doit4u

Just picked up on this theme. I have every sympathy with you its not just the cost but the inconvenience. I a previous life I worked as a touring stage technician and we were loading lighting kit into a trailer only walking from the front door of a town hall over the pavement and someone managed to lift a dimmer rack which would be of no use to anyone. We found the box down the road but the police suspect that they took one look at it and lobbed it - they were probably confussed by the fact that it had 15amp round pin sockets.

Any way on a lighter not they do sometimes get their comuppance. I worked with a guy who was a freelance sound engineer. He provided a full sound rig to touring bands which was carried in his LWB van. He had wired a seperate circuit through the rear door courtesy light switch with an isolating switch in the cab, so it could be activated when parked up, connected to a theatre pyrotechnic, the sort of thing that makes a loud bang and lots of smoke when the fairy appears on stage. They are pretty safe as you can let them off as long as noone is within a few feet.

One night a few years previously his van was outside his house and he heard the bang. You can imagine how loud it would have been rattling around the inside of a van + the smoke and when he looked out 3 scrotes were going hare for leather down the road. He never had any problems after that.

He reckoned they were probably heading for the nearest M&S for some new shreddies. Not sure how legal this would be and these days he would probably get arrested for infringing their "human rights" to nick his kit