www.CostaRicaTicas.com

I live on a small dead end street in a very quiet neighborhood in Lourdes, Montes d Oca.

About 6:30pm tonite, armed ladrones popped the lock on the outside gate and forced open the front door of my across the street neighbor. The entire family, dad, mom, son, daughter and dog were home and the lights and TV were on. They did not see the armed gunmen. All they saw was a hand gun sticking through the broken front door.

The dad yelled to his son "get the gun." That somehow scared the assholes off.

The police arrived very quickly, stayed for about 10 mintues, wrote some stuff down and took off. They came back 10 minutes later, wrote down more stuff and left again. Our armed guard started his shift about 30 minutes later.

This is the 3rd breakin/robbery on our street in the last 6 months. The other two were day time and when no one was home. If they ever try it here I hope I am gone. They can have my stuff!

Any thoughts or experience re security/antitheft are appreciated. Please share your thoughts with things like motion sensor lighting with alarm, professional alarm company, 24 hour guard etc.

Pura Vida?

Although not living in CR, I did break into a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Motion lights- are great, relatively cheap and usually the first place to start, get them from the home improvement store with flood bulbs or the halogen type and put them on all 4 corners of your house if viable.

Next check the locks on your doors, windows and that gate, is it cheap like your neighbors was and could they pop it open with a hammer or prybar? If so trash it and replace with a contractor grade shielded padlock. Get a welder to beef up your security gate if needed. Next look at your home during the day- the object is to make it a more difficult target than your neighbors. Do you have deadbolts, leave visible windows open? Any easy access over the fence or gates unlocked? Anything worth stealing in view from the street? I think you get the idea -think like a criminal.
Inside- find a good place to hide your valuables & cash, not in your dresser drawer or under the mattress. Look into buying a small safe and have it bolted out of sight in a cabinet or closet.

Alarms- one of the handiest cheap items I've found for outside security is called Driveway Patrol, google it. For under 30 bucks you can have a motion sensor outside that sets off an audible alarm inside, get the DC power source if available so you don't have to worry about the inside batteries going dead. The only tricky part is getting it set up and high enough so every cat, dog, squirrell etc. doesn't set it off but you do learn to distinguish if it's something small passing by or something worth grabbing the pistol for.
Home alarm- in the states you can get one installed non-monitored wired to all doors, keypad and 1-2 motion sensors for around 500 bucks, or free if you sign at least a 24 month contract. Monitored is good for some situations but not always worth the expense IMO, for instance in my town the cops now charge for showing up for false alarms. Mine's not monitored and hopefully the ear piercing alarm in the house and sirens blowing out the attic vents will convince them to leave without grabbing too much. Be sure to get the Alarm warning stickers for your windows and doors and the sign to go in the yard. I've actually just used these before with no alarm installed just to keep them guessing. Hope this helps.

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Living well is the best revenge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwUtj_YnNoY

I'd recommend a dust to dawn light outside front and back. Theves don't want to bee seen. Also a large watch dog is a great deterrent. Many folks are afraid of barking dogs, don't want to elicit agitated barking and know that if they have t oshoot the dog the noise will give them away.

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Providing humanitarian assistance to self employed chicas, one cash grant at a time.

Motion detector... forget the lights. Wire it to play a recording of a "shotgun being racked" with the following message ... "I am going to shoot to kill your sorry thieving Tico/Colombino/Nico ass in 2.47 nanoseconds. The choice is yours. What's it going to be? All of this is playing on an outside speaker while they are trying to take out your overzealous pit bull!

Berk....

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FRUITCAKE... and you thought it was something you eat! Not on CRT!

Can you also make it play: "Go ahead......MAKE MY DAY..."

They say a good multi-round shotgun is best for short range defense esp. if you are woke up when they break in. For me if I ever owned a house I would set it so it is very difficult for a break in then several layers of defensive positions too along with many weapons including AR15s, semi-auto pistols, shotguns smoke grenades etc.

The absolute best home defensive weapon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwC85njIE0k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiMQ981lph0

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Pura Vida
Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups:
alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat.
Alex Levine

Luck, that is where I used to have an apt. I was right around the corner from the Mus Mani and Pali grocery store... I guess crime can happen anyhere in the city...

I watched that U tube on the street sweeper. It is an impressive weapon, but the pièce de résistance in small arms is the AA 12, an automatic 12-gauge shotgun. It is virtually recoilless, maintenance free and fires just under 300 rounds per minute.

If you use 00-Buck rounds, which are fairly standard use rounds (1/3 inch pellets, nine pellets per round) you would put 2700 projectiles down range in one minute. If something was in front of you it would be dead. If you use a 12 gauge slug, after it hits it flattnes out, there won’t be much left to pick up.

The AA 12 is the most powerful hand-held weapon system. It is military use only and illegal as hell down here. The technology has been around since the 70s.

But for realistic and affordable home protection, Mossberg sells a great eight round pump action weapon in Costa Rica under the Maverick brand. It is competitively prices and a very reliable weapon.

For those not familiar with Montes de Oca its a decent middle class neighborhood maybe 2 or 3 miles from Mall San Pedro. I lived there one winter at the Vista Linda Sabinella apartments very near the big church of which the name escapes me.. I always felt like it was one of the safest places I ever was in SJ, very much unlike the immediate neighborhood surrounding Vista Linda Calle blancos. I walked around to the stores ect feeling much safer than in most other parts of SJ. Never heard of any crime there at all . Just in my walking around I met 2 gringos that lived there who also said it was safer than other areas and I could walk around unafraid. This was a year or 2 before I was mugged in Barrio Amon. This just goes to show how even the better areas of SJ has changed in a relatively short period of time, I am wondering if there is anywhere safe in SJ.... I think it may be just a matter of time before the press gets ahold of the security issues in CR and tourism takes a big hit. Then the tourism based economy takes a huge hit. Maybe when that happens and its too late the gobierno will get serious about crime. I dont know the answer but they might could take lessons from Colombia and how they attacked the problem. But one thing is for sure, the present system of coddling the ladrones does not work, they need to get tough with even the petty crime,, but it aint gonna happen..... mi dos centavos,,, JD

Junkyard Dog

Montes de Oca is a very nice area. In nearby Curriadabat there was a rash of home invastion robberies about eight months ago. My cousin lives in Curri and fortified her home to resemble a military fort.

By the way, the name of that church is Our Lady of the Passing Plate. Only kidding.