I live in an apartment building. My apartment is too small to store my bike and I don’t have a patio. For the past 4 years I have been locking my bike to the railing on the landing of a lightly used interior stairwell. It is not visible from the street and is secured since the gate requires a key. The stairwell faces another building. So it isn’t visible from the street or anything.

Several other people parked their bikes on the ground floor below this landing.

Well apparently someone left the gate open. And most of the bikes were stolen. Or had parts stolen. Mine was cut from the railing and stolen.

I thought my spot was pretty safe, but clearly this person had plenty of time. And my building has few people home during the day - no one would have seen anything.

I’m crushed. My bike was a carefully curated (by me) custom build.

Now I am not sure how I want to replace. And how much work to put into trolling all of the various sources of stolen bikes.

I’m starting to think it was targeted. My bike was decked with dynamo lights and an internal hub. Not sure what other bikes were stolen but I noticed the fancy dutch bike with the IGH and rear light was missing the rear wheel. The bikes with flattires were not taken.

I’ve been locking my bike there for almost 4 years. It is a low trafficed staircase where I was the only person who used it with any regularity. I did not use dual u locks since my wheels and other components had pinheads.

I didn’t examine the railing closely. I also used less caution locking up in my building due trusting my neighbors and the low visibility parking spot.

Recently the mailroom key was stolen. I wonder if the front door key was compromised too. This alley between the buildings required both the front door key and knowledge of its existsnce. The only other regular usees of the space were construction crews fow anyone doing renovation.

So upon further thought it is looking suspicious.