LOCK YOUR CAR DOORS !

THE FOLLOWING IS A REPRINT OF A LOCAL NEWSPAPER ARTICLE. SOME OF THESE ACCOUNTS ARE SIMILAR TO EVENTS THAT HAVE HAPPENED RECENTLY IN THE FAIRWAYS.---HEED THE ADVICE ! THERE HAS BEEN AN   I-PAD STOLEN FROM A VEHICLE ON INVERARY

Lock your car doors.

If you don't, Seminole County deputies warn, thieves could steal your garage door opener and break into your house.

That's what happened over the weekend when two homes were burglarized after the openers were stolen. In all, about 20 unlocked vehicles in Sweetwater and Wekiva Springs were broken into.

• Related
• Surveillance video: Car burglaries in Wekiva
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Residents in the northwest Seminole County communities woke up Sunday to find that money, electronics and jewelry had been stolen from their cars, trucks and SUVs, a sheriff's report shows.

Burglars went even farther in two of the cases.

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A man who lives on Watercrest Drive near Longwoodsaid he heard his dog growling about 4 a.m. and saw flashlights in his kitchen. He yelled and scared off two strangers who ran away through the garage.

The burglars had removed his garage-door opener from his sport utility vehicle and used it to get inside.

They tried the same thing on Deerwood Loop, but the family's dogs frightened off the burglars sometime between 3:30 a.m. and 4 a.m., a report states. A garage remote was removed from a pickup parked in the driveway.

In a couple of cases, someone stole garage-door openers but did not use them to enter homes.

Among the valuables taken during the burglary spree were an iPod with a Bluetooth headset, a gold chain with rings and charms worth about $450 and a $400 Sonydigital camera. An iPad was stolen from a pickup parked at a home on Churchill Drive, but a GPS device and a laptop were left behind, according to a report.

The thieves rummaged through center consoles, glove boxes and overhead compartments, in addition stealing loose change.

Investigators hope home-surveillance video will lead them to the crooks. It shows a man wearing a miner's light on his head as he jiggles the door handle of a car. He has a camera around his neck the investigators think may have been stolen from a car in the neighborhood.

To protect yourself, deputies said, you should:

•Keep vehicles locked and avoid leaving valuables inside.

•Keep garage doors down and lock doors to their homes.

•Maintain and regularly test home-security systems.

•Call 911 immediately to report suspicious people or vehicles.

sjacobson@tribune.com or 407-540-5981ADVICE !