Trailer Locks

[4570Man]

My usual theft deterrent is you can’t steal what you can’t find.

 

[sandman2234]

My best theft deterrent is staying home and keeping a loaded peashooter close.
David from jax

 

[kthompson]

Saw a custom made lock for a door that was a boxed or pipe where the lock was only accessible at the key end of the lock. No way to get any cutting device to the lock, might could be drilled.

 

[thepumpguysc]

I had a vacation home where we leave the 3 jet ski's.. 1 single & 1 double..
I take a wheel off the trailers & put them in the garage & put the lug nuts in my glove box.. & padlock the tongue.
Came back 1 weekend & the garage door was busted open, the wheel was gone & so was the single ski..[new]
They musta only had 1 truck cuz the double was there [older skis].. they took the lugs offa it, to mount the other wheel.. [different lug pattern]
Luckily I got it back..

 

[stingray1]

I feel two of the best deterrents are parking them out of veiw and removing the wheels.

 

[pmsmechanic]

Probably the cheapest anti theft would be a ball with the threads cut off and locked into the coupler.

A few well placed blows with a hammer will remove an ordinary padlock.

 

[lennyzx11]

Lately I pull my pickup forward into the garage while pulling the car hauler and drop the car trailer at the door. Tongue facing and near the door.
My theory is that'll make it a PITA to get either one. Truck or trailer.

I have other vehicles to drive also though.

 

[bdhsfz6]

One of my neighbors has a lakefront summer place. Over the years, he's had 3 trailers stolen from his property. He tried many of the ideas suggested in this post with no luck. Finally, he hid a camera covering the driveway and installed a GPS lojack device in his boat. Within a month the thief was caught. Turned out to be a nearby resident in the lake community who made a pretty good living stealing from summer folk.

 

[PILOON]

"Within a month the thief was caught. Turned out to be a nearby resident* in the lake community who made a pretty good living stealing from summer folk."

Sadly it seems that most lake communities suffer the same ailment, I know we do.
Last summer they hit 9 chalets stealing anything sellable at pawn shops or yard sales.
In our case even stoves, and other furniture. Seems they had a moving van.
They were brazen enough to actually have camped in one house.
Naturally all booze also 'evaporated'.

Over the years I personally have been responsible for causing the arrest of 5 perps.
Very satisfying. (LOL, neighbors awarded me a plastic toy 'Police' badge)
Today most of our residents have a monitoring system of one kind or another so crooks beware.

* same here. A local gets to know the routines and the safe times. Usually fall after 'back to school' and never if any snow around. (leaves tracks)

But we learn.
Have a gate? don't close it as that indicates you are away, leave it open.
Retrieve the trash bin, if by the road they know you are away.
Leave a curtain open, one that has nothing of value within eyesight. If a perp sees a flat screen, VCR and booze he'll for sure break in but if nothing of value you might get passed up.
I know of some that even leave an old non functional car parked within view simply to suggest they are home.

 

[CincyFlyer]

I知 not a thief either but I致e cut through about a dozen lost key locks with my cordless grinder. It takes less than a minute even for the big heavy ones. I致e cut plenty of chains and cables for a re hook. Again it痴 no challenge. To stand any chance of working you need to protect the lock for access with a grinder and abandon the idea of chains or cables.

I used to repossess motorcycles, and even 35 years ago we had a Dremel tool running off of an inverter with one of those very thin abrasive disks. Cut through any lock or chain that we found. Of course, I could pick the fork locks in most cases, and had key records for others.
I think the biggest deterrent would be hard labor for an offender, perhaps one year for a first offense.