Pete's Log: Thank You, Tire Thieves!

Entry #2022, (Home Automation, Life in General)
(posted when I was 43 years old.)

It's been a good 9-10 months since somebody threw a tire over our back fence, so it's a bit embarrassing to admit we hadn't gotten around to dealing with it yet. We looked up tire recycling centers but they were all pretty far and we've been a bit overwhelmed as is, plus it's annoying to have to deal with a tire that isn't yours.

Luckily, that situation has resolved itself. Jamie noticed yesterday that the tire wasn't there anymore. Curious, we went to review the camera footage on the camera that was motivated by the tire in the first place. The cameras all save footage to the NAS when they detect motion and I currently don't have a job in place to delete old footage.

We had to go back a bit, but we found that on October 14, a truck was driving down our alley and the driver noticed the tire. He got out wearing a high-vis vest. He reached over the fence, grabbed the tire, threw it in the back of his truck and then drove off again.

We were happy to have the tire gone, but curious. The video players I have on Esgerbeastie didn't seem to be able to zoom in enough, so we opened the video on Jamie's Mac and were able to zoom in enough to make out the words "Desplaines Valley" on the truck.

One of the top results for that term is the Desplaines Valley Mosquito Abatement District and an image search for that revealed trucks that looked like the one that came through our alley. So we're pretty sure that's who it was. Looking over their website we've learned that they'll come pick up tires if we call them. So that's nice to have learned. Hopefully having a tire thrown over our fence is a one-time occurrence, though.