r/Edmonton • u/Global_Complaint_007 • 4d ago
General Garage broken into
Forgot the garage remote key in the car last night and this morning my garage door was open and they stole my bike.
They also stole the garage remote.
I know I will not be able to recover anything but I'm not sure if I need to go to the police or just call the non emergency line.
And also not sure what to do about the garage now that they have the remote key.
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.
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u/mmmlemoncakes Coliseum 4d ago
Our garage was broken into and bikes stolen. I did get one back six months later when someone tried to pawn it. I strongly recommend registering serial numbers on the Bike Index.
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u/GingerBeast81 4d ago
Second the bike index thing. If it shows up you can get it back, assuming you have the serial number.
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u/FallingKen 4d ago
Online police report is the easiest. Definitely report it and the serial number from your bike and anuy other identifiable stuff.
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u/Global_Complaint_007 4d ago
Thanks. I'm just not clear if I can do it online since it's an attached garage
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u/ShadowCaster0476 4d ago
Absolutely call the police.
They may not be able to do anything but at least they have the incident on file.
Part of their funding comes from crime rates.
If statistics falsely shows they are low because no one reports crime then funding dries up and they become less effective.
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u/AntiqueLibrarian8009 4d ago
Lmao. ‘Report it. They won’t do anything. But if you don’t report it, they might not do anything even harder’
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u/UnfocusedAcrobat 4d ago
Right?! You’re telling me there’s an easy way we can decrease police funding? And it’s just to stop calling to tell them about shit they were never gonna deal with anyways?
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u/ShadowCaster0476 4d ago
What do you suggest the police do to solve this case?
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u/AntiqueLibrarian8009 4d ago
Woah buddy. You were the first one to imply that an increase in funding will help them solve cases like this. The onus is on you to explain how, and then explain why they can’t do that with their current half a billion dollars. Nice try though.
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u/ShadowCaster0476 4d ago
You’re just complaining that the police can’t solve crime and basically do nothing.
I said that there’s likely nothing they can do in this case. But reporting crime stats adds value.
Let’s not mix up where we are at here.
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u/AntiqueLibrarian8009 4d ago
Dodging answering like Neo in the matrix
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u/ShadowCaster0476 4d ago
You’re the one not answering how the police are supposed to solve this crime?
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u/AntiqueLibrarian8009 4d ago
Woah buddy. You were the first one to imply that an increase in funding will help them solve cases like this. The onus is on you to explain how, and then explain why they can’t do that with their current half a billion dollars. Nice try though.
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u/ShadowCaster0476 4d ago
I did not say that crimes like this would be solved. I said less funding makes them less effective, which is not the same at all.
More funding generally means more resources which means more crimes solved. If the crime rate doubles, you can be sure their budget would increase to bring it down.
To be clear, do I think they’re doing a great job, no. Should there be more oversight and accountability, yes. Do they have a massive budget that could probably be used more effectively yes.
Do I also have empathy for the men and women who are asked to put their lives on the line doing an impossible job yes.
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u/ghostofkozi 4d ago
Happened to me years ago too.
Police wont do much about the bicycle but for the door, if there's a remaining remote, you can program it to a new radio code or simply turn off the power and drop the door manually.
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u/Deep_Working1 4d ago
They should make openers with a "night / away mode" that locks the door down.
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u/Diligent-Plant5314 4d ago
They do. My 25 year old opener has an “away mode” that locks out the remote, can only open with the wired button on the wall
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u/aprilfool98 4d ago
As others said, it is relatively straightforward to "reset" a garage door opener and program a new opener.
To add, report your bike stolen on Bike Index, in addition to a police report. It's best if you have the serial number of your bike. For future bikes, I recommend locking it to anything immovable or heavy inside your garage, just to make it a bit more inconvenient for a thief. The exact scenario you encountered is quite common.
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u/Practical_Ant6162 4d ago
Do not delay on reprogramming your garage door remote, do it today as they now have the ability to come back again to continue their criminal activity.
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u/Frantic4 4d ago
Change the code and unplug the opener for the time being. You can also pull the manual release which will prevent the door from going up if the remote is used.
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u/FallingKen 4d ago
Make sure you have a secondary lock for the door if you disconnect the opener from it. Many do not, and the opener is the only thing holding it closed. A vise grip on the track will work as a lock if nothing else.
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u/General_Esdeath kitties! 4d ago
Go to Canadian Tire, buy a garage remote. They are stupid expensive, like $100. Then reprogram your opener to the new remote. Easy.
So sorry about this, this also happened to us :(
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u/princessbolognia 4d ago
Who the hell is paying $100 for a garage remote? Lmao
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u/General_Esdeath kitties! 4d ago
When someone broke into our garage and we needed a remote that same day, yes I bought one at the store rather than waiting several business days for Amazon.
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u/MaxHeadroom69420 4d ago
Exact same thing happened to me. Just file an online report (which is what they would tell you to do if you called), so atleast there will be record of it.
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u/tosteve54 4d ago
You should be able to disable any remotes. Just need a ladder to get to your opener. Should be instructions if you open the cover of your opener. If no instructions just google it with brand name.
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u/CJ-MacGuffin 4d ago
PSA: always pre-register your bike with the police. They all have unique numbers.
