Robbed! I mean, burgled.

[dean]

On friday my house was broken into.  Up until then I was having a good day: got off work early and was looking forward to relaxing at home for a few hours.

Luckily not a whole lot was stolen, or at least not as much as they could have.

Gone:

Girlfriend's laptop
One of my video cameras
My favourite watch 
Jewelry: but not the expensive stuff; they left her pearls and gold/diamondy type stuff, but took her grandmother's jewelry ie all the sentimentally valuable stuff.
Some petty cash [coins in a box for parking/public transport etc.

It was good to know you objects that were formally mine...

Anyways, we didn't have insurance so its just gone to the gods now.   

Thankfully they didn't take as much as they could have: digital slr, playstation 3, computer and tv stuff all still there.  Must have been a quick smash and grab.

It was amusing going to the police station:

Me: 'I'd like to report a robbery'
Police officer jumps into action: 'A ROBBERY!!'
Me: 'Yeah our house was just robbed'
Police officer sitting back down calmer now: 'Oh you mean a BURGLARY...'

They were actually quite helpful and funny, which was good because I was pretty annoyed.

Anyways, because the laptop is gone and that was our source of internet I will be scarce until a replacement is found.

But my question to you: Have you been robbed?  Or even burgled? 

I've actually walked in on a burglar before, a situation which ended with him getting 12 months jail.  I'll go into that one later, since it's a bit of a story and I have washing to do. 

My dad also walked in on one.  He was dressed in a suit and buggered off as soon as dad walked in.  He dropped the bag of stuff he was stealing.  In it was cans of Coca-cola and chupa chups [lollipops].  Priority items you know.


Ah well, it's just stuff, and it's sad to say that I'm somewhat used to it now.  Here's hoping there's no next time!

[RCMerchant]

Yes...getting "burgled" is sucks. I've had my old place I lived in about 5 years ago broke into. The found my rent money ,stole some old comic books(?),a 12 gauge shotgun,and a bottle of whiskey.I think I know who did it...but proving it was impossible. Cops rarley look too far into these things. They have a 'ho-hum' attitude about it.
 Twice more...both times my kids Playstations were stolen...so I assume it was some punk teenager....more than likey one of the kids who lived in the area and knew Jed and Eddie what they had...because they went straight to the dresser drawer and took all the games too.
 Believe it or not...most people who get robbed are robbed by people they know or 'freinds' .

[schmendrik]

Yeah, we were burgled but we didn't even know it for a couple of days. We were lucky, they were incompetent (probably neighborhood kids) and in the end nothing valuable was missing.

What happened was that I was noticing something weird about the cats. I'd keep finding them outside when I was pretty sure I'd let them into the basement, and there was no direct access to the basement from outside. So I went down there and noticed that somebody had kicked in one of the basement windows, detached the whole thing from the frame, and left it against a wall.

I came back up and we started looking around for missing stuff. I'd had a camera graveyard on one shelf, including a couple of pretty decent 35 mm ones. All gone, but none of them worked a damn. They were there because I couldn't quite figure out what to do with them.

My wife had a little dish of junk earrings on her desk. They overturned that and took them.

We also thought we'd lost some pretty valuable heirloom jewelry, and we reported that to the insurance. But inside of a week or two, we found we hadn't lost that and told the insurance to take it off again. They ended up giving us a settlement for replacement cost of the cameras. I told them the cameras were worthless, but they said they had to give me new-replacement value. We used that to put decent windows in the basement.

[Trevor]

On friday my house was broken into.  Up until then I was having a good day: got off work early and was looking forward to relaxing at home for a few hours.

Luckily not a whole lot was stolen, or at least not as much as they could have.

Gone:

Girlfriend's laptop
One of my video cameras
My favourite watch 
Jewelry: but not the expensive stuff; they left her pearls and gold/diamondy type stuff, but took her grandmother's jewelry ie all the sentimentally valuable stuff.
Some petty cash [coins in a box for parking/public transport etc.

It was good to know you objects that were formally mine...

Anyways, we didn't have insurance so its just gone to the gods now.   

Thankfully they didn't take as much as they could have: digital slr, playstation 3, computer and tv stuff all still there.  Must have been a quick smash and grab.

It was amusing going to the police station:

Me: 'I'd like to report a robbery'
Police officer jumps into action: 'A ROBBERY!!'
Me: 'Yeah our house was just robbed'
Police officer sitting back down calmer now: 'Oh you mean a BURGLARY...'

They were actually quite helpful and funny, which was good because I was pretty annoyed.

Anyways, because the laptop is gone and that was our source of internet I will be scarce until a replacement is found.

But my question to you: Have you been robbed?  Or even burgled? 

I've actually walked in on a burglar before, a situation which ended with him getting 12 months jail.  I'll go into that one later, since it's a bit of a story and I have washing to do. 

