members of the ethnic community calling

2smiggy

like the thread title, I was coming out of my parents house (rural farm) and van was driving slowly up the road, and turned in the bottom yard. my parents live on a stretch of road that's about 2 miles long, and we are the only house on the road. Very few people use it as there is not much of a short cut for anyone. the reason i think they are members of the ethnic community is that the was a boy in the passengers seat about 13/14 when he should have been in school. my father said he has seen the same van driving around alot over the last 2 weeks. alot of breakins/robberys in my area over the last few months as well. my parents are in their late 60's , and live by themselves.

anyone have anything similar happen recently or any idea what to do ?

was thinking of putting up automatic gates with pallasite fencing, but it is fairly expensive. another good scheme they have at the moment is 'gun' or 'hunting' clubs, where they end up in your yard for a good look around

bjork

They could have been tourists, American tourists...on spring break!

whiskeyman

2smiggy wrote: »

was thinking of putting up automatic gates with pallasite fencing, but it is fairly expensive. another good scheme they have at the moment is 'gun' or 'hunting' clubs, where they end up in your yard for a good look around

Put up a sign with:
'Jobs Expo on here today - Guest speaker on how to pay your taxes correctly'.






They won't bother you again...

Menas

All you can do is take note of the van details, reg number is possible and phone it in to your local garda station as 'suspicious activity'.
Pot luck if the garda will do anything.

fig_roll

What's an ethnic community? And why does a kid not being in school make them a member of it?

Tabnabs

Let them see you taking photos of them and the van with a mobile or camera. You need to show you are also watching and recording them.

Soups123

Threads title is a bit misleading I thought you had a calling experience and were looking to join

Dr Turk Turkelton

fig_roll wrote: »

What's an ethnic community? And why does a kid not being in school make them a member of it?

Because getting an education is not cultural.

jack of all

Plenty of discussion on this topic over in the Farming and Forestry forum....

Buford T. Justice XIX

2smiggy wrote: »

like the thread title, I was coming out of my parents house (rural farm) and van was driving slowly up the road, and turned in the bottom yard. my parents live on a stretch of road that's about 2 miles long, and we are the only house on the road. Very few people use it as there is not much of a short cut for anyone. the reason i think they are members of the ethnic community is that the was a boy in the passengers seat about 13/14 when he should have been in school. my father said he has seen the same van driving around alot over the last 2 weeks. alot of breakins/robberys in my area over the last few months as well. my parents are in their late 60's , and live by themselves.

anyone have anything similar happen recently or any idea what to do ?

was thinking of putting up automatic gates with pallasite fencing, but it is fairly expensive. another good scheme they have at the moment is 'gun' or 'hunting' clubs, where they end up in your yard for a good look around

First thing, as a previous poster said, is ring the Gardai with type of van, reg, colour and how many occupants.

Next, contact the neighbours and ask them to keep an eye on your folks. They will understand the situation and will keep an eye out.

Next, remove all valuable things like power washers, electric tools and wrenches and lock them in a secure house. You might also want to enclose in the diesel tank and any home heating tanks. The new thing is to not take all the fuel but take most of it so it will be some time before discovering it's gone.

Next thing is to get a dog. A BIG dog and try to close in an area around the house and secured sheds in the yard to keep the dog in. This is a huge addition to security.

Hope that helps some.

Grayson

So because a kid was in teh car on a school day they must belong to "the ethnic group"

Because they're part of "the ethnic group" and they're on a road, people should be afraid?

can we just stop calling them "the ethnic group". I think we all know you're referring to cork people.

BBDBB

Grayson wrote: »

So because a kid was in teh car on a school day they must belong to "the ethnic group"

Because they're part of "the ethnic group" and they're on a road, people should be afraid?

can we just stop calling them "the ethnic group". I think we all know you're referring to cork people.

That's so corkist

Lyaiera

Not all Cork people.

I don't even have a van.

2smiggy

Grayson wrote: »

So because a kid was in teh car on a school day they must belong to "the ethnic group"

Because they're part of "the ethnic group" and they're on a road, people should be afraid?

can we just stop calling them "the ethnic group". I think we all know you're referring to cork people.

until you have these c**ts start calling into your elderly parents property unannounced and uninvited you have nothing to worry about. at the moment for me , they have, and i am worried. i have been in contact with the Garda , and they do know that i seen them, as i stopped on the road basically blocking them for about 30 seconds.

Frog Song

Gates and fencing are expensive but worth every penny if it keeps people like that out or at least makes it difficult for them. Especially when your parents are there alone. There are worse things that could happen than having a few bits of farm equipment taken too.

Grayson

2smiggy wrote: »

until you have these c**ts start calling into your elderly parents property unannounced and uninvited you have nothing to worry about. at the moment for me , they have, and i am worried. i have been in contact with the Garda , and they do know that i seen them, as i stopped on the road basically blocking them for about 30 seconds.

Seeing a person who's driving up and down a country road on multiple days is suspicious. And it's worth calling the cops.
However you threw ethnic profiling into the mix. You have no idea who they are. You made assumptions about "Ethnic groups" and you didn't even have the guts to come out and say travellers.

