Between my German Shepherd, and my alarm system.... I don't worry too much about someone coming in but heck yeah... I have neighbors I don't trust as far as I can throw them.  I used to not worry about locking up my vehicles in the driveway at night..... but now, I double check that they are locked. I have gotten up out of bed to lock them.
 
Things kinda change when you wake up at 4am and see a light flash across your bedroom window.... So you get up to look and see what's going on only to see a sheriff deputy not 10 feet from your window, with a flashlight, looking in and under your cars in your driveway. Then, he takes off running around the side of your house. You hurry to the back window to see what's going on..... there, across the fence in the back yard neighbor's yard, 8 feet from your fence is your "new neighbor" ... face down on the ground, with 2 sheriff's deputies handcuffing him.

No one can choose their neighbors I guess.... except to move to where you don't have neighbors..... but the riff raff will still come to visit every now and then.... if they want to brave the dogs when they're trespassing.

I didn't really intend to write all that....actually, I was simply going to say, along with someone else above..... the cops won't tell you everything that;s going on in the case. They don't want you stepping in and messing things up. So they keep you in the dark. BUT...... YES...ABSOLUTELY.... get to know the detective on a first name basis. Know his or her office number and cell number. Do call on a regular basis to keep them focused on the job, but don't be a pest to where they ignore your calls.... "Oh damn... it's that bitflipper guy calling again for the third time today".... remember they have other cases to work on too. I know your gear is top priority to you..... but maybe that murder case is a bit more critical to solve in the big picture of things than your stolen musical gear.

When my SG was stolen the first time... that was from the load out.... I bought a new Gibson Paul guitar. I kept in touch with the naval investigator on the case on an almost daily basis for the first few days or weeks.  As time went on, the story was pretty much the same.... "we're working on it Mr Hartley".. so the calls dropped off a bit.... and I realized it was likely gone for good. I had stopped calling after several months went by.  Then one day, totally out of the blue, at about 5pm.... my phone rang. It was a different naval investigator who briefly recapped the case.... and said, they had recovered a guitar that fit my description and the serial number matched as best they could see it.....and asked if I could come in and possibly identify it.   Next morning I was there with bells on and yep..... it was my guitar.... gone for 6 months.... transported to a fence in Philadelphia, rounded up in a raid on the fence's house by the PPD... and since I had the serial, and the NIS had actually caught the guy and he admitted to the theft when they presented the evidence they had..... the NIS communicated that info to the PPD and my guitar was returned to NC and me. 

Keep the faith..... you never know what's going on behind the scenes that they don't tell you. There was never a word to me the entire time that they had gotten the guy or that he confessed, or that they were working with the PPD. Just one day, out  of the blue, a phone call.

Oh I just read this and my heart is melting. I wish I could do something although I have your list and I will begin monitoring our craigslist (Madison, WI) which is a longshot but at least I can check it every morning.
 
When I "died" of cancer three years ago, and then had 8 weeks of daily radiation in the face, it was in the middle of 3-4 years of not being able to play guitar. For some reason, I forgot every song I had ever done and couldn't reprise those I had even carefully written out. They were gone with a lot of my memory.
 
It is with joy I have started out again writing and playing in a new style :)
 
Still some nights, flashes of an old song will pop in my head so I know they are not completely gone, and one day, they will be back with me.
 
I truly hope and pray you get your gear and music back again!

I too keep checking back hoping for a revengeful and happy story.

I'll tell you one thing for sure Bit, camera's and alarms will be installed ASAP. You're experience scared me.

is there any way you can train a camera at this "household with unemployed teens" to catch them in the act of loading stuff into a car etc? Sometimes you have to put yourself in the minds (such that exists of them) of these scumbags and speculate on what you might do with a haul of your neighbor's goodies. Would you stash it in your house until the heat died down, thinking that it would be crazy to try and sell the stuff while the victim hasn't yet given up looking for it? Or would you want to get it out of the house as soon as possible in case the cops showed up with a warrant? I can't help thinking of your hard drives just sitting somewhere, untouched. They might not have even hooked them up yet. 

What has come as the biggest surprise is the psychological effect this has had on me. Paranoia, anger, insomnia, loss of appetite. It sucks. At least my late wife isn't here to experience it. She'd have never let me hear the end of it. When I do sleep and dream, I hear her voice saying "I told you so".
 
From talking to people and cops, I gather that Craigslist is no longer popular for selling stolen stuff directly because it's too risky. Apparently they've switched to an app called OfferUp. I had intended to get it for my phone but my Play Store account has been invalid since I cancelled my credit card.
 
