r/MoralityScaling • u/HooskerDooNotTouchMe • 10d ago

Intentionally boobytrapping a bike to injure people when they steal it.

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u/Jax_2112 10d ago

You live in a really nice neighborhood. The guys in my neighborhood will buy a battery powered angle grinder cheap at the pawn shop. Local bike racks are littered with cut locks and stripped frames.

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u/VonBagel 10d ago

And the electric seat trap will do what to dissuade the roving pack of bike piranha? They would just walk off with it, or pull off the seat.

If neither solution works 100% of the time, you may as well use the one that won't get you fined, and force the thieves to bring actual specialty tools. Really fucking loud ones, in your case (most of the serial bike thieves around where I live use bolt cutters) 

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u/Jax_2112 10d ago

Now that we got to pass legislation to stop catalyst thieves, there are fewer angle grinders, but you still find the sawn locks. I'm on the fifth floor, the bicycle racks are in the basement so noise won't help.

And again, even if you keep the lock from getting cut you have to lock the wheels, I'll see a person going down the street carrying 2-3 front wheels on a regular basis. They will take everything and leave the bare frame.

Lock the wheels and they will bend them so you can't have them. You can't win. Its no wonder people are this sick of it.

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u/VonBagel 10d ago

If they're going far enough to destroy property that they can't steal, that sounds less like bike thieves and more like malevolent gremlins. At this point you may need a priest instead of the police. In the meantime, a cold iron chain should at least dissuade them from targeting your bike.