This morning, one of our neighbors caught some pretty suspicious people lurking around our development. They had inadvertently left their garage door open over night.
Unfortunately I am unable to upload the original video but their video shows a black Mazda parked across from the house from about 2:40 - 4:45AM. A young girl with brunette hair was walking around the neighborhood and there was a male in the passenger seat that might have been as well (really hard to tell from the camera angle). Their dog woke them up barking at these two before the girl tried to come right up to the opened garage. The homeowner was able to walk out and scare her off before she was able to do anything further.
On Sunday night, another neighbor saw a blue (2006-2010) Lexus IS 350 with one or both bumpers missing parked next to the park with a male and female. The resident drove past them and proceeded to turn around and asked if they needed help. They indicated their car had overheated but proceeded to start the engine and turn around at the first available left turn and left the neighborhood.
If you see an open garage door past dinnertime, I would recommend reaching out to your neighbor to see if it is intentional. Make sure your car doors are locked and nothing valuable to left on your porch.
Lastly, not every encounter needs to be confrontational when we see cars/people we find suspicious in our neighborhood, sometimes people really do just need help because they are turned around or are looking for an address, delivering food, etc.... and sometimes, they just need to know that someone is paying attention and sees them. Sometimes, that's all it takes to deter possible criminal activity.
Thank you for posting and great advice. The neighborhood can definitely become a different place after hours, so it's important to keep your home as uninviting as possible. We dealt with "forgetting to close garage doors" for a period and all it took was some friendly reminders from our then neighbors to get us into better habits. During daily walks in our area, I wave and make eye contact with drivers (residents and non) also to make sure they know we are a neighborhood with awareness.