Got the new CC yesterday (which UPS had tossed over my gate and left lying in the grass all day) so now I can now re-activate my Google account. UPS also tossed a new purchase from Sweetwater over the fence and left it there all day. Fortunately, my gate is out of sight of the thieves' house. That reminds me, I have to change my Netflix account too...
 
I still don't have the new door installed, but should have it this week. My stepson's business neighbor is a door & window guy, who's going to find something inexpensive for me. Still going to be a few hundred bucks I can't afford, but dammit, those f*cktards are NOT going to get me again! Today's project is to try and get the security camera working, a surprisingly challenging task. 

bitflipper
What has come as the biggest surprise is the psychological effect this has had on me. Paranoia, anger, insomnia, loss of appetite. It sucks. At least my late wife isn't here to experience it. She'd have never let me hear the end of it. When I do sleep and dream, I hear her voice saying "I told you so".
 

 
It's something I never appreciated until it happened to us.  You hear of this sort of thing happening to people, and you think "man, that sucks..", which is an inadequate exercise in empathy.  It doesn't just "suck", it's a nightmare and a crisis of the soul.  Particularly since we're talking about our intellectual and emotional work, our creations and personal investment and purpose.  It's deeply personal and intimate.  It's where many of us find the very value in ourselves and our lives.  If that is stolen, it's like part of our lives, our past, was stolen.  The evidence of our existence, snatched away.  
 
I found that I turned into a bit of a flake after this incident.  Gone, was the confident, reliable decision maker, replaced by an insecure snow flake.  Don't let that happen to you.  
 
Also, hard as it may be, try not to let this lose your faith in humanity.  No matter how cruel and nefarious people can be, they are always dramatically outnumbered by good people.  Always.  Way more good than bad in the world. As humans, we seem to focus and lament on the bad elements of life, without really absorbing the good that got us here.  Maybe that's the doom of progress and evolution, I don't know.  But I have to constantly remind myself of these things to keep from being an angry cynic.  
 
 
 

If the replacement is a wood door I would also suggest adding these around the deadbolt and locking handle set.
 
http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?partNumber=243480-76018-U+9548-L&langId=-1&storeId=10151&productId=3407788&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1
 
While they appear decorative, they do re-enforce the door. If you look at the standard bolt/latch in the door, the surrounding is only about 1/2" of wood. Also make sure the heavy duty strikes (not the ones that come with the locks) has LONG screws to go into the backing stud and not just into the jamb. While these won't stop someone that is truly determined, it may prevent those that are less resolute. When working as maintenance in apartments, I have seen and repaired more than my share of kicked-in doors. I have had a couple of thefts as well. Some attempts were stopped by using the above. While the sleeves, locks and jamb were damaged, they didn't get in.
 
Preferable your friend can put in a steel door and frame for you.  As a reminder, they know you will likely replace all the stuff and may plan to visit again in the future.

dmbaer
A book I read some time ago about crime in the US made one somewhat gratifying point.  Criminals almost always get caught, just probably not for the crime in which you were the victim.  But sooner or later they make a mistake.  If they weren't stupid, they'd have found a much less risky way of obtaining money.

Thieves they are sneaky, and they think they are smarter than everyone else and can snoop and sneak around and get to know their victim, but they are not, but especially in this age of electronic devices and spy crap. Just like Private Investigators who are no better than thieves because they try and steal information, should be illegal what P.I's do, they stalk someone and they get paid for it without regard for who that information they share to their client or what purpose it's being used for, just so they can make money. It's stealing either way. 
 
I say this based on having a few things stolen from me in my life. Way I see it, they will get caught, because if you wake a hornets nest sooner or later your gonna get stung. 
 
I hope Bit get's his master tracks back. Man, I know how that feels to lose master tracks only my case was a different set of circumstances, my mistake was trusting a CLOUD file storage system that just all the sudden shut down without warning or notice. 
 
It's ashamed you should even have to have a security system, but since adding one to our own home, I get calls all the time that seem shady to our home phone, never got them until I added a personal home security system and then all the sudden once a week I get them telling me some security provider are offering and most importantly "ASKING ME THINGS LIKE : DO YOU CURRENTLY HAVE A HOME SECURITY SYSTEM AND IF SO THEN WHAT IS IT?".  Thing is my home number on the DO NOT CALL LIST. But recently somebody told me about this site that people are using where they can call any number and have whatever number they want to show up on that person's phone that they are calling. That should be illegal if you ask me. But guess what, you can stop all that by PAYING some service to block such things. I've just gotten to where I don't even answer the phone at all if I don't know the number. 
 
