Being burgled, and stealing people's property

[Ronster]

Me and my fella got burgled a couple of months ago while in bed.  The little fuckers came in through back door and managed to make off with phones wallets and workbags (containing a nice digital camera and my bloody diary grrr)  Luckily our dgos (two big doberman - soft as shite but loud as hell) woke up and barked from upstairs and scared them off

The worst of it was though we thought we had got off lightly as they had missed an expensive watch lying next to the bags and my iPod charging on the side but after finding out other bits of information we reckon we were burgled by my fella;s ex house mate who is currently suing us (because he's a retard)

I was ok thinking we had been done by some drugged up kids trying their hand but really feel uncomfortable knowing this psycho either came back to the house or got one of his mates to do it just to try and get his hands on any documents etc and to freak us out.

Not nice....the fucking cunt

[Pinball]

Sorry to go on, but you need CCTV...   Tonight I'm setting up a front door cam (400 line resolution, colour) in the porch (one of those "in a globe" things) which also looks down the drive so can see anyone nearby who passes. I'm toying with the idea of putting big old bright signs saying "CCTV in operation here" or somesuch, but haven't yet.

[High Roller]

Sorry to go on, but you need CCTV...   Tonight I'm setting up a front door cam (400 line resolution, colour) in the porch (one of those "in a globe" things) which also looks down the drive so can see anyone nearby who passes. I'm toying with the idea of putting big old bright signs saying "CCTV in operation here" or somesuch, but haven't yet.

Sounds like your place is turning into a mini-police state.

Do you have torture chambers / holding cells for anyone who breaches your defenses?

[Neville Chamberlain]

I once stole 10 packets of Panini football stickers from my village sweetshop in the late '80s.

Sorry Mr. Lake, if you're reading. :-(

[Mr Lake]

Don't feel guilty Jim.  Our shop was always on a knife-edge budget-wise and your theivery sent us over the edge and spiralling into debt.  But I knew that Panini stickers were tempting for little oiks like yourself and accepted that some were bound to get stolen.  However, 10 packs was rather more than a thought any mindless little sod might take and the long-term ramifications have led to my incarceration at Her Majesty's Pleasure (twice) and is the major contributing factor in my wife's ongoing health problems (three strokes and counting).

But like I say, don't feel guilty lad.

[Neville Chamberlain]

And no doubt the fact that your son is seriously mentally disabled isn't helping matters much either.

[Garfield And Friends]

Sorry to hear about your shitty experience, G&F. Hope you're not too shaken, mate.

Thanks. Not shaken at all, just kinda fuming.

Also, keep all important possessions in the bedroom or just upstairs. Odd one this, since you do tend to end up living out of your bedroom, but I would imagine burglars don't go upstairs as a general rule because stairs creak/more likely to be caught at night etc.

Yeah, that makes sense for 'casual' thieves, but is merely a few seconds delay for a more determined thief.

Just to be ultra-cautious today, I dismantled my computer and took the hard drive into work. I carried it into the office in my shirt top pocket, making me look like the biggest dweeb! D'oh! Now where did I leave my pocket protector? ......

[Pinball]

I use external 300GB drives (Maxtor), so I can store them away from the PC. Admittedly I do tend to leave them next to the PC too much, but my better half works from home so the risk of burglary is hopefully quite low.

In response to High Roller (heh), I admit it is an extreme move, but I've had enough of hearing about people burgled, and also have experienced loutish scumfuck behaviour locally here. This culminated in some local pondlife throwing eggs at our house for no good reason other than we are near a park and they walk past (they've done the same to neighbours too), together with breaking off my car aerial and trying to kick my fence down. So I went onto the park and had a "showdown" about 4 months ago. There were 30 of them too, so I guess I was lucky I wasn't beaten up, but I would have taken them with me (and I had CS gas in my pocket) ;-)  

Any road up, I informed them that I was going to cover the house and garden in CCTVs, and if they ever did anything near my house again I would give the police the tapes and prosecute them to the maximum extent possible. Once the cameras were up, the louts fucked off, which is nice. I believe in proactivity and grasping the louts by the bollocks (metaphorically speaking). Whether it works long-term who knows - time will tell. They probably call me "the nutter in the house" but I don't care. I consider it a compliment! What I don't want to do is let the situation escalate (a neighbour had a rock thrown at their car). It goes against my principles about government surveillance etc., but I had no choice.

[MojoJojo]

Just to be ultra-cautious today, I dismantled my computer and took the hard drive into work. I carried it into the office in my shirt top pocket, making me look like the biggest dweeb! D'oh! Now where did I leave my pocket protector? ......

Um, protecting hard drives my theives is a good idea, but breaking it in the process probably isn't the best idea. They really don't like being moved around that much. All it would take would be for it to fall out as you tie your shoelace or something, and hard drive is gone.
Backup is the way to go, preferable offsite. Or just burn to DVDs regularily, and hide them.

[sproggy]

'I ain't paranoid, it's just that everyone seems to have it in for me *twitch* '

[Pinball]

What a truly revolting picture! Just as well it's highly inaccurate then ;-)

Um, and having eggs thrown, windows smashed, car aerials broken, fences cracked, stolen goods hidden in one's garden, neighbours' cars dented ain't paranoia, it's fact. Of course, a paranoid interpretation is a different matter :-)

Presumably you live in a heavenly paradise with your front door wide open in the secure knowledge that only fresh air will enter? And the only yoofs around are those dancing in circles with daisies in their hair.

