LINCOLNTON, N.C. -- Lincoln County authorities are hoping nosy neighbors can help them catch a group of thieves breaking into homes in multiple neighborhoods.

Victim Misty Bass fastens all the locks on her door now, even when she is home.

“I think it scares me most that somebody's watching me and knows when I'm gone and when I'm not,” she said.

Bass found out on Wednesday that thieves had been watching her and waited until she left to take her children to school to break in.

Investigators believe it’s the seventh time the same group has committed such a burglary. The thieves came through the front door and left out of her daughter's bedroom window.

“So when I walked in the door (to her room), everything in here was pulled out onto the floor,” Bass said.

The thieves took her daughter's Wii and her laptop.

“I pulled up 15 minutes after they left. What if I had walked in on them?” she wondered aloud.

The rash of daytime break-ins started in early July in a north Lincolnton community. Just like at Bass's home, the burglars haven’t taken a TV unless it was plasma.

Police said they want expensive stuff.

“(They’re) taking to a certain person, who sells it to other people,” said Lincolnton police Detective Chuck McGinley.

When police increased patrols in one part of town, the thieves moved over the Bass's community in Boger City.

Police still vow to patrol more in Boger City.

“Until they get caught, we are going to be out there. We are going to make ourselves seen,” McGinley said.

They said your best home defense may be a neighbor like Michael Spurrier. He and other neighbors tried to track down the men from the burglary at Bass’s home.

“Everybody's come together. We are just tired of the crime and stuff that's going on, and we are going to stand up for our neighborhood,” Spurrier said.