slideshow

There was something that rather puzzled me over the past couple of months and a friend just unraveled the mystery this week, but the answer I got was more than disturbing.

What is this mystery I speak of? Well, it started out rather innocently. One day when I was riding down the road, I noticed that there was an awful lot of road noise coming from the driver’s side door. I simply thought I hadn’t shut my door all the way. I slowed to a stop, opened and re-shut the door, but, to no avail. The noise continued.

I started noticing that every time I got up any speed, that same wind whistled through my door. I was baffled.

I even went so far as to ask a friend who is into restoring old cars what he thought was wrong with it. I even asked him to take a look, but we just never got around to it.

He told me I may have had something in the door when I shut it once causing it to warp or bend. He said to check the seal around the door, which I did, and I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

What finally broke the case was when I was driving a friend the other day in the pouring rain, he noticed rain was trickling through the seal in the window. I explained that I still couldn’t figure out how this happened out of the blue. He explained that clearly someone had tried to break into my car based on where the rain was coming in the door seal.

Apparently the place where this leak was occurring is the exact same place that car thieves place a tool to trip the lock mechanism. It was truly a light-bulb moment. But, then I thought, “Oh, my goodness. Someone tried to break into my car. And, it was most likely while it was parked in my driveway, which is just feet from my house.

A few months ago, my next door neighbor warned me not to keep anything in my car because his car had been broken into. I hated it for him, and I worried that it was so close to home. Now I can’t really identify whether or not my car was also broken into the same night because it took me so long to figure out the whole car door thing, but it wouldn’t surprise me.

Years ago I learned while doing a story in conjunction with the Mount Airy Police Department not to leave anything of value in your car. They said it was best not to leave anything in sight and to lock valuables in your trunk, but I think with my car and others like it, if someone breaks in and there’s something in my trunk, that would be easy to get to as well thanks to folding back seats and the trunk unlock button.

I think what might have saved my car from being broken into is that I have a motion light at my back door where I park my car. I think it would be harder to break into a car under the glare of a bright light, even in the middle of the night. Crooks tend to be paranoid like that, I hope.

I also have a car alarm and two barking dogs in the house that sound like they will rip your head off. That might have been a deterrent, too.

Nonetheless, I’m thankful for whatever reason my car wasn’t broken into. It would be costly to fix the door had they broken in all the way. As it is, the interior seal is bent. Hopefully that’s going to be cheaper to fix.

Going forward, I know one thing is for sure, I will never keep anything of value in my car just in case I’m not as lucky as I was last time. And, I’ll leave you with the words of my car friend, “I’ve seen your car. Why would anyone want to break into it?”

Mondee Tilley is a staff reporter with The Mount Airy News. She can be reached at mtilley@heartlandpublications.com or at 719-1930.