Have you heard about or lived in a neighborhood where each thing you own may be stolen?

How do you steal a washer and a fireplace?

I have no idea. Five men and a truck?

Yeah, but beyond that how does one do something like that without calling attention to themselves? I’m having trouble even picturing that.

It sounds like you’re saying that everyone in her neighbourhood is equally at risk, but haven’t you said before that it’s the people she knows who are the problem? Are fireplaces popping out of houses all over the place, or just hers?

She knows a lot of guys who have served time and/or are homeless. Good question about the neighbors. Do they also have things stolen? I’ll have to ask her. I assume a pretty woman living without an adult male figure is more at risk for theft.
To be totally honest, sometimes I think she sells these things cheap then lies about it.

@Aster Yeah, that had occurred to me, too. As an observer looking in, it seems plausible.

Stole a washing machine? Fucking money laundering bastards!

To me it doesn’t sound like it’s the neighborhood. It’s the people your daughter chooses to hang out with.

Our crime problems can be tied to people, usually entire families, that are crooks and not the neighborhood. And the ingenuity they use to steal stuff is amazing. If they put that kind of effort into working for a living they’d be set for life.

@Dutchess_III nailed it.

@jca Huh.

My partner owns rental properties in edgy parts of Chicago’s western suburbs where he one property was vacant and thieves took everything and anything metal. The appliances, tore out all the plumbing, fixtures and electrical wires….I mean everything! Stunning.

If the OP’s daughter has found her belongings among her friends’ things, that tells me she’s hanging out with the wrong people and chances are the issue is not the neighborhood itself.

This is probably not the most appropriate response to this Q…but I’m kind of impressed that they managed to lift the largest wood burning cast iron fireplace ever made.

Sounds like it’s not her choice of neighborhoods, it her choice of friends.

@Aster “To be totally honest, sometimes I think she sells these things cheap then lies about it.”

That seems more likely, frankly speaking.

Which daughter is this, the older or the younger?

Is this the same daughter whose lifestyle you’ve previously described as “chaotic” ? It sure sounds like it.

Where I live, if you buy a new TV, you have to take the box across town to throw it away. If you leave the box out for trash collection, the TV will be gone before the trash gets picked up.

Most of the morons who live around here know me and leave me alone, so I don’t have as much problem with that stuff as some of my neighbors. But once in a while I get a super-moron who didn’t get the memo.

This is my older daughter. The younger one, a Saint, lives way out in the country to the point her house is very hard to find and impossible to find at night I“m sure. They had one major theft and recently their new male German Shepherd disappeared.
And I agree about the cast iron stove. I just cannot envision how anybody could possibly have lifted it but they’ll never be cold again.

I hate to be reiterating the obvious here, but I’ll give it one more try.

You have written about your older daughter in previous Qs and described her situation as both her and her son (who apparently has dropped out of school) as constantly smoking weed and she has been on and off numerous other HARD drugs for years. (My guess would be that the OFF times were few and far between.)

Her son apparently stole Vicodin from your SO in one of their previous visits (altho why it couldn’t have been her is a little puzzling).

These are long term addicts here so I find it odd that you would be surprised about things of value constantly going missing. That’s what they do when they need drugs and can’t find any to steal. It’s a way of life for them. This is the typical chaos of the addicts lifestyle. And it has absolutely nothing to do with “the neighborhood”.

Of course she will put the blame elsewhere when things of obvious value are missing. I mean, it’s not as if she’d come right out and say “well I really needed (place drug of choice here, likely Vicodin) and someone offered me $xxx for the cast iron stove” or whatever.

Do you know how to tell when an addict is lying to you?...

…when their lips are moving.

And I’m sure she is hoping that some gullible person who cares about her being without a stove in the cold of winter will buy her a new one.

And that’s how addicts manipulate their enablers.

You really should seriously consider finding some local Al-Anon meetings (for families and loved ones of addicts) and going regularly. At least it would help you to wake up and smell the coffee a little sooner.

Addicts are selling off valuable possessions every day of the week (or stealing them from loved ones) and laying the blame on others. This is a way of life for them regardless of how nice a neighborhood they live in.

The most important thing to them, their top priority is getting their next supply of drugs. If they need to lie, steal, or whatever, then so be it.

The truth and their relationships with family are way way down on the priority list.

The sooner you recognize this dynamic, the less puzzling you will find her chaos to be. It just comes with the territory. Until she gets her ass into rehab and begins to live in sobriety not much will significantly change. If it isn’t one type of chaos it will be another.

I’m really not trying to be harsh with you here and I sincerely wish the best for you. But the reality of the situation is what it is.

Addicts don’t just magically wake up one fine day and decide not to be addicts any more and they’re not.

It takes concentrated effort and hard work to get put of this dysfunctional lifestyle and it’s difficult to do without help.

She really needs professional help, concentrated rehab and a commitment to sobriety.

She didn’t steal the Vicodin since he came alone. I sent him a bus ticket.
Addicts only have a chance of recovery IF they are committed to sobriety which they are not. They don’t want a cure because to them it’s a lifestyle and they don’t see any connection between drugs and their situation. Not that they think they have a problem anyway.
A few weeks after they moved into the “house” it mostly burned down. She had many beautiful clothes so she of course freaked out and called me crying quietly. Now they live in a cold, old, ugly 1971 Winnebago. A guy stole the copper wiring from it to the sink so they have no hot water. Copper wiring brings in decent money. Some guy got mad at her and let all the air out of the tires. She called his boss and told him he had blown cigarette smoke in her face when she was sleeping next to a window.
I think the number one thing about Alanon is to teach us not to give money to the addict. To hang up the phone if they’re abusive; that sort of thing. I get it. There are so many things I do not participate in like getting her cars fixed so she has been in that thing for three weeks now with no bath. Friends bring them dumpster food. Once in a while they go to a food pantry if they can catch a ride. I did send them a big box of Hickory Farms cheese and “meat.” I think mostly of him when I do this sort of thing. A friend gave her a goose down coat and she slept under it.
I do mail them certain things like herbal remedies, powdered milk etc. You can call that enabling if you want.