It may sound hard to believe -- but thousands of people in Bryan & College Station have had their homes and cars broken into this year.
What's been taken is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The College Station Police Department's evidence room is filled with stolen goods that have been recovered, but much of it will never get back to its rightful owners.

Detectives showed News 3 some of the electronics recovered from a recent rash of burglaries.
Of the 60 items recovered, investigators say only four of them will be returned.

"We have very little to work with as far as I.D.'ing it. Most of the owners didn't record the serial number to begin with so chances are, it's not going to be returend to anybody," Detective Todd VanDresar with the College Station Police Department said.

College Station Police Crime Prevention Specialist Rachel Fallwell agrees.

"The problem we have with all of this property we have here today is that we don't know who it belongs to. We have vague descriptions, everybody's Playstations look the same. So unless you have your Drivers' License number engraved on it somewhere, we don't know who it belongs to."

Crime Prevention specialists say you have several options when it comes to engraving.
Police can lend their engravers to you and you can do it yourself.
You can bring your property in for them to engrave.
Or they can come to your home and do it for you.
They say doing that may not keep you from being a victim of property crime, but it may help you get your property back.

Here's why it's becoming more and more important to protect your belongings:
There were 166 property crimes in College Station last month alone.
That's an average of more than 5 reports of car, home or building break-ins each day.
So far this year, the number of property crimes has jumped 12% from this same time last year.