Burglars get an in to home garages.

Byline: Bill Bishop The Register-Guard

To the list of items not to leave in your car for thieves to steal, add one more: garage door opener.

Thieves increasingly are taking them from cars and later breaking into garages and homes in Eugene - thus hitting victims twice, said Eugene police Detective Sgt. Jay Shadwick, who supervises the property crimes team.

"The word is getting out. More and more of these crooks are figuring out this is another way to get into places," Shadwick said.

Eugene resident Dan Hagengruber found out the hard way one night two weeks ago when he forgot to lock his car in the driveway and someone used the opener to steal a hunting bow, high-end air rifle and other items from his garage while he and his family slept.

Making matters worse, it was the third time since October that thieves struck at his house off Coburg Road.

Hagengruber says he is installing motion-activated lights above his garage, buying a dog and paying closer attention to strangers on his block. He also expects his insurance costs to increase substantially.

"It does have big implications if you're hit more than once," he said. "There is a different degree of anger."

Shadwick estimates about 20 percent of recent garage break-in victims heard their garage door open unexpectedly, sometimes at night, but did not investigate or phone police.

He advises homeowners to phone police rather than confront intruders. Such calls rate the highest priority for response, he says. Interviews with burglary suspects show the majority are high on drugs when they break in, although there is another group that does it for the thrill in addition to money, he says.

"A lot of them say they have to be high to do it," he said. "Some can't remember where they've been."

While the overall number of home burglaries is not increasing, the number involving the use of stolen garage door openers is spiking in Eugene, he says. The actual number involving remote openers is not compiled. The technique has been reported in Springfield, although it hasn't become common yet, Springfield Police Sgt. Mike McCarthy says.

Police recommend that residents photograph the contents of their home, record serial numbers of their property or engrave items with their initials or some other unique mark so they can be returned if they are recovered. Doors between a garage and house should always be locked. House keys should never be left inside a car because thieves can check the vehicle registration papers to learn the victim's address.

Eugene police offer a free home and business security inspection and help in marking property. Springfield's inspection program is temporarily suspended, but the city offers tips about home security under the community services section of the Springfield police Web site.

When people discover their remote garage opener is missing, they should immediately unplug the opening mechanism in their garage and contact a vendor to obtain a new remote opener and a new code for the mechanism, says Josh Rice, garage door supervisor at Lane County Glass in Eugene.

New remote openers - some small enough for a key chain - cost between $30 and $40. Openers more than 10 years old use a radio frequency that carries fewer than 3,000 codes, so it's possible for thieves to drive around randomly trying to open doors, Rice notes. Upgrading to equipment providing billions of codes costs $300 to $400.

While it hasn't been proved, Shadwick believes that some garages could have been opened by random use of an old-style opener.

"There have been several cases where people didn't know how the door got opened," Shadwick said.

Since the break-in at his garage, Hagengruber says he is more jumpy about sounds in the night, more involved in his Neighborhood Watch and more suspicious of strangers.

"I don't like that that is happening to me," he said.