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On September 8, 1908, Mark Twain's home was burglarized. From that point forward, the author had this "Notice To The Next Burglar" posted prominently on his front door.
From the always fascinating Letters of Note:
NOTICE.
To the next Burglar.
There is nothing but plated ware in this house, now and henceforth. You will find it in that brass thing in the dining-room over in the corner by the basket of kittens. If you want the basket, put the kittens in the brass thing. Do not make a noise — it disturbs the family. You will find rubbers in the front hall, by that thing which has the umbrellas in it, chiffonier, I think they call it, or pergola, or something like that.
Please close the door when you go away!
Very truly yours,
S.L. Clemens
The Buena Vista Museum in Bakersfield, California, was the scene of a burglary Wednesday morning. A window was broken and two stuffed animals -a leopard and a dingo- were missing. Two blocks away, police found 55-year-old Henry Silvers, who had a stuffed dingo with him.
“I was just bored and decided I wanted to be a cat burglar,” Slivers told 23ABC in a jailhouse interview. “So I kicked in the window and tried to steal the lion but it was too heavy, so I stole the cat.”
“I took the leopard to my hotel. I then decided I wanted the dingo so I went back and took it. I took it to Jack In The Box because I wanted to have breakfast with it.”
23ABC asked Slivers what he was planning on doing with the dingo and he replied, “I was going to take it around town with me.”
Slivers told 23ABC he hadn’t taken his medicine for over a week.
Police found the other animal, an African leopard, in Silvers’ hotel room. Link -via Arbroath
A fire alarm alerted police to a break-in at Paesan’s Pizza in Rotterdam, New York about 1AM Friday. They found Timothy J. Cipriani wedged in an air duct with his legs dangling over a fryer in which the oil was still hot!
Cipriani allegedly told police he was trying to crawl inside the pizza parlor when he became trapped in the narrow vent. He was charged with burglary and possession of burglar tools.
Brown said a second person may have been involved, but disappeared before officers arrived.
Cipriani broke into the restaurant by first scaling a nearby tree and traversing the roof, Brown said. Once on the roof, he used a hammer to smash open air ducts.
Police took several photographs at the scene and shared them with reporters.
Police took 30 minutes to free Cipriani, who was taken, still covered in grease, to the Schenectady County jail. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Rotterdam Police Department)
An unnamed man broke into a funeral parlor in Vienna, Austria, found a bottle of wine, drank it, and fell asleep in a coffin where the undertaker found him in the morning!
The man, whose identity was withheld by police in Vienna, broke into an undertakers in Penzing district on Tuesday night. Undertaker Heinrich Altbart discovered the man fast asleep in one of the coffins the next morning. The 25-year-old intruder reportedly nodded off after having emptied a bottle of red wine he discovered in a wardrobe.
Altbart, who took a picture of the napping would-be robber, said today (Thurs) the man caused “substantial damage” by smashing the front door of his office.
No word on what the intruder was actually looking for. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Heinrich Altbart)
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When a would-be burglar was caught stuck in a store’s ventilation system, he’s got a handy excuse: he was playing hide and seek!
Deputies said Hall had removed the ventilation cover, crawled through the vent, got stuck and set off a fire extinguisher that sprayed powder all over the store, Chiominto said. [...]
Hall told deputies he was playing hide and seek on the roof with some other adults and decided to hide in the ventilation system.
When no one guessed where he was, the other players gave up looking, Hall told police.
Three years ago, someone robbed the home of the Fronterotta family in Gallup, New Mexico, taking money and jewelry. Then last week, the family received a package from the anonymous thief, containing the jewelry, an apologetic letter, and a promise to pay back the money:
The letter from the burglar that read in part, “Please forgive me, I so sorry I steal from you…so many bad things happen because I steal from you, I so sorry.”[...]
While some pieces were more expensive, Fronterotta said she is grateful for the return of sentimental pieces like a nearly 30-year-old pearl necklace and a bracelet given to her by a family member shortly before his death.
“I wish him well, he did the right thing by returning my stuff and I wish him well. I hope his life gets better,” she said.
Video at the link.
Link via Digg | Photo: flickr user DRB62, used under Creative Commons license
Now that sounds like a terribly criminal thing to do, but the creators of this website hope to warn people about the dangers of exposing too much personal information on the Internet:
Please Rob Me consists exclusively of an aggregation of public Twitter messages that have been pushed through fast-growing location-based networking site Foursquare, one of a handful of services that encourages people to share their whereabouts with their friends. You can filter by geographic location, too.
“On one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home,” the Please Rob Me site says to explain its rationale. “The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz, etc.”
Link via reddit | Pleaserobme.com | Photo: City of Goodyear, Arizona
This anti-burglar mat works just like flypaper! Leave the super sticky mat inside your doorway when you leave or go to bed. If a burglar breaks in, he will be confounded and frustrated. He will probably free himself, but won’t be interested in whatever else he thinks you might have in store for him. What could possibly go wrong?
Of course on the other hand that might just make them angry and want to tear up the place a bit, in addition to robbing you.
The anti-burglar mat will be on sale in Japan this fall. Link -via J-walk Blog
What would you do if you came home to find your house ransacked, and worse, that the burglar was still inside?
A couple from Montgomery, Alabama, did what some people might find unthinkable – they made the burglar clean up the mess he had made at gunpoint while they waited for the police to arrive.
“Tears just rolled down my face as I walked in and saw everything gone and piles of trash all over my home,” Mrs. McKinnon told her local newspaper the Montgomery Advertiser.
When her husband walked into another room to check what was missing he came face to face with the burglar, who was wearing one of Mr. McKinnon’s hats.
“My husband Adrian caught the thief red-handed in our home. And what is even crazier, the man even had my husband’s hat sitting right on his head,” Mrs. McKinnon said.
Mr. McKinnon held suspect Tajuan Bullock at gunpoint and made him sit down until he decided what to do.
“We made this man clean up all the mess he made, piles of stuff, he had thrown out of my drawers and cabinets onto the floor,” Mrs. McKinnon said.
When the police arrived the work-shy burglar had the cheek to complain to them – about having to clean up his mess at gunpoint.
(image credit: Flickr user mrittenhouse)
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by jayceh.
28-year-old Brett Kerr attempted to rob a home in Christchurch, New Zealand, but messed the job up in so many ways. The victim’s son, Greg Kitson, was amazed at the incompetence of the caper.
Mr Kitson sped over to his parents’ house after his wife noticed a fire in the kitchen. When he got there, he did not know who to call first. “We had a fire, we had a burglary and we had someone injured so it was like an all-play.”
He believes it all went wrong for Kerr when he tripped taking a drum set down a narrow spiral staircase, and apparently knocked himself out.
“This might be where he done himself in, then he thinks, ‘Ah! It’s a good time to get the plasma TV when I’m knocked out and totally out of it.’”
Bleeding profusely, it seems Kerr then set fire to the kitchen before deciding it was time for a lie-down.
The burglar’s actions puzzled Mr Kitson.
“Why would someone come in, light a fire, go upstairs and fall asleep?”
There are two remarkable things about this BBC news report from Edinburgh, Scotland. First, a man tried to break into a flat carrying a pitch fork. And second, he was chased away by a man dressed as the Norse god Thor.
"Thor" was actually Torvald Alexander, who was dressed-up for a New Year’s dress party. Link
If you’re curious, Telegraph has a photo of Torvald in his Thor costume.
