We woke up to find our patio table and chairs gone from our front porch.

Some neighbors had their patio furniture stolen a few weeks ago, too.

It's only patio furniture, and yes, we do keep our porch lights blazing, and yes, we even have a dog who barks at the milkman and newspaper delivery man. And yes, we do live in the city, and incidentally across the street from the new apartments being built. When friends or family say, "Are you worried about crime going up, next to all those apartments?" we always said no.

Sigh.

So I called the police non-emergency number, which is: (720) 913-2000.

They told me to fill out a crimp report online, which you can do here.

Then I found this handy map with all the crime in my neighborhood. Which tells me that not enough of us are reporting crimes - like car windows that were bashed in on my block, or the neighbor's stolen patio furniture, or the hundreds of dollars of stolen copper wiring from the construction site. Report it, guys, no matter how small.

Police operate on statistics. If they see multiple burglaries happening in a small area, they are going to step up their patrols. If they step up their patrols, crime will go down. It's really quite simple.