I presumed Newbie Questions would be the least irritating place to make this post:
I’m self-employed under my own successful LLC and I do residential maintenance on homes that require ground and aerial based anchoring rigging for fall protection. I do not know if this violates the page rules and moderators can remove it if so, but my work truck and $20k in equipment were stolen Monday night April 11th, from the Cully neighborhood in NE Portland. If anyone has seen this truck or does see it, please reach out. I am open to any and all suggestions as to where else I might post this to get as many relevant eyes on it as possible.
2000 Chevrolet S10
Plate number: XXK 842
Blue with extended cab and white aluminum topper
Big ticket items stolen along with the truck:
Werner Aluminum Ladders 16ft, 24ft, 32ft, equipped with leg levelers and stabilizer bars
Stihl BR600 Blower
BE Pressure Washer 4GPM 4000PSI
General Pump Hose Reel (150ft capacity)
Hero Air 35ft Carbon Fiber Extension Pole
Deionized water cleaning setup: Generic blue filter modified to have a rope and rubber handle attached to the top, 100ft orange 1/4" hose, 50ft yellow 1/4" hose, Tucker hyrbid brush with rinse bar
Cougar Paw Boots size 7
5 Gallon bucket liquid treatment modified with siphoning hose to detergent injector
100lbs granular treatment in a large black Husky tote with red handles
Milwaukee M18 Fuel Drill and Driver Set and two cases of drill bits
Sorry to hear that buddy. I hate a thief. Whether it’s personal property or intellectual property. Just lazy people out to make a quick buck off of other hardworking people’s effort. I hope you get your stuff back.
I just have to wait and see what my renter’s insurance does and does not decide to cover out of the list of stolen items I submitted. The vehicle at least had comprehensive coverage, but currently the Blue Book and NADA prices are $1k-2k less than the current market prices in my area. Meaning even if they pay out the max appraisal value, I am not able to find anything used right now that will be entirely covered by that payout.
Today I bought the exact same truck that I had stolen (slightly fewer miles on it) and paid more than 3x as much as I did less than two years ago, after talking the dealer down a grand. All I’ve learned from this is to invest in all the bells and whistles on the alarm systems if you live in urban centers around the PNW. I was told vehicle thefts are up 300%. I have already taken the new truck to have installed with the alarm: killswitch, GPS, alarm pins on all the topper doors and tailgates, and a microphone that detects a slim-jim or glass break.
Hoping to recoup my losses by working overtime this Summer. The biggest expense is the lost time.
Thanks Ashton. I wish it had occurred to me before showing my setup to the world on YouTube that any business address can be found by searching the state registry. I was two months away from moving somewhere I could more securely store vehicles. Probably just a coincidence, but still not a wise sequence of events.
Sorry to hear this happened to you. Even if the insurance pays 100% of the cost of everything that needs to be purchased it would still be an incredible time sink to set up everything again.
This isn’t going to help you now, but you may want to do what I do. I have my truck, trailer and liability insurance, but I also have tools and equipment insurance for theft. I’ve worked around turds most of my life so I believe that it isn’t if someone is going to steal something, it is when someone is going to steal something. Other people on here might live in happy unicorn village, but I live in the real world and even in the sticks there are methheads/tweakers. Those people will steal anything when they are jonesing.
I don’t know, but you might have been hit by pros looking for specific equipment. They get shopping lists from time to time to fill. When I worked on a hydraulic drill rig we went to the site one morning, and the rig was almost completely prepped for moving. I think if we would have stopped for coffee on the way there we would have had dumb looks on our face that day wondering where the rig was. That guy liked to be on site before the sun hit, can’t drill in the dark, well you can but someone is going to missing an arm at the least.
I appreciate you relaying all of that. I definitely was not wise to procrastinate on adding all the bells and whistles to my truck’s alarm system (hard wired killswitch, gps, and glass break sensor). I was hoping to get it done this summer, but as soon as the weather dried and warmed up here the theft rate has spiked and I was not ready in time. That is the last time I make that mistake and I will have the remote sensor for the alarm I am having installed in the new truck by my bedside from here on out.
I have no way of being able to figure whether it was a pro job or otherwise. Only time will tell if the truck ends up being found in a field after a joy ride, like many do. I posted to all the local relevant Facebook groups I could find along with this forum in the hopes that someone might contact me if they end up finding these items for sale. One gem I got in a comment on Facebook is as follows:
“An “Inland Marine” policy will cover your equipment literally worldwide. I have had one for 20 years. Last year a carbon fiber pole flew a out of a truck (crazy Midwest winds) and I saw it get ran over by a semi… the policy covered it. It’s worth the yearly investment”
So sorry this happened to you. I’ve adjusted the thread title and pinned the thread globally for the next 2 weeks. I hope you’re able to recover some of your stuff.
I also reposted this to the WCR forum.
Don’t worry about irritating anyone here. Shout it from the rooftops. You worked hard for that stuff, and it puts food on your table. We get it.
If you see this, you may be able to reject your insurance offer based on bluebook values and submit ads for comparable trucks in order to get them to pay market rate. If you’ve already cashed a check from them though, that’s taken as acceptance of their valuation.
Good call. Fortunately my insurance does not declare a stolen vehicle a total loss until 21 days pass without it being recovered, so I have not taken any compensation yet. Better yet, I’ll submit them the total I just paid for the exact same truck. Market prices are hard to swallow right now, makes me wonder if the recent increase I applied to my own quotes for customers was large enough.
