>>1428023A few years ago, I had my bike stolen from the campus at my university. It wasn't like I was out hundreds of dollars, but it was given to me by a professor and I had a lot of emotional attachment to it. Fast-forward 9 months and I find my bike locked up in another neighbourhood about 4km from the university. I was positive that it was my bike; same model, same distinctive scratches, same headlamp, even had my initials carved into it. So I went back to my car and grabbed a Dremel I was carrying to cut through the lock. I then left a note that said "this bike was stolen, and the owner has repossessed it" and then just rode off. It was kind of a stupid thing to do overall, I should have called the cops and told them what the situation was. What really amazed me is that numerous people walked by in broad daylight, saw me cutting the lock, and did nothing about it. Didn't even attempt to question me. It just boggled my mind, but made me realize that junkies probably get away with this shit all the time because nobody even attempts to stop them. This incident made me really paranoid about buying a nice, new bike, although the risk of bike theft in my current neighbourhood seems to be close to zero. There is a Chinese dude who rides one of those e-bikes to the train station I commute from, he's had it locked up and it obviously hasn't been stolen in the year since I first started commuting. There's also a Trek that's been locked up at the station since May, nobody has attempted to take it and even the transit authority hasn't bothered removing it.
tl;dr my bike was stolen in broad daylight and I stole it back in broad daylight
