There was a burglary on our street last night. A thief or thieves got into the garden behind Gary and Lynsey's house. There they have a secure shed where Gary keeps his bicycles or should I say - he used to keep his bicycles. They have both gone now.
As you know, modern bicycles can cost an awful lot of money whether they are mountain bikes, racing bikes or partly electrified. For the price of a new bicycle you could easily cover the cost of a Mediterranean package holiday - say in Cyprus, southern Spain or perhaps Sicily!
Co-incidentally, about ten days ago building improvement work began on Gary and Lynsey's house. They are having an extension. The builders put a big plywood gate at the side of the house because they have work equipment that they want to keep as safe as possible. It seems that the dirty rotten no-good thieves bust the padlock on that temporary gate to access the back garden and the shed.
It's hard not draw the conclusion that there is some kind of link between the building work and the robbery. I am not suggesting that the builders were in any way responsible but they get stuff delivered and how would the perpetrators of the crime even know that there were two expensive bikes in that shed?
Burglaries are very upsetting for law-abiding homeowners but at least on this occasion the guilty scumbags did not enter the house. Lynsey is about to give birth to their second son - he is due any day now. The last thing she needed was the upset that this has caused.
I am pleased to say that in our forty two years of home ownership, we have never been burgled. The worst that has happened is that when we owned a Ford Focus it was broken into three times in a year. Each time they were after the car radio/CD player. They would smash the side window to gain access and when they did this on the third occasion there was no radio/CD player in the slot. I guess they didn't bother looking.
We are pretty sure that our thieves were teenage boys. Shirley almost caught them one night when she went out to the wheelie bins in her house slippers. On more than one evening I grabbed a heavy torch and patrolled the neighbourhood on the lookout for these rats and for months afterwards we were forever looking up and down the street and listening for ominous sounds. It was unsettling.
Though the Ford Focus was a great car, I was kind of glad when I got rid of it. All over the kingdom they were being broken into for their radio/CD players but at the time Ford sought to downplay the issue. In the mid-nineties, it was rumoured that Ford sound systems could be easily adapted to become satellite TV receivers.
Have you or any of your nearest and dearest been the victims of burglars?
That sounds horrible. Burglary seems to be on the rise everywhere it seems. Just this week our local Constabulary have been advising homeowners to install CCTV or Ring doorbells as well as secure locks and bolts. It is very unsettling.
ReplyDeleteYou could get a big dog called Satan and chain him up by your front door.
DeleteI think when we first moved here someone stole a shop vac from the garage. Or something like that. The culprit was known and named and nabbed by the local police. We've never had anything else stolen here in Lloyd and quite frankly, I feel very safe here.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice when one can sleep safe and sound in one's bed. Many people do not enjoy that luxury.
DeleteBest to have nothing worth pinching.
ReplyDeleteNot even plump buttocks?
DeleteI had the same thing as you with thieves breaking my car window and stealing my radio out of the dashboard when I had parked (foolishly) in a dark underground garage while a big festival was going on above. That was in Guadalajara, Mexico. One other time when I was at a beach in Mexico I found a strange key in my car lock. Apparently though it wouldn't turn so the door remained locked. But those were the only two incidents in over 4 years living in Mexico so I consider myself lucky.
ReplyDeleteYou were brave to live down in Mexico. Maybe it was less daunting in those days - re. drugs and lawlessness or maybe my impressions are way off the mark.
DeleteI agree -- the Gary/Lynsey burglar sounds like someone who knew ahead of time that the bikes were in the shed.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been burgled as an adult, but when I was a kid our family home was broken into and the stereo system stolen, as well as some jewelry and other stuff. I was probably about 10 at the time so don't have much memory of the circumstances.
I guess that at ten years old, the incident would not have got under your skin as much as it might have done for your mother and father.
DeleteOh, yeah, my mom was outraged -- and she suspected a neighbor boy, and told the police, and we were on the outs with that family from then on.
DeleteWe had a break and enter and burglary at our oceanside cottage in the off season. We never kept anything of great value there but they took things like fans which we needed because of the heat. The worst part was not what they took, it was just that they felt free to go in and poke around at everything on our property when they had no right to. People describe it as feeling violated and that is indeed how it felt. We worked hard to be able to afford a cottage, forgoing travel and other purchases, and it was galling for someone to simply take what they had done nothing to earn.
