Had two bikes stolen out of my house in the '70s, identical Colnagos belonging to my roommate and myself.
A friend spotted my frame being stripped of its distinctive paint (my bike club colors) in a yard a couple of miles from our house, and tipped me off. My roommate and I arrived and found the frames, sans components. My frame was on the porch, reeking of Jasco paint remover. We entered without knocking. I told the occupant of the house that I was going to throw the TV through the front window if I didn't find out where the rest of the two bikes were.
He wouldn't tell us, but his girlfriend was terrified, and gave up a name, which appeared to cause some friction between them. It took us a while, because there was no Internet available, but we found out where the guy lived. By the time the two of us arrived at the house, it was late and the Tonight Show was on a TV inside. The front door was open, so I walked up the front stairs and tapped at the screen door. A voice asked what was up. I asked for "Andy," and the voice said he was downstairs in his room.
We walked down the stairs and around the house and found a downstairs door. The two of us walked in, in total darkness, in a house where we didn't know the layout. I called out, "Andy?" and a sleepy voice answered from what turned out to be a bedroom.
We burst in the door to the room and flipped on the light. We found Andy and his girlfriend both in bed, both naked. We told Andy in no uncertain terms that we were here for the bike parts. There were two of us and Andy was naked, and he had no resistance in him. He didn't ask, "What bike parts?" Apparently he knew which bike parts we meant. While his girlfriend cried and hid under a sheet, Andy, still naked, dragged a box of bike components out of a closet. We took them and left, and later found that we had more parts than we needed to restore the two bikes.
Since I needed to paint my bike, I contacted Andy's dad, who had been the voice that directed us to his bedroom, and told him I wanted a hundred bucks for my trouble. He gave it to us, and I took the opportunity to tell him what a lowlife his son was. He didn't have much of an argument.
Of course we reported to the local police what had taken place, but they said we had no business doing what we did, and that we were lucky they were going to leave us alone about it.
I heard that some years later, Andy disappeared and has not been seen since.