has anyone EVER foiled trailer theives ?

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ellamanamou

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reading and hearing about all these thefts recently , and having lost thousands of pounds of stuff ourselves over time i was wondering if anyone had ever had an attempt of tack or trailer theft that was abandonded because of ??? dogs ? alarms ? somebody living on yard ? anything really -- is there anything that would put off a detemind gang ? i recently heard of a lady that was on the phone to the police as the thieves were nicking her stuff and she was just stood amongst them as they carried on !! unbelievable !! actually quite scarey !
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In a dream one time I shot some Pikey-types trying to nick my trailer... and I have lots of electrocution schemes for unwanted peeps in my tack room but I lack the voltage to implement them. Then there's my open-the-door-and-the-pin-pops-out-of-the-hand-grenade idea, but my saddles and half the farm would get blown to smithereens, never mind the noise and lawsuit.

So I leave everything out on the lawn.

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my dogs alerted me, phoned cops. stuck all floodlights on. but hey the pikeys did trash all my fencing, left a no plate behind and the cops did f....... all! just buy good insurance and all available locks, deterrents. smart water. paint or burn on post codes! if they want it they will nick it!
 
My mum once caught gypsies trying to steal our trailer. They saw her and fled. But then she is rather formidable, despite being short!:D
Dogs are good for warning you, as are floodlights. Best thing is a big set of gates kept locked though. Amazing how many people have yards that you can just drive straight into.
 
My OH says the only thing a pikey respects is a nasty dog! They would regularly turn up at his father's yard looking for scrap and would not get out of their vehicle if there was a dog about.
 
well i cant sleep for worrying . i agree big angry dogs , but it must be the right dogs . people we know had 12 gates nicked and all their tack and they killed the dogs . i think everyone should apply for a shotgun license , that i think would work ! i read last week that someone had a row of wooden stables dismantled and nicked overnight !!! my god imagine turning up to the yard and theres just the concrete base ! of course assuming they didnt dig that up for hardcore as well -- in their spare 5 minutes . someone else saw their tractor and trailer being taken and they reckoned that there was at least 5 large vehicles and a small scout car. they left to call police as they didnt want to face them. this is big organised crime , with gangs of guys not the one or two chancers it used to be , a lot of eastern europeans work for the travellers and they are very good at what they do . i wonder how many people are towing trailers that were once stolen , completely unaware of its past. well ramblings over now back to the window to watch my trailer !
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my boyfriend had his lorry nicked a few years ago and we found it abandoned about five miles away. It had run out of petrol! so a good rule is to fill up on your way out to a show rather than on your way back to the yard. In practice, this means you need to find a petrol station when you are in a rush and it always makes me late : ))

A big deterrent in my opinion is to make your trailer as distinctive as possible. Re-spray it in a different colour - with stripes or transfers. I can understand why Ifor Williams get targeted - they all look the same!!
 
Best way to stop trailer theft long term would be to kill the market for them. Or at least make it harder.

All trailers have a chassis number which you can check out with the manufacturer. I once rang Rice Richardson with a chassis number for a horse trailer and they had it down as a car transporter so it had obviously been changed.

The Ifors all have paperwork now so dont buy one without. You wouldn't buy a car without a log book.
 
I,ve only got a really old and i mean old trailer i only had it on the drive 2 weeks before the pikeys came knocking the door to buy it. I then kept spotting the same people passing my house so now have it locked up and put it as close to the house as i can get it .
 
i've just got a trailer and have insurance approved yellow triangle, ball hitch lock, postcode on roof (this has proved to be good for recovery aparently) and also some hidden welded postcode taggs
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i'm actually keeping mine at home rather than the yard as it's more secure
 
Not thieves as such but my dad 'deterred' some pikeys after he'd given them the benefit of doubt and let them redo our drive. Needless to say they ruined it and then had the gall to come asking for money! I recall my dad holding one by the scruff of his neck (and my dad's not a confrontational man) and warning him if they didn't leave then he would let the dog out!

Now, this was a time when we did have a large alsatian cross that resembled a well built wolf and he was very aggressive and they didn't have protection of the old dangerous dogs act (or the suing culture shall we say) back then! hehe. We never saw the pikeys agin!

Have caught someone red handed stealing a load of new fence posts from our field too - we didn't cotton on straight away though as otherwise we would have followed the pick up he was in. We did however get the business name on the vehicle and the numbver plate so reported it. What do you know - apparently that had bene reported 'stolen' as well! When we asked the police when it ahd been reported they wouldn't tell us so I stromgly suspect it was reported AFTER the guy realised he'd been rumbled!

I thionk dogs are the best deterrent but, if you don't live on site then the only thing you can do is make it as difficult as possible for thieves to get your stuff and don't kepp valuable or irreplaceable items there.
 
My YO- who weighs about 7st wet through- (albeit muscle) stopped some pikeys who turned up on the yard (working farm) and attempted to hitch the trailer up.....she stood astride the coupling and bloody bellowed at them....the blokes came running from the outbuildings (don't think pikeys knew they were there) and saw them off.

Heard nowt from them until about a year later when all the tack got nicked...about the same time of year, harvest time when everyone was out in the fields. Barstewards.
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Yes they made such a racket trying to get the hitch lock off that the neighbours called the police, by the time the police had got there they'd torn a seat belt out of their van and lashed the trailer on with that and had got about few feet from where the trailer was parked.
They ran for it and were never caught, the van had been stolen to.

Downside bloody police loaded my trailer up and took it in for forensics which didn't get them anything and I had to pay £140 to get it back. When it could have just been pushed back the few feet to where it was parked and wouldn't have cost me a penny.
 
I think the best way to keep your tack safe is to keep it at home. Apart from the odd occation when I have had to leave it when someone else has been riding my horse, I never keep my tack at the yard and *touch wood* have never had anything stolen.
 
my grandparents always undid all the wheel nuts on the trailer's & the tractor when they were not in use, they had a compressor & the fitting to take them off & on quickly & easily.

it mady a hell of a mess of the 4x4 the night the pikeys tried to nick the big straw trailer (ripped the back off it
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mind you nan has no issues with pikeys after shooting the tyres out one night when they came helping themselves to stuff (that was back in 1988 & they still stear clear).
 
[ QUOTE ]
Best way to stop trailer theft long term would be to kill the market for them. Or at least make it harder.

All trailers have a chassis number which you can check out with the manufacturer. I once rang Rice Richardson with a chassis number for a horse trailer and they had it down as a car transporter so it had obviously been changed.

The Ifors all have paperwork now so dont buy one without. You wouldn't buy a car without a log book.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sooner or later there will be a requirement for all trailers under a certain age to be tested. This should cut down on crime, as every trailer will have to be identifiable. It'll also cut down on accidents - when did everyone last have a check round of their trailer, do the tyre pressures, brakes etc etc?
 
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