about your loss.............

I am thinking about installinga system soon, have tons of windows in the house, so all these contact points for me are "pointless". Just wanna put 2 IR sensors down stairs, 1 in the hall way upstairs over looking the hall and main unit for the alarm, and one in the main bed room.

My thought is, cant stop em getting in, but once in, hopefully can catch their movement inside.

So..... my question is, how come they did not trip the alarm coming through the roof? If the master unit is in the beam of a IR sensor, would be hard to disarm it. If contact based, then i can understand it.

Sorry for your loss, i too have all pics in soft format ( and 14 years of business correspondance, sample contracts and anything you might want to accumulate )......... so I know how you would feel............

Tomorrow am going to open a safe in a bank - and keep on hard disk there - bit extreme, but i dont see anyother way.

Recon a super heavy safe would help too, very hard to move around

Unfortunately the house is 10 years old and is (was) only equipped with contacts on all the windows and doors and panic alarms. I never knew it was so easy to come through the roof by simply sliding a few roof tiles aside. The thought never crossed my mind. By not opening any external doors or windows, they escaped detection. The system is now upgraded and they will be hard pressed to get by it now. Although that is somewhat comforting, it doesn't bring back the lost memories. Opening a safe at a bank to store soft files of pictures seems like a great idea to me, in hindsight, not extreme at all.

you need sensor beams inside..so no matter where they get in ...any movement inside and the alarm will go off...hope this never happens again .........

[sstuff3]

sorry to hear that ...why would they bother taking photographs..probably fo the nice frames you had them in i suppose.......scum bags

The pictures were all soft files stored on the hard drive of one of the computers and the back-up disk.

[sstuff3]

you need sensor beams inside..so no matter where they get in ...any movement inside and the alarm will go off...hope this never happens again .........

Have motion detection and beams now but it's kinda like closing the barn door after the horses escaped. Am pretty confident that the system will detect future entry attempts.

[TheLaughingMan]

you need sensor beams inside..so no matter where they get in ...any movement inside and the alarm will go off...hope this never happens again .........

This is good start, then you need to network the beams and connect them to hidden wall mounted machine guns that will tear anything in half that sets the beams off.

[sstuff3]

you need sensor beams inside..so no matter where they get in ...any movement inside and the alarm will go off...hope this never happens again .........

This is good start, then you need to network the beams and connect them to hidden wall mounted machine guns that will tear anything in half that sets the beams off.

I wish that option was available.

[skippybangkok]

Unfortunately the house is 10 years old and is (was) only equipped with contacts on all the windows and doors and panic alarms. I never knew it was so easy to come through the roof by simply sliding a few roof tiles aside. The thought never crossed my mind. By not opening any external doors or windows, they escaped detection. The system is now upgraded and they will be hard pressed to get by it now. Although that is somewhat comforting, it doesn't bring back the lost memories. Opening a safe at a bank to store soft files of pictures seems like a great idea to me, in hindsight, not extreme at all.

Thanks for the update. When the guys came to look at my house for the system, they needed a gazillion and 1 contacts, and even then, if they cut through the glass, their still in. Figured it was a loosing proposition to use contacts. 4 IR sensors is the way i believe ( for my house any way ) and 2 alarm horns ( on on each side of the house incase they disarm one ).

Pics and data....... the more you accumulate, the more you get worried. Have been thinking for years on the best solution. I keep on HD back up my car, but if i am travelling with my laptop, and some one nicks the car........same problem.

If you have a fixed office, that might be a good solution, one at home, on in office. For me, will keep one in the bank safe deposit box ( 500 Baht per year rental ) and a 2nd HDD at home which will rotate with the one in the bank every 6 months. I am sure there are things which can go wrong, but with 3 copies of the same data, and one in a deposit box - hopefully that will cover me.

unless you want to make in addition a gazillion DVD's

p.s. dont like web based storage - still dont like the fact of my private data being with a external provider. ( let a alone the band wisdth issues.

p.p.s I never use back up programmes - had once that the compressed file was corrupted - lost alot of data. Just to a full 1:1 copy of the data for a disk in a ready to use format.

[lovinglife]

The weakness with a lot of Alarm Systems sold here are the external sirens, they are just a horn with no anti-tamper facility, cut the wire or rip it off and there is no external siren!!

I have a system that includes a large flashing 170Db external siren with anti-tamper function, with 2 remote controls, 2 PIR motion Sensors and 2 door/window contacts. That system costs 10,500 baht, add the main control panel, (optional), brings the price to 14,500, approx 1,000 baht for installation.

