With new housing comes new benefits and of course new problems.
A great benefit is the ability to place feeders and collectors in our front yards and have them actually function.
A new problem is that anyone passing through can steal these.
Rather than continuing to ask TS to make these items un-stealable, I'd propose a new buff (or debuff), Stealer's Guilt. A person stealing would be given a huge drop in energy and mood (and maybe a temporary "Scarlet S" hovering above their head.)
This way people who are really set on stealing could still choose to do so, but knowing that their choice to steal has consequences, just like we have when poisoning trees.
I know this would not stop the disappearance of items from front yards (Stealer's Guilt badge anyone?) and of course there are going to be some "Well it is a public street and it is fair game to take whatever I find there" responses. But I think a debuff like this, that only works on Player Home Streets and no where else, would even things out a bit and equalize the costs (financial or energy/mood.) We who place items we have bought and paid for out front know they can be stolen, and players who wish to steal them know they can do so, but at a price.
ETA: acreditando came up with a great idea early in the thread: "maybe we can use a "Guilt Potion" to pour over the items..." therefore it would be up to individual players to mark or designate which items on the street they wish to preserve by use/pouring of this potion on specific items. Pouring the potion could provide a debuff as I originally intended or, if rather than a Guilt Potion we could brew up a glue, a Liquid Lock Potion, we could pour it to lock an item down to prevent it from being taken, preserving a mix of Public/Private access to home streets.