My dad also walked in on one.  He was dressed in a suit and buggered off as soon as dad walked in.  He dropped the bag of stuff he was stealing.  In it was cans of Coca-cola and chupa chups [lollipops].  Priority items you know.


Ah well, it's just stuff, and it's sad to say that I'm somewhat used to it now.  Here's hoping there's no next time!

Sorry to hear that, Dean: that sucks.

[Mr_Vindictive]

It was amusing going to the police station:

Me: 'I'd like to report a robbery'
Police officer jumps into action: 'A ROBBERY!!'
Me: 'Yeah our house was just robbed'
Police officer sitting back down calmer now: 'Oh you mean a BURGLARY...'

They were actually quite helpful and funny, which was good because I was pretty annoyed.

Hate to hear about the burglary Dean.  Luckily I haven't had to go through such a thing as of yet.

Funny that you put in this little excerpt though.  I work in 911 and we get calls all the time that someone has been "robbed".  For us a robbery is when someone is mugged or something is taken from a person by force.  We have a special set of rules on how to dispatch a robbery and who to notify, what type of BOLO (Be On The Lookout) to give out, etc.  But, I have found when someone says they have been robbed, it's usually a breaking and entering.

Hope they find your stuff Dean!  We generally recover about 70% of items stolen here, so good luck!

[Psycho Circus]

When I used to live at my moms, we got robbed. The guy broke quite a few of the windoes and stole alot of jewellery and I don't recall them catching him.

When my dad's got broken into, the guy did it in broad daylight and took the VCR and a ton of Cd's in a bag. He was spotted by the neighbours and they called the police, he didn't get very far, got savaged by a police dog and we got the gear back. Result. 

That's a real bummer Dean, it sucks. 

[asimpson2006]

When I was in middle school someone broke into my locker and stole the money I had in my wallet (It was $3 for lunch).  Other than that I have had nothing stolen.  My mother did have her car broken into the other day and had some change stolen (My dad thinks it was some kids because it was just pocket change and not my mom's satellite radio unit that was stolen.)  A close friend of mine had a amp stolen from his car and a unique chain that you can only get with GTA IV.  He was pretty upset about it.  I had to check my car to make sure nothing was stolen and thankfully nothing was stolen.   

[Jack]

That totally sucks Dean, I hope they catch the guy. 

The only time I've been burgled was when somebody went through my car.  I think they got a half-empty pack of cigarettes.  The worst part was they left the door open in the middle of the winter, so the whole interior of the car was all frosty.

My friend's house was burgled, they went through it pretty thoroughly.  They caught the guy trying to cash in a large jar of change, and luckily most of their stuff was still in the guy's trunk.  So there is hope 

[trekgeezer]

AAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!  I hate that this happened to you Dean.

I've posted here before about our break in back in 2001.  The real problem we dealt with wasn't so much the stuff that was taken, but the fact that you feel so violated.

My daughter was still in high school and she was afraid to be at the house by herself for while.  She would go to a friend's house and wait for me to call when I got in from work.

I hope you had some decent insurance.

[Andrew]

Sorry to hear that.  We've usually had a dog in our house, one that was large enough to be a threat (a boxer), and trained in "sic 'em!"  My father's house was broken into years ago.  The thieves stole tools, TV, and the normal stuff, but they also took his answering machine.  When the jerks got caught burgling another house, the police got hold of all the loot and discovered my father's answering machine; it still had his message on it - so they called him and he got a lot of his stuff back.

I hope some of your stuff shows back up.

[Mr. DS]

Sorry to hear that Dean.  I hope they catch the cowardly pieces of crap or something at least more than awful happens to them. 

I haven't been burgled luckily, I have had personal property vandalized (a broken window/scractched up car) which was bad. I can only imagine what your family is going through right now.  Some a-hole in my area was syphoning gas tanks.  I have a lock on mine for that reason.  Best of luck to all of you. 

[Ash]

I've never had any of my residences broken into but I have had two cars burgled.
The most recent one was last summer in the middle of a Saturday afternoon in broad daylight.
I had parked in the parkade attached to my building and was in a hurry to make it to my cousin Heather's wedding.  I was inside for exactly 35 minutes.  Long enough to shower and change into dress clothes.
When I came back out, the thief/thieves had punched out my driver's side door lock and ripped my detachable face CD player right out of the dash.  Normally I never left the CD player face in the car but I did that one time.  Never again.

Also, when I was 17, I was a huge audiophile.  I got a loan from a local credit union for something like $1,200 for a new stereo and alarm system for my car.  Back in 1991, $1,200 would hook you up with some sweet equipment.  Subs, a cool tape deck, strong amps, the expensive gold plated cables, nice speakers etc...
So I got the loan and had two friends install the stereo and alarm.
I had it for about two weeks when one morning I got up for school and saw my trunk ajar.  My heartrate jumped up about 100 beats per minute when I saw it.
I checked it and everything was gone.
I mean everything.
They even yanked out some of the gold plated cabling.

