Bloody Burglars ....

[Alice]

I live in a lovely little english village. We have lived in the same house for 12 years and I've always felt safe from crime at home. We live in a little cul-de-sac and out the back of the house we look onto a village pub, a farm yard and a little further back a real old church steeple with a clock that chimes the hours away. (Although my car has been broken into several times that has only ever happened when I've been parked in a nearby town or city, so it's never been a feeling I've carried home with me)

 

On monday we went away for a family trip to a theme park, staying overnight in the park hotel. Mistake number 1 - we put our recycling bins out 24hours early, thus announcing our absence. Mistake number two - we left two laptops on a chair visible through a window. Mistake number 3 we failed to click one of our window latches at the back of the house completely into the locked position. Mistake number 4 - although we locked the back door we left the keys in the lock and this was close enough to the little window for an agile person to wiggle in and unlock the door. Mistake number 5 - there is no rear access to the garden (as the actress said to the bishop) but it is possible to climb over the wall from the pub carpark into our garden, especially since the landlord cut down some of the trees and left a handy leg up stump (we didn't know about this until my eldest tried to recreate the steps of the bloody burglar)

 

We came home to find the window open, the back door unlocked and two laptops, two power supplies and a rucksack gone. Whoever had been in had opened all the upstairs doors as well - presumably looking for a bag to put the laptops in (that was all that was taken from upstairs)

 

The strange thing is - there are two more laptops in the house, recent-whizzy-slimline purchases - whilst the laptops that were taken were on their last legs-muscle-building-weighty-out-moded old laptops. There were also dozens of other potable technical items that could have been taken - the wii, digital camera's, sat nav, mobile phones. Its like they just came in for the two laptops they'd seen through the window and they walked past everything else. I know it could have been worse - they could have taken loads more stuff ... they could have done unspeakably horrid things to the house .... although it just feels horrid that they were in the house and walking around.

 

What I'm mad about is the three years worth of work, research, random writings, favorite links, pearls from the antlerman, sentimental e-mails, photo's, idea's, brainstorms, blurbs, novel outlines, reviews, letters I never wanted to send but needed to write, funnies, memories, thankyou notes, reminders ... all gone.

 

Little bastard.

 

Grrrrrrr.

 

Also this is the first time EVER I didn't knock myself out spring cleaning the house before we left 'just in case we get broken into' and I really did have to say to the police officer, 'I know it looks like they've been through stuff in the bedroom ... but that is how I left it'. I'm mad because I've been trying to be more laid back in my approach to life and stop wearing myself getting ready for the fun and just have fun instead and now I'll have to factor back spring cleaning into our holiday routines. Aaaahhhhh.

 

And then there is this feeling of ... bad Karma.

 

An hour before we left the Theme park we saw a group of kids steal a giant cuddly toy of a stall and we didn't intervene. The guilt stage of loss I guess.

 

And then of course I'd already upset the god-of-essential-housework by not bleaching my dishcloths and so on in readiness of unexpected 'guests'. The blame stage.

 

AAAAHHHHHH.

[Purple]

I can in someways relate. I've never been broken into here, but shortly before I moved away form home, my parents home was. Shook my mother to her core, and she refused to leave the house empty again until they had an alarm installed. It was the same as you in a way too, where many valuables were left, and some really stupid things were taken. As it turned out they were interupted. The night the house was broken into my parents and my 2 great aunts were at dinner. My two great-aunts had been staying with us over the holidays. They were going to rent a car, and drive to Arizona to see some of their friends who had retired there. While everyone was out, my mothers friend dropped by, knocked on the door, rang the bell, saw a strange car. She assumed the car was a rental, the one my aunts were going to get, it wasn't, it was the burglers car. So maybe you buglers were scared off, or, maybe having come over from a pub they were drunk.