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.