ReplyDeleteSomehow I never think of Nova Scotia having hot summers but of course I take your word for it. Do you still have the oceanside cottage Jenny?
DeleteAlthough this year has been unusually cool, often the temperatures and humidity combined are very oppressive here in July and early August. I still have the cottage but will be selling it. It just hasn't risen to the top of the priority list yet.
DeleteMy daughter had a similar car that as broke into often as it was easy to take the stereo or the car itself.
ReplyDeletePainful. If she lived in Red Deer everything would be cool.
DeleteI, to, have never been burgled, but I did have a car broken into a couple of times. It's an unnerving feeling.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's only the car - like me. If it was the house I can imagine having the urge to get the hell out of there.
DeleteYes we have! Years ago, in a different home with most of the kids living at home still, we had a nice young man come to the door and offer to sell us a home alarm system, and also as part of the deal he would "engrave" our valuables (VCR etc) with something that would only show up under "blue light" so no one would know but the items could be easily identified by police. So we let him do that and then asked if he would also engrave the kids bikes. They were quite old bikes and he said most people don't bother anyway so he wouldn't engrave them. Two days later the bikes were stolen.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that salesman stole the bikes?
DeleteMy family or me on my own have never been burgled, but my Mum's friend who lives in the groundfloor flat of the same house has had unwanted visitors twice. She has since then made it a habit to have my Mum keep a metal box with important documents and some family heirloom jewellery (not all that valuable materially, but emotionally) for her when she's away, which is the case several times a year.
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot to be said for living above the ground floor - just as you do in your lovely apartment.
DeleteNo. There was a failed attempted entry at our last house. The double hung sash window had a good lock which I had installed myself and resisted being jemmied open. Without off street parking our cars were very vulnerable being parked on the street and one car was broken into twice. There was nothing to take but once there was blood on the back seat fabric. I guess builders equipment wasn't taken in your neighbours case, which is suspicious.
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember the Ford Focus as being very easy to break into, the earlier ones at least.
You installed a sash window? That is impressive Mr Fixit! Or was it just the window lock? Even that is impressive Andrew.
DeleteDoes Dick Turpin still ride Black Bess from London to York via Sheffield?
ReplyDeleteYou mean on the train?
DeleteNo, thank goodness. Here I have all sorts of dissuasive devices (I shall say no more), but in the UK I only have an old truncheon and a WW1 bayonet.
ReplyDeleteOf course you have The Hound of the Baskervilles* to protect you!
Delete*= Billy
My beloved camper van was stolen off the driveway. Two dogs in the house and they didn't hear anything. I was heartbroken in the morning to see an empty driveway, luckily the insurance company paid up (always get a police number) But I never bought another one.
ReplyDeleteDid that happen in Normanby or elsewhere?
DeleteIt happened in Bath, probably used to go to Glastonbury;)
DeleteA common occurrence here in London. Even tradesman can't keep their vans or contents safe from being stolen in broad daylight while they are parked outside a customer's home.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of shady people in London aren't there ADDY?
DeleteNo, fingers crossed) not personally burgled, but my mother was, shortly after my father died. A TV and video recorder were taken and that was all - the burglars couldn't access the rest of the house because my father had insisted that every inner door had a lock, which mother faithfully locked every night!
ReplyDeleteEarlier this year my new neighbours across the road invited me over for coffee and commented (or it might have been a subtle complaint) on the number of lights I had around the house and garden that were left on all night (on a dusk till dawn sensor) in addition to the burglar alarm system. I explained that the police had told us years ago (in the UK) that outdoor lighting was a good deterrent - especially to random burglaries. The neighbours said that was ridiculous and two nights later they were burgled, as were several homes round about. Now across the road they have two CCTV cameras and the place is lit up like Alcatraz as soon as it gets dark. I'm surprised they haven't got roving searchlights too!
A nice story Carol... If only they had listened to the voice of wisdom!
DeleteI don't have anything worth stealing - my bike was a Christmas present to me in 1960 when I was 10 years old.
ReplyDeleteMy niece recently had her Pride flag stolen from the front of her home but that was done by a jerk.
Not since I was a teenager. Good bikes can cost a lot.
ReplyDelete