As the national recession continues to root itself in various elements of life in Amador County, the start of 2009 had law enforcement scrambling to keep up with burglaries, incidents of grand theft and a host of other property crimes.

In mid-December, Capt. Christy Stidger of the Jackson Police Department confirmed that her officers were seeing a rash of property crimes. They included a break-in at Coldwell Bankers.

When January rolled around, the Amador County Sheriff's Office experienced a significant call volume of its own related to property crimes - responding to nearly 20 incidents.

On Friday, Jan. 9 at 9:11 p.m., sheriff's deputies arrived at a house on Inspiration Drive, where the owners had not been home for months. During their absence, the front door and garage door had been smashed in. The home was ransacked and multiple items were missing. Several days later, on the 13th, deputies responded to an afternoon call of grand theft in Plymouth. Pulling into a home on Shenandoah Road, they learned that a large water pump for watering cattle had been stolen from its owners some time during the week. Shenandoah Road was also the site of a robbery call just three days later when deputies responded to a different home in the area, where someone had broken in through a back window and stolen $80 from a woman.

The sheriff's office answered yet another property theft call on Jan. 18 at 4:26 in the morning at the Jackson Rancheria Casino on New York Ranch Road. Officers took down a report of a motorcycle helmet that was stolen from the first floor of the casino parking lot. At 1:33 that afternoon, they answered a call on Inspiration Drive where a convertible car had been broken into. The car's doors had been locked, so the thieves simply unbuttoned its top and swiped most of the belongings inside. The day ended with deputies answering a third burglary call on Valley Bottom Road. There, a weekend house that was last visited by its owners on Jan. 3 had its garage door kicked in and dead bolt broken. The owners were not sure at that time what was missing.

On Jan. 20 at 2:33 p.m., the owner of a pickup truck on Parkwood Drive discovered his vehicle had been broken into. After calling law enforcement, he learned that he was missing his vehicle manuals, registration and proof of insurance.

The next morning, workers at ACE Hardware in Pine Grove noticed a man jamming a wire into three different newspaper machines, successfully managing to steal papers out of each of them. The workers called the sheriff's office.

Two major home break-ins occurred on Jan. 23 - one on Gold Circle Drive and the other outside of Fiddletown. The home on Gold Circle Drive had its back door smashed in. Numerous items were taken from the home. The other house, 1 mile east of Fiddletown Road, had also been robbed of numerous items, including some antiques and an expensive wood splitter. As the month wound down, a woman who lives on Pitts Road realized that her wallet and credit card were stolen. While she was not certain exactly when the theft occurred, she called the sheriff's office and canceled her credit cards.