When I examined the break-in, it was obvious that only someone who knew the layout of my car and alarm system could've gotten in without setting it off.
Even though I could never prove it, I know it was one of the guys who helped install it.
The one guy I never suspected because I'd hung out with him for years but the other guy named Matt, who I didn't know as well, was always my prime suspect.
Oh well, he's getting his right now in prison, as I've heard he's been locked up in one of the state penitentiaries for several years now.  Karma's a b***h!  

So I had to pay on a loan for over a year for a stereo I didn't own.

Sorry to hear about your misfortune Dean.
Hopefully karma will get back at the perpetrator for you.

[ghouck]

Well that sucks Dean, , I hope you get some kind of positive resolution, although that's rarely the case.

I've never had my residence broken into, but a year or so ago I had both my 4-wheelers stolen. A 1-year old Arctic Cat DVX400 and a brand bew Yamaha raptor 700GYTR. The idiots rolled them down the street and apparently tried to bump start them, which doesn't work without the key. Since they couldn't get them started, they ripped the ignition pad off, along with the ignition switch and whatever lights were attached to the pad. They ditched the bikes 100 feet from where I live, , but somehow I drove right past them when I took off looking for them, and only noticed them when I returned. Between the ignition pads, the ignition switched and the wiring harnesses I was out over $400.

My Grandmother's house was broken into while she was visiting me in Alaska. They stole all the typical pawn-shop items: VCR, TV, Microwave, etc. Where she lived was a total ghetto, a burned-out section of Akron that was apparently a GREAT place to live back during the "rubber boom", as it was actually called "Firestone Park". In the 70s and 80s as most of the jobs at Goodyear and Firestone went away from that area, , the place slowly turned to crap.

That's one thing I have no use for is a thief. When my quads were stolen, I was at work b***hing about it, and even the inmates that work for me agree there's few things worse than a thief. Except for one, , who went on to tell me about how his thing was running a chop shop and stealing RVs. He didn't seem to mind when someone explained that their grandfather had worked his whole life and spent his life savings on an $85,000 motor home only to have it stolen along with all it's contents. He talked about how it just devastated him and having been otherwise healthy, , he died within a year. The insurance payoff was horribly unfair, something like $22,000 for the RV AND everything he owned that was in it. The idiot's reply was "Well I already had an RV but the motor and rear-end was shot, so I stole one and just got those out of IT, since I knew I'd be busted easily driving a stolen RV around. I just torched the rest of it". The mentality of a thief is amazing, I'm beginning to agree with the solution some places in the middle east take care of it.

Also, the real bummer of the whole thing is, with something like my quads, , it'd be about $13,000 to replace them both. BUT, , the thief isn't getting $13,000, it's not like this guy is going to take MY quads and put his kid through college, or the money he gets is going to make some life-altering change and get him out of whatever gutter they're in. It's not going to get their grandmother a new kidney, it's not going to be the start of some multi-million dollar business. No, it'll get him a thousand dollars or so, enough for rent on a crap-hole appartment and food for most of the month, nothing more. That doesn't even get them through the month before they have to go out and F someone else over.

[Derf]

Sorry to hear about the burglary, dean.

While I've never had my home burgled, like others, I have had my car broken into. I was leaving for work one morning and something didn't look right on my little Mitsubishi pickup. After a couple of seconds, I noticed that my taillights were gone (Mitsubishi pickups were popular for modding in my area, and apparently someone needed some new taillights). I went around to the passenger side of the truck, and they'd broken out the window there as well and stolen my stereo. It was worthless: a three- or four-year-old JVC that I'd installed myself. Luckily for me, I had never even bolted it into place; it was just stuck in the dash, so the jackass that stole it didn't have to tear up my dash to get it. I think he did that to cover the fact that he only needed the taillights, because the stereo was obviously old and crappy. I did have good insurance, though, and they took care of everything quickly and efficiently. The police never even tried to find the thief; they just gave me a police report for my insurance company.

[Rev. Powell]

Sorry to hear that, Dean.

I'm another who's lucky enough never to have had my home or apartment invaded.  But my car was broken into.  They smashed the window and grabbed my portable mp3 player and a FULL pack of cigarettes.  Pretty bold--it was in broad daylight, at my parking lot at work.  A co-worker heard the sound of the glass breaking but by the time she got to the parking lot no one was there. 

I reported it to the police, but it was a big hassle as I had to wait for an hour or so at the police substation while they handled reports of higher priority crimes.  It was still important to report it, as it was part of a pattern of petty thefts in the area, but they never recovered the mp3 player.  Insurance covered the broken window, so it ended up being just an annoyance and a minor inconvenience.