Car prowls on the Hill: Time to clean out your car

We won't have stats from East Precinct for months but, trust us, we're seeing a lot of car break-ins in the police reports for Capitol Hill. What we do have are anecdotes like this from neighbor Phobia in the CHS Classifieds:

I am trying to help my friend who was a victim of auto crime. Her car got broken into last night, Nov. 13, at the corner of Union and 11th. She lost her Coach tote bag with some important documents and a hard drive inside. All she wants are the things that have very little value to anyone. If you are out there, please take the cash and the bag but please send all other things back to her. I know it's really rare that a criminal would read a neighborhood blog, but I don't have other ideas. Thank you

The chances are very slim that Phobia's friend will get her stuff back but the incident can do some good. You can take a lesson from this and make sure you remove anything and everything of value -- and, really, everything -- from your car.

While we don't have the stats, we do have a powerful new tool we're continuing to build on at our partner site SeattleCrime.com.

Here's a map of the last 30-days of reported car prowls in the Capitol Hill area.

Click for latest map

Locations are approximate -- we only get block locations from SPD -- but you can see the Hill hot spots. And, of course, for every prowl reported, there are probably three that somebody didn't bother to call in.

So, time to clean up your car. Here's a comment from neighbor Lolalaptop to inspire:

Rash of car break ins in my neighborhood

I am sorry to hear that your friend lost her valuables.

My car was broken into a few weeks ago, 13th and Mercer, and thankfully nothing of value was taken, but the interior had been thoroughly torn apart in what was probably a quick, expert manner. I posted a note about it in my building, and learned that the same had happened up and down the block to many, many cars.

Yes, there were visible bags (of paper to recycle, nothing of value!) in my car that may have led them to bother breaking into my car.

Lesson learned: my car is now fastidiously empty and will remain so. People are desperate and while you can't stop them from breaking into your car, you can lessen the probability that they'll bother with your car by keeping it visibly empty.