Stolen in Broad Daylight- Theft from a Moving RV

hi I'm calling to report a theft from our RV welcome back to the RV odd couple my name is John and I'm Mercedes long story short we sold most of our possessions in pursuit of freedom independence and adventure as life is way too short guys and in this video we're gonna talk about unfortunately a cruddy experience that happened to us where somebody stole a very expensive item off of our rig not while we're sitting but while we were moving so in this video we're gonna share with you what happened in the hopes that you can avoid having this situation because we made a couple of mistakes we're gonna talk about some tips on what I could have done to prevent that or at least made it a little bit harder for them to get it so stick around to the end and we've got a fantastic announcement Mercedes and I have been invited to be the keynote speaker at a little conference in a place called Shipshewana Indiana we're gonna tell you about that hopefully some of the RV odd squad members that live near there can come out and we can meet you guys you know it's been nine months since we've been RVing we have never had anything stolen from us whatsoever and unfortunately the law of averages say that it will if it can't happen it will and finally it did so it all started out we were leaving Colorado on our way to Indiana we had just visited family and we were already in a rush because we had extended our stay with our family we had gotten sick it was just we're already pressed for time yeah the last part of our stay in Colorado was brutal all three of us got sick saij puked all over me it was a rough end to a beautiful visit okay so to start out when we bought our rig Mercedes and I decided to purchase two generators for backup power why - because we have two AC units that run 16,000 BTUs and to get a unit big enough to run both C's at the same time and give me the 50 amps that I need it would have been way too large way too heavy for me to use that and I needed that space on the rig so I chose to purchase two champion dual fuel 3400 inverter generators now I've loved them they have worked absolute fantastic and what's interesting is I've only needed to use one because one will power one AC unit and the rest of the power that we do we've never had two twin them which is why I purchased two now the other thing that I did when we bought our rig was I added an additional basket right for the back bumper and what that was was to carry two generators so I could lock them down at night what's really nice about this basket is my generator fit in there just like it was meant to be right so one would fit on one side and the other would fit on the other side I could flip them around so that both exhausts were going out the sides and not you know burning anything so it was perfect now we've traveled with the generator in that basket before again we've only been using one so I would throw the generator in that basket and I would lock it down same way I did with a cargo strap but then also locking bolt if you were ever gonna leave it out overnight now on this day I put it in the back bin i cargo strapped it down with two ties and we I just never thought to really lock it up because we knew we were going to be using it that night and this certainly there's no way that somebody's gonna jump out and grab it while we're in the truck right well it looks like that's exactly what they did unfortunately while we were leaving we hit every single red light because there is a ton of construction nearby and we hit every single red light someone opportunistically was riding right behind us jumped out of the truck undid the cargo straps and just lift it off the Colorado traffic is insane so it took us a while to get up to the highway once we get on the highway we didn't stop for 80 miles right I did Mic Check we were good to go so we went ahead drove about 80 miles and at the first rest area that we came to we pulled over and I went to do my typical walk-around inspection of the RV right let's check everything make sure that everything's still on the rig and that's when I noticed that the generator was gone it was completely gone I could not believe it when I looked down and that generator was gone I I mean there's no possible way that it would have jumped out of that basket all by itself somebody literally had to go up undo the cargos lift it out and throw it in the back of the truck now it's not very hard to do one of the reasons I bought two two pair is that each one weighs 120 pounds which means I can lift it by myself without any threat to hurt in my back unfortunately we've been having problems with our Fury on rare camera since we purchased it we don't know if it's a fury on problem or the way that Camping World set it up I would bet that it's the latter but the camera would constantly go in and out had that camera worked consistently we certainly would have picked it up we would have saw somebody in the back and probably would have been able to stop them what's super frustrating is that we had just replaced the battery John already had prepped the oil or whatever because it's a dual fuel and he did whatever the guys do to get it right and and he had it primed and ready to go for this long trip where we knew we were going to have to boondock the second one is still in the box and I am so grateful that we have the second one but I didn't understand that in order to use the second one he has to do all this stuff to it so it's not like you can just take it out of the box and plug it in exactly so you guys know that there's a break-in period with these