26 thoughts on “What My Next Door Neighbor Found In Her Driveway This Morning”

      • Hi Todd,
        That is my stuff. Someone broke into my car on Manchester street last night and stole a bunch of random stuff from my car. The medical stuff there is clean and unused. I am a veterinary radiologist, and I use those biopsy instruments and syringes. The metal brackets are for a dog gate in my Subaru. There was also a black, cloth soft sided storage bin. Please hold onto it until I can get it back. My wife could potentially come over during the day today.
        -Dan

      • Sorry your car got broken into Dan. For many years, dating back from the time when urban crime rates were much higher, I’ve never left anything in my car, whether valuable or not. Not even out of sight in the trunk.

        While that may not be practical for everyone, I do recommend it to minimize the chance of getting your window because someone saw something that turned out to be an empty box of cat litter or something equally worthless.

  3. Since the beginning B.H. has always been a working class neighborhood with standards very different from a lot of the new people moving in. Try living at the top of the hill which has been the usual dumping ground for those too lazy to take their refuse to Recology. Up here you can see what it’s like to find a mattress and paint cans in your driveway. Maybe the city will come get them. Or maybe not.

  4. On Anderson I recently found a backpack with an opened package of unused syringes marked for diabetes – left on top of the recycle bin.

  6. A bunch of cars were broken into on Manchester last night. Seems like they used one of those “code grabber” devices, as windows weren’t broken? Such a bummer for people to wake up to. Feels very violating, even if the stolen items weren’t actually valuable.

  7. Hi Todd,

    I sent this to Rick Karp this morning and thought you might like to see it.

    Hi Rick,

    I recently saw your announcements regarding your new stores in North Beach and SOMA. I hope theses are good business moves for you. You mentioned in your post that the SOMA store would be accessible to your former Mission Street customers, but I have to disagree with that statement in the strongest of terms. I live very near the old Mission Street store and I assure you that your new SOMA store in NOT accessible to your Mission Street customers. The SOMA location is neither walkable for us or driveable because of the deplorable parking conditions leaving MUNI as the only alternative. My conclusion is that you have abandoned finding a new store space in the La Lengua/Bernal/Noe areas which leaves us completely in the lurch for a hardware store and this makes me VERY angry. You have abandoned a large group of very loyal customers who have strongly supported the Mission Street store for many years. I really hope you intend to continue exploring store location alternatives in the Mission/30th area.

    My anger with your moves has led me to deicide whether I really feel like supporting your other stores. Right now I would say no.

    Jack McNeal 70 Valley street

    • Whoa. Rick Karp owns a business. He built it. He paid for it. He made a lot of San Franciscans happy with his products and his community involvement. But he doesn’t owe me, you or anyone else easy access to his stores. It is 100% his choice where he does business. He didn’t burn down his Mission store. I miss it terribly. I hope we get another hardware store in the area. But, damn, it’s not Rick Karp’s job to make me happy. In other words, I am not entitled to have all of my needs met at my convenience.

      • Whoa is right.
        Let me get this straight: Rick Karp is the owner of Cole Hardware. His store burns down. A crummy turn of events. He decides not to reopen, for reasons that I suspect are sound business decisions, instead opening a store in SOMA.

        And this is what makes Jack McNeil “VERY angry.” VERY angry enough to send *that* letter?

        Hmmmmm…,I’m thinking you either spend a lot of time writing angry letters or you have some special and extremely special affinity for hardware stores. Either way, not cool.

        P.S. Have you seen Greenberg? If not, I highly recommend it JM.

    • What the Rick Karp letter actually says:

      “The building that housed the Mission Street store, as you know, has been totally demolished. The property owner is unsure of his future plans at this point. If we have the opportunity to purchase the property at an affordable price, or if we are offered a reasonable lease in a new building there, we most certainly will open up once again in our previous space. In the meantime, we will continue to watch for space and hopefully will be part of the Mission community once again.”

      So Cole Hardware hasn’t found a space to lease near the old store, and the old location is probably years away from being rebuilt. I’m sure Cole would love to set up shop next door to the old location, but it can’t just magically happen.

    • Wow…all I can say is wow. What an empty-headed comment. Rick is in business. He does what he can with the resources he has. Actually it’s probably better that this customer might stop supporting Cole because he’s probably an ornery nuisance as a customer anyway.

    • I emailed Cole Hardware to let them know that Jack McNeal don’t speak for everyone in the neighborhood. I received a very nice reply from Rick Karp saying that they still plan on coming back to the Mission, but it could be 3 years before their landlord can rebuild. They miss us just as much we miss them.

  10. How was it not obvious that this was from a car break in from the get go?

    Most injection drug users are using syringes more like this one.
    http://www.ec21.com/product-details/Insulin-Syringe-with-Fixed-Needle–5703350.html

    I worked for the City for many years and cleaned up lots of needles. 95% of them were the type above, nothing like the photo.

    Check the unjustified outrage. Or does it just get to transfer to the car robbery? I guess y’all gotta direct it somewhere…

    • Gee whiz, you’re right, it’s too bad the previous commenters weren’t up on the current standards of what junkies use to shoot up and then throw in the street. I’m so glad you were able to clear that up for us. Next time I run across abandoned medical waste I’ll be sure to stop and use your helpful info verify that it really was used and tossed by a drug addict before allowing myself to feel anything. Once it’s clear whether it was medical waste from junkie versus medical waste from a car break in, I can appropriately channel my outrage. From your post, I’m gathering that it would be acceptable to be outraged and disgusted if those were really syringes from drug use, but since it was a mere car break in, my reaction must fall somewhere short of outrage? Is annoyed an ok reaction for you with regards to car break ins, or is that too strong too? Would dejected resignation be better?

  11. Dan,
    Are you the guy who was broken in near Good Life? Blue Car my wife spoke to?
    I have pretty good security video if you want to pursue – stop by our house! – Rob

    • Sadly even with video they will not go to jail or even get in real trouble I had video of my car being broken into, Her face was crispy clear and I saw her in the alemany underpass in a tent called police, and they found some items that belonged to me and they said if I really wanted the headache, missed work days I could go ahead and press charges. I was mad but I gave up and walked away she got away with stealing my stuff. She basically laughed at me?

      • That,s the typical SF Progressive response to “quality of life” crimes like yours…. Pressing charges would be a “war on the poor.” She lives in a tent — poor. Want to change things? Vote out the “progressives” who run city hall.

  12. Yes, of course. The Progressive Boogeyman that every cop carries in his or her pocket prevented them from arresting someone caught with the goods. I actually think it should be blamed on Obama. He and every progressive politician in SF (especially Bernal Heights) have a conference call each night to conspire on how to build more tent cities and close jails. One night a week they invite landlord representatives into the conversation so as to assure that more people will be evicted and move into tents. It’s a grand conspiracy. They know that when Scott Weiner and his ilk win, A great cloud of peace and prosperity will appear. Poor people will move to Richmond or move into the jails. There will be a cop assigned to every block in Bernal Heights. Each hour a new MUNI line bus, a big white bus, will leave from Good Life and go directly to the Hall of Justice. Ah! Paradise. The best thing about it is that, by law, the bus will be driven by termed out or losing progressive politicians. And once all the poor people are out of our sight, rents will be reduced, coffee will be $ .75 a cup and there will be a yacht in every driveway. Can’t wait for 11/9.

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