When your house is in the shop

[Matt71]

I'm curious about how everyone protects their belonging while their van is in the shop. I worry enough leaving valuables in my car when it's in the shop, I imagine I'd be completely on edge if everything I owned was within easy grasp of some mechanic I don't know and will probably never see again.

I suppose you can take the really valuable stuff with you to wherever you are staying, but that's still a lot of stuff you are leaving behind. I'd be creaped out if I found out a mechanic had gone through my underwear drawer or ate some of my snacks.

I saw one build where the person had padlocks inside and could completely lock the cargo area of the van, but I've only seen that from one person.

How do you handle it?
Has your stuff ever been violated while in the shop? What did you do?

 

[Almost There]

I've never been subjected to any kind of theft of my valuables while any of my RVs/vans that I was living in were in the shop and I spent 14 years travelling full time all over the eastern seaboard of the US. And yes, I spent time everywhere east of the Mississippi although I did manage to avoid places like NYC and skirted around Washington. Except for the last 7 years, I spent many more miles travelling in the US than I did in Canada. I started travelling in vans that were equipped for living in in 1975.

I once spent more than a week living in the RV on the garage parking lot while waiting for repairs to take effect. In most cases, mechanics went out of their way including running for parts and staying late to get me back on the road asap.

And yes, I broke down on the road on multiple occasions, everything from a cracked piston skirt in the Winnebago and a memorable fuel pump failure 30 miles out of Lincoln Nebraska in 110 F heatwave with a dog and a kid on board. I have some amusing and nerve-wracking stories about calamities on the road in a whole lot of states.

If I was *that* suspicious of the people working on my vehicle, personal belongings would be the least of my worries, I'd be more worried about whether they are competent to fix my vehicle.

I don't know where y'all are living that the perceived fixation on theft and self protection comes from...maybe it's because I believe in seeing the best in people rather than expecting them to do harm to either myself or my stuff.

 

[rvwandering]

We've had to leave our RV in the shop overnight three or four times in 20 some years of fulltiming. Nothing has ever been stolen, used or rummaged through so don't worry too much about it. Most people are pretty honest.

 

[Baloo]

I set mine up with a lockable door between the cab and living space

 

[gypsychic]

Car camped around the country in almost its entirety one trip, car camped all over in various states, moved cross country several times. All ads up to a lot of miles on the road and severally to many out of town mechanics. Never even noticed change missing, let alone valuables missing. If I got a weird feeling from a mechanic I wouldn't have left my vehicle with them. Another tow is just a phone call away. I've walked out of a surgery once after being prepped when I was uncomfortable with a doctor change so switching mechanics would be no big deal for me. In this age of yelp and google finding a mechanic with a decent reputation should be fairly easy. That being said, the best defense against being taken advatage of from a mechanic is mechanical knowledge but thats a different thread.

 

[SoulRaven]

I don't know how common this is, but I only use mechanics who let me continue to live in my van while being worked on. I am typically kicked back in my easy chair watching them work.

I've even spent the night up on the rack, no biggie, I have everything I need.

I've never been too worried about the theft angle, I just hate motels!

 

[Luisafernandes]

If you look at me build thread you'll see the locking systems I'm using for the side and back doors.
The bulkhead door has a common lock on it.
Here's a pic;

 

[IGBT]

One of the reasons we made our house modular.  We remove it from the truck when the truck needs to go into the shop, stick a motorcycle on the truck, drive to the shop, drop truck off, then drive motorcycle back to camper where all of our stuff resides.