Little CuChulainn

Contact the local community Garda and ask about setting up a community alert scheme. These can be very effective in alerting the gardaí and other locals to suspicious activity and have often resulted in the vehicles involved being linked to burglaries or been stopped and searched.

Frigga_92

2smiggy wrote: »

like the thread title, I was coming out of my parents house (rural farm) and van was driving slowly up the road, and turned in the bottom yard. my parents live on a stretch of road that's about 2 miles long, and we are the only house on the road. Very few people use it as there is not much of a short cut for anyone. the reason i think they are members of the ethnic community is that the was a boy in the passengers seat about 13/14 when he should have been in school. my father said he has seen the same van driving around alot over the last 2 weeks. alot of breakins/robberys in my area over the last few months as well. my parents are in their late 60's , and live by themselves.

anyone have anything similar happen recently or any idea what to do ?

was thinking of putting up automatic gates with pallasite fencing, but it is fairly expensive. another good scheme they have at the moment is 'gun' or 'hunting' clubs, where they end up in your yard for a good look around

OP, I've posted on here before about travellers (I assume you are talking about travellers) robbing every house on our road except our house. One of our neighbours was broken into twice, they wrecked her house and she now refuses to return to the house and is instead renting a place in town. This woman is in her 70s and is too afraid to return to a house that she owns and has lived in for her whole life. She is now renting a tiny house in town (because that's all she can afford) like a college student.

The only thing that has worked for us is our dogs. We previously had a great dane and they were terrified of him although he was a very placid dog, I think they didn't know the breed very well so just assumed size = dangerous.
We have 2 german shepherds and they are terrified of them.
Last year my husband was at home one day and heard one of the dogs go bananas in the kitchen. He let the male german shepherd out and walked around the side of the house to find a traveller pulling open one of our front windows and a car waiting in the driveway, when the traveller saw the dog coming around the side of the house to him he nearly fell over himself trying to get to the car and they sped off down the road.

Our immediate next door neighbour was almost broken into one night by travellers. Her house is quite close to our house but we have a big yard behind our house and farm buildings so if you're making a lot of noise at her house it can echo into our yard. One night she was at home and heard someone pull up outside, she wasn't expecting a visitor so peeped out the window and saw a van parked at the house, 2 men walked around the side of the house poking at the windows to see if there was any window open, our dogs obviously heard something (we weren't home ourselves at the time) and started barking like lunatics and the 2 men got back in the van and drove off. She rang the gardai and was told that they were already after getting 2 calls that night about the same van and were aware that there were travellers in the area.

In my experience, they do not like dogs, specifically big dogs or noisy dogs and will avoid them if at all possible.
Also, in my experience, they do not like firearms but that's another story.

punisher5112

Put up plenty of security lights and think of real cctv.

Grayson

26sdrawkcab wrote: »

The only thing that has worked for us is our dogs.

I have to agree with this. When it comes to personal security dogs are far better than guns n knives etc. Not only do they make good companions but they kick up one hell of a fuss if a stranger is anywhere nearby and are very protective.
They're also terrifying when they're angry.

Jaxxy

26sdrawkcab wrote: »

In my experience, they do not like dogs, specifically big dogs or noisy dogs and will avoid them if at all possible.
Also, in my experience, they do not like firearms but that's another story.

This. Every house on my parents' road has been done in the last year, except for ours. We had a German Shepherd and while he was largely a placid dog, he'd go absolutely mental if anyone but us stepped foot on the property. He looked and sounded fierce. He's since passed unfortunately, and I'm very worried. There's a traveller pub on the road too and there's trouble almost every night.

Getting your folks a GS could be a good idea, OP. Inform all of your closest neighbours too so everyone can keep an eye out, and report absolutely everything to the gards.

seamus

Security cameras are a much more realistic prospect these days even for "normal" people. The benefit of broadband is that you can stream these live and configure them to alert you on your phone if they detect any movement. You then open the app on your phone and can watch in real time.

e.g.
http://www.equicom.ie/night-vision-cctv-1192-p.asp

With a few small tweaks you can also configure this to stream to cloud storage for backup - in the event that a wiley thief cuts the cables and steals the DVR, you'll still have the camera footage right up to the last second.

My biggest concern with getting a dog specifically for security is that they could come prepared and hurt or kill the dog. I would rather a burglar stripped my house bare and left the dog alone. You can replace the contents of the house, you can't replace the dog.

Buford T. Justice XIX

Frog Song wrote: »

Gates and fencing are expensive but worth every penny if it keeps people like that out or at least makes it difficult for them. Especially when your parents are there alone. There are worse things that could happen than having a few bits of farm equipment taken too.

Putting away farm equipment is more for reducing the easy pickings that attract these individuals.

And, tbh, there are as many settled as travellers at this kind of crap judging from unannounced arrivals in my yard.

eviltwin

Grayson wrote: »

I have to agree with this. When it comes to personal security dogs are far better than guns n knives etc. Not only do they make good companions but they kick up one hell of a fuss if a stranger is anywhere nearby and are very protective.
They're also terrifying when they're angry.

Ditto. In my cul de sac ours is the only one not to be broken into. The fact we have two vocal dogs, one a Doberman, is probably the reason. All the other houses were broken into by travellers btw.