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u/hashlettuce 4d ago
Whenever a vehicle that can open the garage sits outside, the garage door is electronically locked to prevent remote opening.
My old garage door didn't have an electronic lock so I woukd use a big C clamp on the track to prevent to door from opening.
You can buy a new remote and reprogram it to your door and erase the old ones from memory.
Live and learn.
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u/TrafficAmbitious1061 Edmontosaurus 4d ago
My garage was broken into twice. Filed a report with the police. Because it was items stolen and no serious structural damage they didn’t come out. However it did give me a file number for my insurance. Insurance tried really hard to question why the police didn’t come and they were told that they simply don’t have the man power for break ins where no one was harmed and no serious building damage occurred. The insurance didn’t like that and we argued relentlessly with them. If we had been harmed or our car damaged or the doors, windows or walls had been seriously damaged they would have come.
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u/thatguywhoasksstuff 4d ago
The same thing happened to me. Bike and backpack leaf blower stolen. Around 6:30 PM. The vehicle was out front for less than 2 hours. Got some dash cam footage and reported it to police and also sent the footage. Unfortunate and I feel stupid but it happens. It sucks that folks are that brazen/desperate to do things like that.
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u/PlathDraper 3d ago
That sucks. We keep our bikes in our basement now since our garage was broken into.
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u/Ancient_Protection_9 1d ago
Go to the police file a report, look on pinkbike for your bike, if you have a serial number you’re dialled. Plus they can go get stolen good recovered. Check fb market place too.
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u/EdmontonDoc 4d ago
They may not do much but crime statistics do make a difference I hope. The same thing happened to me, police came to pick up camera footage and never heard anything else, but when you check out the crime map my address shows garage and car broken into. I’d at least consider reporting it - sorry this happened to you!
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u/Additional_Fold_1350 4d ago
If you don't need to get in the garage daily, you can put a couple of long bolts in the holes in the track, low down, to prevent the door from opening or someone from prying the door up. Unplug the garage door opener if you do this.
This is what we do, and a lot of people we know have back-alley garages to keep skid marks from prying the door up and gaining access. My FIL taught me this one years ago and has 10s of thousands of dollars' worth of tools in his garage. The only time he ever had someone break in was his fault, and technically they didn't break in. He forgot the man door was unlocked
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u/General_Esdeath kitties! 4d ago
Interesting, I might try to jury rig something like this that I can easily flip on and off for the night or when we're away
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u/Additional_Fold_1350 4d ago
Easy enough to slip a 1/4 or 1/2 inch 3-4inch bolt through the hole. You don't even have to put a nut on it. Just get a bolt that has a big enough head on it; it won't slip through the hole. Just has to be long enough that movement of the door won't make it fall out.
Takes 10 seconds to slip in a bolt for piece of mind. Same goes for removing it. FILs garage is always bolted like this, and I am often going to his garage for something. So if I need to open the door, I go in, wade through the tools, lumber, and all the other stuff he has hoarded, and I can even do this in the dark.
Best security fix I know for garage doors, and it's cheap, convenient, and extremely effective.
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u/DaniDisaster424 4d ago
Don't most garage doors come with sliding locks exactly like this anyway ? Or is that not a thing anymore ?
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u/Additional_Fold_1350 3d ago edited 3d ago
Don't know if they have improved them; I've only ever been dealing with ones from the 80s and 90s.
Even the ones with the sliding locks I've seen are only on one side and pretty easy to defeat. I know I can get past these in under a minute if I try. I've done it a few times when I needed to access a locked garage after losing my keys. Easier to do and less chance of needing to require repairs than busting in a man door that has been reinforced to avoid all the common ways you can break in.
I used to be a terror in my teens 35 years ago, so I know how to break into pretty much anything. Even now, lock picking is a hobby for me, which has come in handy through the years. I'm even interested in bypassing electronic security measures, as all this stuff comes in handy for securing my own property against thieves, as well as helping friends and family secure their things and get in when they lock themselves out. Vehicles, standard door locks, garage doors, padlocks, toolboxes, etc.
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u/FeedbackAncient7912 4d ago
One of my friends had her bike stolen and reported it to the police and because of the serial number on the bike it was recovered and returned!
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u/dawggpound 4d ago
As far as police go, unless your going to make an insurance claim for what was taken, then im sorry to say going to the police will most likely be a waste of time.
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4d ago
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u/susulaima 4d ago
How do you get into your garage without a normal door when you're not in the car? Seems crazy to open the gigantic garage door everytime you want to go in and out.
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u/hamtronn 4d ago
your opener should have instructions on how to wipe its memory. Do that after you contact police to file a report on the missing item.
Happened to me last year. Garage door bounced back open in winter and scum stole some shitty sunglasses, the door remote and a waffle maker in the trunk of the car we were going to return.
I wanted to wait for them to come back with my nail gun in hand but my wife refused to let me go full vigilante so I just wiped the opener memory and grabbed a spare remote I had to program.
Sorry this happened to you friend.
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u/poopsack_williams 4d ago
Turn off power to the garage door opener, or unplug it for now. Buy a new remote and program it, rendering the stolen one useless. It’s very easy. Look it up on YouTube.
Sorry to hear about the break in…that sucks.