a peek inside the fishbowl

01 Aug, 2016

Thinking about recent thefts in Westboro

Posted by andrea tomkins in: Misc. life|Ottawa

As some of you already know, our place was broken into a few weeks ago. This has left me a little bit paranoid, as you can imagine. There have been a number of B&E’s around our area and I’ve also heard reports of bikes going missing.

Sidebar: have you ever taken a look at the Ottawa Police crime map? It’s actually quite interesting and gives you a good picture of what crimes are happening in your neighbourhood as well as the kinds of crimes are happening. You can access it from this page (then click “launch the Ottawa Crime Mapping Tool” on the right side of the page).

Anyway, I rode my bike to work the other day and got to thinking about my bike and how much it would suck if it got stolen.

My Bike

It’s pretty old, and it’s not valuable, but it would be a major inconvenience if it was stolen and I would be pretty sad to lose it. And THEN I thought, if it did get stolen, would I be able to describe it to the police? Ha. Not really. If someone asked I would describe it as a red and blue mountain bike but that’s about it. It’s weird, but even though I’ve owned this bike for years it’s a rather unremarkable part of my domestic scenery that I don’t notice anymore – like wallpaper – although the fact that I don’t know if there are any markings on my bike doesn’t make it less valuable to me.

So I decided to take two minutes out of my day to snap a few photos of my bike. If it’s ever stolen, at least now I’ll have something to show the police, the insurance company, and pawn shops. :|

I took a few wide shots, as well as closeups of some distinctive scratches and marks. As far as I could tell, my bike doesn’t have a serial number.

My bike

My Bike

My Bike

Seriously, it took two minutes. Although it won’t prevent it from getting stolen, at least I feel a little more prepared. I even went so far as to tag the file names in my terribly disorganized photo library so I’ll be able to find them quickly. I just hope I never need to find them!


1 Response to "Thinking about recent thefts in Westboro"

1 | G

August 2nd, 2016 at 9:32 am

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I live in Toronto and between my husband and I, we have had a bike stolen and a bike tire stolen in the past 4 years. They were not expensive items, but the inconvenience factor was huge (main form of transportation for him) and I felt so violated. I HIGHLY recommend getting an extra strong U-Lock (worth the money!) and that the bike is locked up properly (U-Lock through the front tire and through the frame, it is too easy to snip off a chain lock) to avoid a tire being stolen. It is sometimes tricky to do, but the extra time is worth it for peace of mind! I also try to lock up my bike in very public spots (i.e. lots of foot traffic where someone couldn’t simply saw off the lock). I know you did not ask for advice, but I hope you don’t mind me sharing the lessons I was forced to learn! haha

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My name is Andrea and I live in the Westboro area of Ottawa with my husband Mark and our dog Piper who is kind of a big deal on Instagram. We also have two human offspring: Emma (24) and Sarah (22). During the day I work as a writer at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre. I am a longtime Ottawa blogger and I've occupied this little corner of the WWW since 1999. The Fishbowl is my whiteboard, water cooler, and journal, all rolled into one. I'm passionate about healthy living, arts and culture, travel, great gear, good food, and sharing the best of Ottawa. I also love vegetables, photography, gadgets, and great design.

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