A crime-fighting tip: Clean out your garage

Houston police are reminding Clear Lake residents to be on guard against car burglaries after a purse was stolen out of a Bay Knoll woman's minivan while she was unloading groceries.
An e-mail that the woman wrote about the incident has been circulating on the Pineloch Community Association's Yahoo group.
In the email, the woman wrote she was leaving Target's Bay Area Boulevard store when a young couple drove up in black Ford pickup, asked for directions to a bank and drove away. The woman wrote than when she returned home, she noticed the pickup had turned down her street too and continued past her house. After unloading groceries, she returned to her van to find its door open and her purse gone. Within an hour, thieves had tried to use her card four times.
Houston police officer Randy Derr said he talked to the woman and she isn't positive she was actually followed home from the store.
She noticed a dark vehicle, maybe a truck, but she didn't see anyone get out of that vehicle or do anything," Derr said. It's just an assumption on her part."
In any event, Derr said car burglaries are an epidemic in the Houston area. The city's Clear Lake police division, which covers from just north of NASA Parkway to Airport Boulevard, averages five a day, he said.
How can you protect your car and your belongings?
Get your stuff out of your car and lock up," Derr said. If you have a garage, clean your junk out of it and park your car in it. A lot of people don't like to hear that because it's their storage room, but that's what it was built for."