Unfortunately, the weekend ended on Sunday with a burglary. H was working out at the gym where some lowlife broke into all the lockers in the gym and cleaned them out. H had her wallet stolen, along with her car keys, credit cards, drivers license and such. She called me and I came running down to the gym to see what I could do for her. Unfortunately the people at 24 Hour Fitness were less than helpful and acknowledged that there was actually a high crime rate at their gym. In fact, just the night before, there was another burglary with some guy doing the same thing. This gentleman was in jail as we spoke, so this particular crime was perpetrated by yet someone else. So, I ran over to the park next to the gym and started looking for someone walking around with H’s gym bag ready to engage in violence. After spending ten minutes looking around for people and through the garbage cans, I walked back to the gym where we drove home to make all the appropriate calls to prevent as much fraud as possible but found a message left on the phone from a checker down at Smiths Marketplace telling us that there was a couple down there trying to get access to our bank account through the ATM. This checker followed them outside to find the remnants of H’s wallet missing of course the money, the drivers license and all the credit cards. We ran down, filed a police report, but I suspect that is all that will happen with this effort. We were able to shut down the credit cards, her cell phone and ATM, but we are still out approximately $500-900 from this little burglary when all costs are accounted. In addition, they were able to make off with about $40 in gas and Mountain Dew (what is it with criminals and Mountain Dew?) from a local station. It makes me sad and angry particularly because H and I have worked hard to get where we are. At one time I worked three jobs while simultaneously paying for college and lowlifes that will steal on any level simply do not deserve to remain in polite society.
There is a relatively simple fix to some of the crime in gyms like 24 Hour Fitness. Criminals know that there are no cameras allowed in the locker rooms, so belongings in them are easy pickings. Yet all the gyms have to do is engage in social engineering and move the lockers out into the main traffic areas of the gym. People can still go into the locker room for privacy to change or shower, but they come out into the main area to actually store their belongings in lockers that are fully visible to the larger building.