There have been five home burglaries and one attempted in Signal Mountain since the beginning of January on Ohio, Kentucky and Texas avenues, Rolling Way and Albert Road.
"We've been putting extra hours, extra manpower on it and working them very diligently," said Police Chief Boyd Veal. "I feel pretty positive about the direction we're going with the investigation. In the meantime we just wanted to let folks know and ask for their help."
No burglaries have been reported in the county portion of the mountain or Walden since January, said Hamilton County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Janice Atkinson.
Veal reported most of the incidents in the town have occurred during the day, which is typical for these types of crimes.
"Most people think of burglaries and burglars as being creatures of the night, but that's not the case," he said. "The more people out and about and the more activity there is, the less likely you are to draw attention to yourself. That's one of the main reasons we want to encourage folks to really pay attention to things."
He also encouraged locking cars and houses.
"The thing with locking doors is it may not prevent it, but it's going to be a lot more trouble, the possibility to make a lot more noise, and give someone the opportunity to hear or see something and call us," he said. "Any obstacle you can put in their path to slow them down and make it more difficult for them, the better."
Burglar alarms and systems are beneficial when installed, understood and employed properly, he said, but the decision to have one is purely personal. The best bet is to call in any suspicious activity. While it sometimes turns out to be nothing, the fact that it could be something makes it worth it, said Veal.
"When we do talk to people afterward they go, 'Yeah, a couple days ago I saw this. I started to call you guys.' It tends to still be useful information but it would have been much more so if we had it in advance," the chief said.
While he won't release specific details, Veal said the department has received "some good information." Veal believes the perpetrators may be the same in the different cases.
With the economy the way it is, other areas have been seeing an increase in property crimes for a while, Veal said. The town's crime numbers are "usually very low," with sometimes none and sometimes one or two a month, according to him.
"When you look at the small picture this is unusual for us, but the big picture over the course of years, it's not. Occasionally we do have periods where we experience an increase in these things," he said. "So is it [the economy] or just that they happened to find an area where they had a little bit of luck and decided to continue? I don't know. There are an awful lot of places that would have this number in a day or two. We're still in great shape."
Because numbers are traditionally so low and because the burglaries have been spread out over time and distance, it took the department a while to realize it was something more, he said.