[Bernard]

It's "fortunate" for me that I only moved my computer (and CD-R backups) into my bedroom on a whim two weeks ago. Ultimately, the possessions I prize by far are the music I've recorded on it, the songs/lyrics I've written, the source code to unfinished games I've coded, the pictures I've drawn on it, and the many other texts/stories/personal writing I have stored on it's hard drive. The computer is just wires and metal, but I'd seriously cry if years and years of effort was swiped just like that by heartless, selfish good-for-nothings. So, the worst (from my perspective) didn't happen, thankfully.

I lost a load of data the other month and it cost me £175 to get back. It seems you only learn to back it up and keep the backup in a totally seperate place after you actually lose something. No one I've mentioned this to who hasn't lost their PC data backs it up.

[sick as a pike]

Presumably you live in a heavenly paradise with your front door wide open in the secure knowledge that only fresh air will enter? And the only yoofs around are those dancing in circles with daisies in their hair.

Correct.  It's just sproglette, a pink car and some swans, apparently.  I'd put in a direct link to the relevant bit of the "I've nothing..." etc if i knew how.

[sproggy]

Presumably you live in a heavenly paradise with your front door wide open in the secure knowledge that only fresh air will enter? And the only yoofs around are those dancing in circles with daisies in their hair.

I live in a small village smack bang in the middle of the Norfolk broads (see piccie) and yes it is nice here, low crime rate good schools for my kids and all round excellent quality of life (without having to earn a fortune to maintain it)

I have actually gone to bed and left the front door unlocked on several occasions and the locks on one of our cars have not worked for about two years.  The thing is, the pace of life up here is so much slower than elsewhere (as other Norfolk/Suffolk whores will probably testify)  So burglary is just to much effort for the local petty thieves.

I was born a raised in Hampshire and don't remember it being all that bad, mind you it was about twenty years ago and a lot has changed in that time I suspect.

[mook]

Sproglette seeing as you now appear to be the Norfolk whore, are you anywhere near Wroxham?

That place intrigued me as a kid. (I was from Cambridge, not that far away I suppose) On Anglia TV there used to be loads of cheaply made adverts all saying "Come to Wroxham, Roys of Wroxham". You really have to say it in a Norfolk accent to get the beauty of it. These ads used to be shown in heavy rotation in the early evenings. Anyway my parents bought a cottage in Blakeney on the north Norfolk coast* and I finally got to go to Wroxham, I wasn't disappointed, it was exactly how I pictured it, a small town with every single little shop there owned by this mysterious Roy. If only I could have seen him tootling about in a convertible Cadillac a la Boss Hogg I'd have been a very happy young mook. Is the old bastard still there or has he flogged it all on to Tesco's or summink?


*I still miss the crabbing..sob

[Pinball]

Where I live is semi-rural and pretty good actually. It's just that I'm "lucky" enough to live next to a park. You'd think that would be a good thing (which it is in many ways), but inevitably the local yoof use it to smoke pot and hang around. This I have absolutely no problem with, but a small minority cause trouble (they should smoke more pot and mellow out!). So park = bad luck. Location, location and all that.

But I certainly wouldn't want it to sound like South London (where I lived for several years while a student), as it isn't.

[sproggy]

If only I could have seen him tootling about in a convertible Cadillac a la Boss Hogg I'd have been a very happy young mook. Is the old bastard still there or has he flogged it all on to Tesco's or summink?

Sadly he sold his last discount jumper a couple of years ago when he popped his plastic clogs, but Roys of Wroxham is still going strong.  I live in Caister-on-Sea which is one of the oldest villages in the UK (over 2000 years old and home to the first British Holiday Camp)

There are other Norfolk Whores Sam is at UEA and Hoverdonkey hails from North Norfolk so I am not alone, though hardly enough to justify a meet.

[Evil Knevil]

Never been burgled.


I wonder why?

My ex-wife kept getting her black bin nicked where she lived, 'the Green Mile', aka Hackett Crescent.

Honestly, a black bin?! It happened, I think, 4 times.

The place I'm staying at the moment has 3 doors blocking a potential pikey thief. 1, because it's actually inside a garden centre. 2 to get into the flat complex and 3, the front door.

Commiserations, Garfield (and his friends).[/img]

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

Never been burgled.

I wonder why?

You have nothing worth nicking?

[untitled_london]

dogs are a false sense of security.

any burglar worth his salt wil scope the place, and bring a cheap cut of steak if its worth the effort.

however, considering that most burglars are pikey chav scum smackies, 'most' obviously wont go the extra yard.

[Evil Knevil]

I wonder if the steak trick actually works? I'd hope that my dogs would focus more on the intruder than on the food.... Especially since they bark at passing tumbleweeds.

[untitled_london]

heh - next time your dog barks at some tumbleweeds, offer him some steak, and see what happens :)) :))

i'd say that most dogs will bark for a bout two seconds and then eat until stuffed and roll over for tickles :P

if the steak doesn't convince the dog ,i'm sure a can of frangrant pedigree chum would.

i love dogs as much as the next fella, but, essentially they are dumb and crave affectiion/ attention.

cats are much more terrortorial and will hiss and generally spit feathers, plus, they are less likely to be bought off. as much as i dislike cats, they are better in this singular respect.

that said they are not much of a deterrent though, and a swift kick will shut them up alot easier too.

<disclaimer: i am not a burglar, nor do i kick cats>