generators and I need to run it eight hours straight before shutting it out drain the oil and then put new oil in it and then it will be broken in so we're not going to be able to use that generator that generator is in the back of my truck and I just haven't put it together yet so there's absolutely no way that they would have come loose these cargo straps both have hooks that went around a one-inch steel beam so it was in there I tighten it so tight that the gas the gas tank actually bent in a little bit there's no way that it ever could have bounced out of there well yeah and the stuff next to it didn't rise out of there so as soon as we realized it was gone Mercedes jumped on the phone we called the Aurora Police Department in Aurora Colorado and we found out some interesting facts when you get things stolen if the items stolen is less than two thousand dollars you have to file a report online huge portion of the RV odd squad is either a retired veteran or retired law enforcement but it was just so frustrating that it's just so pervasive that there's actually a dollar amount limit at which point you get the personalized attention and the other mistake that we made knowing what we know now is we were outside of the vicinity so they couldn't even have come to us even if they did have the manpower so my biggest fear is that this is just gonna be some piece of paperwork filed and we'll never get revisited right so we're gonna share with you the quick lessons that we learn and the first is don't assume that just because your vehicle is moving that means that possessions are safe so people are opportunistic and given the opportunity they will jump out of their vehicle and grab something the second is don't put up with the unacceptable so the fact that our fury on has been failing for as long as it has is not acceptable and we have been letting way too many things slide yeah we've got another camera to hook up I just haven't had the time to put the next camera on so a Mercedes saying is is that it's no longer acceptable for us to be having a backup camera that is not reliable you know if the camera was working I would have been able to get out of the truck run back and probably scare them away before you finished you know what I mean but that's not the case that's not what happened the amount of hours that we spend working is no excuse not to take care of first things first so she's pointing her finger at me but I'm not I should have taken care of this a long time ago it is my fault I also from now on I will be using the cable locks that I purchased for this exact reason I have to cable locks for this I will be using those even if we're going to be in transit so I'll be doing the two ties and locking it down so that they cannot be stolen the next mistake that we made was we let our guard down we were in what we considered familiar area we were in our hometown we felt safe and the neighborhood has changed a lot I mean it has been many years since we've been there but don't let your guard down just because you're in a familiar area that was a really big mistake because had you've been in another state we don't know if we're in a good part of town or a bad part of town so we just assumed that we're in a bad part of town but knowing that we were in a decent part of town put our guard down what was tricky about it is is it kinda start a direct arrive right I mean it's a straight generator we love it it's $1,000 I just done a great tune-up on it so I mean with I was sick to my stomach once you you know I don't know if you guys I've ever had that happen before but it's like that I can't believe somebody took that moment and then it starts to sink in the loss right the thousand dollars all the work that I'd done the work that I put into it and the fact that we're just starting to head out on a trip where I needed that generator right and but then this happened we stopped it the final rest stop in Colorado right across the Colorado Nebraska border and as we're driving through and it says welcome to Colorado and we're having mixed feelings because we miss our family we just had something stolen from us leaving Colorado we drive by this guy that it looks like he has all his possessions in his backpack and he has a gallon jug of water and all of a sudden everything was put into perspective right and so for our special announcement this weekend the 27 28th and 29th there is a small youtubers conference and we are the keynote speakers on Saturday night so if you're interested we will link to it and if you're in the area we'd love to see you come say hello and learn a little bit about YouTube it would be so cool to have some of you guys if you're in the area come out and we can meet you that we love meeting RV odd squad members in the field so since we are talking about safety and security in the next video we are going to talk about an experience that taught us a lot about maintaining your safety while inside the RV see in the next video see you later guys

Channel: RV Odd Couple

Views: 307,643

Keywords: RV Life, rv living, Rv theft, rv theft protection, theft, robbed, stolen, rv full time, full time rv living, rv odd couple, rv living full time, living in an rv, full time rv, living in a rv full time, RV, full time rving, rv life full time, full time rv living in a fifth wheel, Rving, RVer, rv living full time tour, rv lifestyle, rv living full time cost, rv trip, full time rv living cost, full time rv living in a travel trailer, rving across america, RV Travel, rv safety

Id: s_V7lKYUNbk

Length: 10min 33sec (633 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 25 2019