Huckleberry said:
There used to be a television show about ex-cons who would stake out a house to rob and then break in. Then they would return all the goods and install a free security system in the house. I always wondered how they could do that and not be held responsible by the law. I think the situation was staged. But one thing they would often say is that burglars love getting personal information from their victims. That personal information equals more $$$. If they get your wallet they can watch your house, call to see if your home, maybe they have a key to your car or front door. They know if you have a CC permit or not. It makes their job much simpler.
They still have that show, and it is pre-planned. That's how they get all the camera equipment inside. They don't tell the occupants when they'll come back, but they've gotten an advanced agreement to do it. For some people, that new, modern security system is probably a great payment for letting someone ransack their house (the show takes care of all the clean up too), but I've seen a couple of shows where valuable collectibles have been destroyed in the process because they guy doing the break-ins doesn't even have a clue they're valuable, but he will snatch up things like credit cards, checkbooks, passports, etc., if he finds them, plus the keys to neighbors' homes, the car, boat, etc. If someone gives you a spare key to hold, don't write their name or address on the key tag, or list what your keys are for. My method is to keep the key on a key chain that reminds me something about the person...their alma mater, an animal they like, some color that reminds me of them, etc., so a random stranger would have no way to match the keys to the owner if they got ahold of them, but I can remember which key is which. On that show, they are always installing locked boxes for holding all the keys, with a combination lock or keypad entry, which I think is overboard. I'd probably forget the combination.
It's an interesting show. I'm not so into locking down my home like a fortress the way the final product of the houses on that show wind up, but the guy does have the mentality of your standard petty thief, so it's interesting to watch how he decides what to take and what to leave behind when he can only carry so much. He's passed over extremely valuable items thinking it was just junk, and taken some fairly worthless stuff thinking it might be worth something, and as I mentioned above, has ruined the value on other things not realizing that, for example, the boxes some things were in made them valuable, so when he ruined the boxes cramming them into a bag, he ruined the value.
I'm so sorry to hear about this...what a major pain in the neck! 
Just kidding, of course.
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