Feel much more secure since and can arm the system to protect the rest of the house while I sleep, hopefully preventing a face to face confrontation.

Please PM me if you you want more info.

[binnsy]

Only one word for them CUN*S

[thumbinthrough]

If you can't afford a security system - A rotweiller (or any big dog) works just as well and makes a good companion too.

But, sorry for your loss of photos and hope you find the bastards -. Depending on how big your local area is, it maybe worth having a nose around the second hand / pawn shops for any recently added equipment. You never know you may get lucky. Or you could ask a friend to put up an advert in a window of a local shop stating something along the lines of; a foreigner looking to buy a second hand lap top for above the usual asking price. Again you may get lucky and they try to sell your laptop back to you.

My father who was a copper always said the easiest way to catch a thief was to appeal to their greed, (and a dog the best way to stop a thief) That was before there were so many guns though.

Good luck and hope the above ideas get you thinking.

[Sel]

Sorry that you got robbed. May I ask a bit more info, was it moo baan si chi tong on the cheang wattana side or the main entrance side?

[skippybangkok]

The weakness with a lot of Alarm Systems sold here are the external sirens, they are just a horn with no anti-tamper facility, cut the wire or rip it off and there is no external siren!!

I have a system that includes a large flashing 170Db external siren with anti-tamper function, with 2 remote controls, 2 PIR motion Sensors and 2 door/window contacts. That system costs 10,500 baht, add the main control panel, (optional), brings the price to 14,500, approx 1,000 baht for installation.

Feel much more secure since and can arm the system to protect the rest of the house while I sleep, hopefully preventing a face to face confrontation.

Please PM me if you you want more info.

Thats why i want 2 sirens......on very visable, the other maybe in the roof cavity. We live on in a moo baan, with "security" 30m away. should be fool proof ( hopefully ).

Want to prevent a face to face encounter at night........ but, we have 2 large ledges on both sides of the main bedroom. Looking for something which can monitor them, which would be the most likely entry point. ( since its outside, IR is not recommended cause can be tripped by birds / rain etc.

Used to live in condo with only one point of entry - front door. Living in a house after so many years is "scary"

Any recommendations ?

[ralfbkk]

If you can't afford a security system - A rotweiller (or any big dog) works just as well and makes a good companion too.

While I agree on the Fear Factor (especially for Thai's) on larger breed dogs, I do not agree on the cost factor for a dog. I have a 40kgs Labrador Bitch, who is very territorial, and she costs me around 1000 THB per month. Food Supplies, Medical Treatments, Toys (Shoes ) and other stuff. So, I think the Alarm System might be the better investment eventually.

However, I am really disturbed about the fact to see and hear that Burglary is on the rise. The Alarm System in my house is not very good. The dog can be poisened and put asleep. Our maid is afraid about the smallest spider, so there are not many choices left. Metal Bars behind the window can be an option (Reminds me on my Brooklyn Teenage years). Extra pay (a generous Tipp) to the Security Guard can be another (if he is not associated to the Gang of course).

For Skippy, sorry to hear about the burglary and the loss of all these memories. I have 2 year old son and I am very paranoid when it comes to my photos and my photo equipment. I keep 3 copies of every RAW Frame I make and compress most files. YES, I use web based storage as well and do not really mind, but then this is personal opinion.

[MeetJohnDoe]

Invest in a big heavy good quality safe , like a Chubb or the like of export quality.

It would have paid for itself after this loss of yours.

Keep the good stuff in the good safe - make it a bit more difficult to rob your stuff.

wow, the man has lost a lifetime of memories and you offer hindsight.

Well, if he takes this advice, at least the memories from age 9 through whenever will be safe.

Sad story but really should not be a surprise. House burglaries happen around the world and everyone knows the first rule of thumb regarding irreplaceable data is to back it up, back it up, and back it up again. Also, one should store a copy of the data offsite and also online (Mozy.com, or the like).

Best suggestion is to send the maid on the rounds of the local pawn shops to look for the notebook/drive...but considering the number in Bangkok, most likely a lost cause.

[madforit]

Tomorrow am going to open a safe in a bank - and keep on hard disk there - bit extreme, but i dont see anyother way.

Recon a super heavy safe would help too, very hard to move around

It is more likely that your hard drive will fail than it get's stolen from your house. So keeping one in bank still does not guarantee anything.