People will follow you home from the stores you go to also, I suspect if you aren't careful, they look for people who are buying high priced items and then target their homes if they know something of value is in there home I suspect. 
 
I don't mean to sound paranoid, but I mean, sad fact is in my opinion in this day in time if you aren't a little paranoid you will get taken advantage of. Just my opinion. 
 
Don't get me started on Facebook, I no longer use that site, there are people who target you on there also, believe me, I had an experience with someone showing up in a shopping line behind me because his wife added me as a friend on her list. this person kept on and on and on talking to someone with them about everything I had said on Facebook and various things I had shared and posted, I didn't realize it at the time but was suspicious of the conversation, later getting back on that site I realized it with what was being said because this person sent me a nasty letter. So I no longer use that site and never will again. Just something else to think about. Too many thieves out there who use sites and various things to steal from you. 
 
 

It's probably also a good idea when you discard packaging to fold cardboard in such a way as to not advertise what you just bought. My trash is set out on a busy street with lots of foot traffic. 
 
And this nightmare gets worse. The insurance company requires receipts for everything, but I have almost no paper receipts. Online purchases only result in email receipts, and my mail history went away with the stolen computer. So now I'm trying to remember where I bought everything and contacting vendors. So far I've only recovered receipts for stuff I bought at the local music store. 
 
But think about all the things you've bought with cash and never gave a thought to storing the receipt. Mike stands, cables, stompboxes. I figure it'll cost me $400 just to replace my cables. Stuff I bought second-hand on Craigslist I'll just have to write off. My computer was a gift from my daughter, so I have no receipt for that - hoping she does! My main synth was more than 10 years old, before my local music store maintained a proper database. Fingers crossed they'll come through for me...
 
One saving grace is that my insurance company (USAA) is also my credit card company, and most of the online purchases were with their credit card. Hopefully, that'll be acceptable proof of purchase.
 
What a f*ckin' pain in the arse.
 
I hope you are all learning something from my tragedy. Prepare for the worst. Collect your receipts, write down your serial numbers, take photos of everything - and most important, keep that info somewhere else!

...double posted

bitflipper
It's probably also a good idea when you discard packaging to fold cardboard in such a way as to not advertise what you just bought. My trash is set out on a busy street with lots of foot traffic. 
 
And this nightmare gets worse. The insurance company requires receipts for everything, but I have almost no paper receipts. Online purchases only result in email receipts, and my mail history went away with the stolen computer. So now I'm trying to remember where I bought everything and contacting vendors. So far I've only recovered receipts for stuff I bought at the local music store. 
 
But think about all the things you've bought with cash and never gave a thought to storing the receipt. Mike stands, cables, stompboxes. I figure it'll cost me $400 just to replace my cables. Stuff I bought second-hand on Craigslist I'll just have to write off. My computer was a gift from my daughter, so I have no receipt for that - hoping she does! My main synth was more than 10 years old, before my local music store maintained a proper database. Fingers crossed they'll come through for me...
 
One saving grace is that my insurance company (USAA) is also my credit card company, and most of the online purchases were with their credit card. Hopefully, that'll be acceptable proof of purchase.
 
What a f*ckin' pain in the arse.
 
I hope you are all learning something from my tragedy. Prepare for the worst. Collect your receipts, write down your serial numbers, take photos of everything - and most important, keep that info somewhere else!

At one point I was pretty fastidious about keeping email receipts and serial numbers saved in categorized folders, but at some point I stopped doing it when I realized that whenever I need that stuff, I can just do a Gmail search and bing, there it is.  

I hope you are all learning something from my tragedy

 
Definitely. I'm planning to put a couple of backup hard drives in our safe deposit box at the bank and also store (encrypted) files in the cloud. Google Drive maybe.
Right now I keep my backup drives in a home safe, mainly because of its fireproof and waterproof features but also to discourage theft. I like craigb's suggestion to have a cheap safe in view while hiding the real one. (Hmmm the paint bomb idea sounds good too.)

Couple of years ago I had my pocket picked in the Paris Metro, but they only got my decoy wallet with blank paper in it. It would have been a huge hassle if they'd gotten the real wallet (which was in another pocket). The only reason I thought of doing the decoy wallet was because a friend of mine had his wallet taken by a pickpocket in the Paris Metro so I learned something from his experience.

Take care