Aspies For Freedom

My greatest concern is the threat to slit your throat.  Is this just an idle or are they potentially violent?  Are you frightened?

not really....
they only threten me when I cut their stolen cable line or remove their splitter, etc...
Other than that, I never see them.

If I were you I would not do anything but report it.  Let the cable company deal with it.

I do, it just takes them 1-3 weeks to come out and do anything!! So the thieves will cut it, splice it, use it for 1-3 weeks and kep doing it again!

I can definitely see why you are frustrated.  However, they are stealing from the cable company which means they should handle it.  Especially if it is not effecting your reception I say let it go.  You don't want them to retaliate by harming you or your property.

Is there any way you could stealthily get photo or video evidence?  The cops would love that.

Good point....
If they were stealing it correctly (not using a $2.00, 900 Ohm splitter from Radio Shack!) I wouldn't even know it's being stolen.
But no.
It IS affecting my service!! My internet is slow and drops out all of the time, and TV reception gets either fuzzy on analog or heavy pixelated on digital.

And to answer your query Tonic, I snapped a picture of the thief, with the box open, and wires IN HIS HAND and showed the cop. he did not take it seriously! "He could be doing anything" the cop said against my objections of, "Why does he have the LOCKED cable box open?"

it's bad...

as i just NOW got home, the cable box is (look surprised!) open and it's hooked up to TWO other lines!!!!

sheesh!
I'd like to run like 500 volts through the wire to fry at least the line, at best the thieves!!!

Here are some things that might work:
- Padlock (if you don't already have one)
- Chains
- Barbed wire
- Loud alarms that contact the police
- Electric fence
- LSD (so after they touch it they go crazy)
- Something that shoots pepper spray at them
- Something that shoots fire?

Keep reporting each incident to the police with as much video/photo evidence as possible. If the police don't act, put in formal complaints and escalate them until the matter is taken seriously. You might also want to get an attorney to investigate directly sueing them. If your internet access is via cable and they are stealing bandwidth with this method (can 2 modems synch on the same line?) then you might also want to setup a sniffer and log any traffic they generate, use this as further evidence - make sure you keep logs of foreign MACs as these can prove the equipment is not yours.

Evidence Evidence Evidence and then keep pestering the police and their superiors to act.
File court proceedings if the police don't do anything.

great ideas....
They are not stealing bandwidth since I keep a password on my Airport!! Every so often someone does try to steal wireless from me, I suspect it's a kid with a DS or PSP. I let them on once and the bandwidth they used was negligible!

They are just stealing TV. For example when I disconnected one of their hack jobs, I went to their apt. and clearly hear one of them say, "Hey whassup? Where my ESPN at?" before he came out to the box with his wire cutters in his hand to splice my line again!

Those two were my thoughts.  I thought perhaps Comcast could provide their own lock.  I did some surfing and have found that although there are articles insisting it is one's DUTY to report cable theives Comcast has a form for this and a hotline) and stating  thieves could face fines and jail... there are also notes in reply from people who report, as you do, that comcast and the police do nothing about the theives and the customers have no idea how to stop them except to get a dish or some other kind of service.

I'd like to move, but I am just unable to at the time.

They've only been stealign this for about a year!

I thought more about this while driving on an errand today. I decided that if I were in the same situation, I would do 2 things.

1) I'd switch to another ISP. There are plenty of them and your phone company probably offers high speed computer service. and
2) I would temporarily discontinue subscription to the tv cable service

Yes I know that means you find something else to do during television time for a couple months but you might be surprised how that could improve your life once you get used to it. The best part is knowing that you are really torturing the thieving neighbors. Causing them pain and they can't do a thing about it.  Wouldn't that be sweet? No more free ESPN   They won't know it is temporary and will probably either give up on the idea or find someone else to steal from. With any luck, the next person they steal from will have a big dog to rip their faces off or maybe shoot them as a prowler.

Darn, I just thought of 2 problems with my own plan. One is the reinstallation fee.  You could check with Comcast to ask but they'd probably charge you installation fee to turn the tv service back on.  The other problem is, I don't know how a cable box works.  I don't know if Comcast just disconnects something at your box that the thieves could hook right back up.