Not sure, maybe there is something in the internet nowdays where you can store your files in secure servers that are backed up daily to various servers in different locations ?

I would be interested to hear if someone has any info on this as my whole life is in couple of HD's at the moment.

First off, big condolonces to the OP, like you said mate hardware you can replace over time but the photos etc.......bad news! Do you have any online (facebook etc) or stuff you have sent to friends (check your sent items in your email)......sorry if this sounds really basic and like I'm being condescending........not meaning to I'm just trying to think of any way thing that might help.

To Skippy

In UK there are online automatic data backup services available...cheap too, about £30 GPB p.a. PCworld do one...link given below, you may be able to set up from Thailand, or find local equivalent.....the good thing about this is that it will automatically back up any changes..the bad new is you need broadband.

http://www.thetechguys.com/services/online-data-backup.shtml

Best of luck

[skippybangkok]

Thanks.......but Skippy not burgled ( yet ) , it was "sstuff3"

Almost had these guys install, recon i will call them back.......

Visonic

Any recommended units? Dont want to hard wire in the house so want wireless. Sytem will work good when not home, but i wanted to secure the 2 entrance points ( can jump from carp park roof to main bed room & behind house ledge out bedroom as well which is nice and quiet. ).

Visonic cannot protect this (no outside sensors). Any Idea's?

[Birdman]

cxl

Edited May 26, 2009 by Birdman

[Ulysses G.]

Every break-in I've heard of in Chiang Mai for the last few years has been through the roof. It is very easy to do and difficult to protect against.

[mzqueenie]

Everyone would say alarm systems are the best, but in my own opinions, having trained guard dogs, vicious when it sees intruders you should at least consider that.

[JacknDanny]

My house in Pakkret was broken into during the day on Tuesday, May 19 while I was at work. The burglars managed to escape detection of the house alarm by entering and exiting through the roof and dropping down through the ceiling. My entire house, 1st and 2nd floor was ransacked and the valuables taken out through the newly created hole in the roof.

Included with many other things, they made off with a couple notebook pc's and even managed to find my external back-up hard disk stored in another room. Every picture of my daughter from the night of her birth until now (9 years) are stored on one of the notebooks (which happens to be missing a keyboard which can not be purchased in Thailand) and backed up on the external drive. All the material things that the bastards took can be replaced over time but the thousands of pictures can never be.

I know that I will likely never get them back and the computers and hard disk will likely be reformated (erased) and the items sold off for quick cash but I still want to believe that there may be some way to get my pictures back.

Any ideas? I am literally sick over this. Of course the police were informed and reports taken but after living here for more than 3 years, I don't have much confidence they will be able to turn up with anything.

Speak to the head honcho at the Police station that covers your area.

Money talks. Half now, half when he gets back your photos. You have to make it worth their while, otherwise they will do sod all

[quiksilva]

Wow, Im really sorry to hear about the financial loss is one thing but the loss of those pics must be heart wrenching. Its really made me take a good look at how I manage my data, and protect my home (mostly involves never leaving it unattended 24/7, which works for us but its not practical for everyone).

No idea on how to get your images back, but I sincerely hope you do.

[miruph]

My house in Pakkret was broken into during the day on Tuesday, May 19 while I was at work. The burglars managed to escape detection of the house alarm by entering and exiting through the roof and dropping down through the ceiling. My entire house, 1st and 2nd floor was ransacked and the valuables taken out through the newly created hole in the roof.

Included with many other things, they made off with a couple notebook pc's and even managed to find my external back-up hard disk stored in another room. Every picture of my daughter from the night of her birth until now (9 years) are stored on one of the notebooks (which happens to be missing a keyboard which can not be purchased in Thailand) and backed up on the external drive. All the material things that the bastards took can be replaced over time but the thousands of pictures can never be.

I know that I will likely never get them back and the computers and hard disk will likely be reformated (erased) and the items sold off for quick cash but I still want to believe that there may be some way to get my pictures back.

Any ideas? I am literally sick over this. Of course the police were informed and reports taken but after living here for more than 3 years, I don't have much confidence they will be able to turn up with anything.

Speak to the head honcho at the Police station that covers your area.

Money talks. Half now, half when he gets back your photos. You have to make it worth their while, otherwise they will do sod all

And talk to neighbors, motodrivers ( don't know how to call these ******) and "security" guards...tell them you offer money for anonymous return of at least the external backup drives. There is a chance they are not erased and sold yet.

Sorry for what happened and good luck!

Edit: spelling

Edited May 27, 2009 by miruph