Michael Recently, we routinely drove past the location of our second car, Perly Perlman, which was parked on the street, and I couldn't believe my eyes: Perly was no longer in the spot where I had parked it two days earlier.
What to do in this uncomfortable situation? As in the reference work Finding the Sweet Spot - Parking in San Francisco (illustration 2) by David LaBua explains in detail, in this precarious situation the worldly man calls the so-called "Tow Desk" at (415) 553-1239 to inquire whether the car has been towed. If so, one goes to the city's towing facility operated by AutoReturn at 450 7th Street, directly across from the Hall of Justice. If you react immediately, it costs about $400, but only four hours of storage are free; for the next 20 hours, the crooks charge $50, and after that, $60 for each additional day, along with all sorts of insane fees and surcharges. Acting quickly can save a lot of money. If the car has been stolen, you call the San Francisco police at (415) 553-0123 to report the incident.
If, for example, you park on the street in front of a garage entrance, the garage owner can first request a city parking enforcement officer from the "San Francisco Department of Traffic" (SFDPT), who will then determine if the car is indeed blocking the entrance. If that is the case, a tow truck is called to tow the car away.
TODO
In our case, the situation was even more complicated because the Tow Desk informed me that Perly had been removed from private property (!) by a private towing company called "Golden Gate Tow." We drove to their garage in the Bayview district and were allowed to take Perly Perlman home for a fee of 490 dollars for towing and storage. The contents of the glove compartment were scattered throughout the interior, and the ignition lock was half turned without a key.
It seems that some young people from disadvantaged areas had gotten into the car, used a lock pick to turn the ignition, drove around the area, and then parked it a kilometer away, right in the driveway in front of the double garage of a law-abiding citizen.
My special hiding spot for the GPS, a hanging pouch in the trunk, wasn't found by the dimwits. Today's youth can't do anything right; they're too stupid even to break in! The towing service had checked, as required, whether the car was reported stolen before towing it, but at that time, we still knew nothing about Perly Perlman's involuntary joyride. As required, the tow truck driver photographed Perly in front of the driveway and sent me the prints via email upon my request (Figure 5).
At the impound lot, by the way, a big pit bull was on guard, and I had to pay the fee (at least they accepted credit cards) through a slot in a thick bulletproof glass window. For security reasons, they also wouldn't tell me the name of the caller, such cowards!
Interestingly, just two weeks later, an apparently mentally disturbed person broke into Perly Perlman again and stole the radio that I had once bought on Amazon for 65 dollars. How crazy are the thieves in this city, really?