I Wuz Robbed

My suggestion: assert your need for protection and service, that's what TAXES are for. Bad/lazy cops are almost worse than robbery. I'm assuming you know not to touch anything due to the instructive power of bad cop TV; so I hope you got some non-rookies to march over with print kit.

I got burgled five summers ago, they got a box of vinyl, CD's, and a ghetto blaster but not its US to UK adapter plug, the bozos. Even though they took the records to sell two blocks away to a secondhand place I'd worked in for a year, had to show ID with an address to sell, and were caught on camera doing this, the equally inept London cops 'regretted to inform me that they could not find the perpetrator of the crime'. I was like, hang on! Got the CD's back, luckily (most of them were Japanese acid jazz belonging to Mie and Yuji, my architect friends I was flat-sitting for while they went back to Tokyo, which helped).

Good luck getting it sorted; hope you are an insured renter.

I like the idea of a set of unattached knees under the bed.

The nice thing about living in a posh neighbourhood was that the police were there within minutes. When they came, we figured out what had happened. The burglars had climbed in through my kitchen window using a ladder. The funny thing is, if my door is locked, you cannot get out without a key, and I had the only key with me. They had clearly picked up all my stuff, and then been unable to get it out of the flat, as they couldn't carry heavy objects down the staircase.

You know, I'd been freaked out about that door since I moved in, convinced that I was going to get locked in my flat in the event of a fire and be unable to find the keys to get out, but it really saved me from getting completely cleaned out.

We won't even get into the number of times that my office was robbed... I even ran into the guy coming up the stairs on my way down (I used to work late a lot) and thought he was the cleaner. THAT fucking freaked me out.

Anyway... as to inside jobs, it's usually the most common. Sick, isn't it? My sister got locked out of her flat one time, and she ran into this crazy guy who was like a handyman. He said "Hey, don't tell anyone but I've got a spare set of keys for every flat in this building." Like... 2 days after that, she was burgled of her stereo and her TV. 2 months after that, the handyman was in jail- she wasn't the first person who had had an experience like that.

Throw the party, Tracer. Seriously. Your landlord is a rat.

Harringay burglars don't seem to mind if you're at home either. A couple of years ago, boyfriend-at-the-time and I were sleeping on the futon in the front room when we were awoken by lights and a clicking noise. Overcoming my immediate fear that a ghost was interrupting our slumbers, I looked towards the window I saw the curtain pulled back and the sleeve of a puffa jacket coming through the window, the hand holding a lighter which the intruder was using to check out our nickables. I swore loudly several times and the sleeve withdrew.

Oh, and I was mugged twenty yards from my front door, again in Harringay, coming back from the supermarket. One bloke held his fag- reeking hand over my mouth and the other pulled my handbag from me. They didn't take my carrier bag though. "Oh, you can keep them, love," chuckled the merry criminal. So, one week before Christmas I was left with no cash, no credit card, no cheque book and scant consolation in a bag full of tampax that had been on special offer in Sainsbury's.

I've had my first two student houses robbed, once cos a stupid cunt housemate left the back door open, all that went was his coat his best mates wallet and a toaster, oh and two tickets for Pop tarts (terrrible 70s80s student disco) which were dropped along the street, so a burglar with amodicum of taste.

the next house was done by someone who got in through a tiny kitchen window flap. The night after we'd just got back from london and just left a load of convenient rucksacks full of stuff lying round the lounge which they nicked along with the video and playstation. They nicked the back door key and the landlord took ages to fit a new lock so in the mean time we had to sleep with one person in the lounge at all times. Eventually we changed the lock and gave him the bill and asked him to do something about the kitchen window. He came round and nailed it shut. If anyone wants a list of dodgy shit landlords in sheffield we got em in spades.

If you're still brickwalled and still suspicious, there are ways to get REVENGE. A few things we do in London to landlords we don't like:

Give notice when leaving, but withhold last month's rent if you've given a deposit. This stops them from chiselling into same.

Frozen shrimp are the best little stinkbombs Nature ever created about one week after they thaw out in the small confined space in which they have been hidden, ie. under a floorboard or behind the grille of a heating vent. Actually, scratch that. Little bits of raw, putrefying chicken are much worse.

If they're total wankers, Inland Revenue/IRS them (I did this because once mine claimed her insurance policy and my receipt of housing benefit were incompatible, which is a load of bollocks) and sit back and watch their lives become a nightmare of bureaucracy.

When I lived with my parents in London we were burgled every couple of years, but usually only the video was nicked. One time we came home to find a strange bike outside the front door and the front door bolted against us. Presumably the guy was still inside, but at least we were able to give his bike to the police.

I once had my walkman stolen in a bar in Soho, but I guess I deserved that for drinking to much and falling asleep while leaving my bag on the floor somewhere.

However minor the incident, it always sucks.

Seven days later, the bank puts a note through my door about how to collect my new bank card. They also post me a new pin number. Get this: I put BOTH of these in the same bag. Then the next night, unloading after a gig in Southampton, I leave that bag and my coat outside my flat at 2am for 45 minutes, forgetting about them completely.

They got robbed: moby, cash, chequebook, the abovementioned details of how to get my new card, plus every lyric and contact address ever. Even driving licence and passport.

But somehow, 2 days later it turns up at the local nick - the only thing the person stole before dumping bag and coat in a garden was my phone and my razorblade, didn't even look at paper bits.

And the next day, I found the money taken from the Charing Cross cashpoint refunded by the bank.

Possibly the oddest story I've heard came from a couple of friends who were living in the warehouse district of St. Paul. One of the woke up to discover a large guy rifling through his stuff looking for cigarettes. My friend asked, "Who the FUCK are you?". The guy said, "Don't worry about it. Go back to sleep." My friend started to fall back asleep, then sat bolt upright when he realized that he wasn't dreaming and there was a strange guy going through his stuff. The guy took this as his cue to leave. Fortunately, the guy only took cigarettes. Apparently, my friend HONKIN' ENORMOUS stereo was too much to carry...

I have never been robbed.

Must be true.

interestingly (for me, anyway) I got stopped by the police once outside St.Paul's Cathedral at about midnight for looking 'suspicious'. The friend I was with had a massive coat on at the time and kept looking round at the police around and about as he has become paranoid about them due to all the drugs (well, pot)he has with him - luckily he didn't have any that night - so I take it it was his fault. Freezing, biting winds and raining that night, I remember, also because it was after Godspeed! at the Festival Hall and we had a conversation with the police about Eurythmics or something. Strange...

Bill

I have absolutely no recollection of doing this, and it kinda freaks me out.

I think there was supposed to be an exterminator in the building sometime this week, but obviously there's no reason why an exterminator would've done that.

As far as I know, nothing's missing, though. (Not even the p0t in a small jar in one of those drawers.)

Next time, someone actually kicked in the front door while we were sleeping (we were on the second floor). They took some money on my CD shelf, a discman and a DVD player. They didn't manage to fill the empty bag which which was beside the discman, next to a stack of CDs, nor did they nick the laptop which was beside the DVD player (from which they had taken the time to disentangle from all the other stereo wires). The DVD player was in the upstairs office, next to where were sleeping. Bizarre.

When my wife lived in an apartment with friends in Nashville, she once woke up to find a guy standing in her bedroom, looking around. She says she yelled, "What are you doing here?", and he said, "Nothing," and she yelled, "You should leave!", and he did.

When I returned I discovered the driver's door ajar, and the boot/trunk conspicuously empty! I fucking freaked out, filed a police report, checked the nearby alleyways, and drove to my other cousin's place where I was staying. The only consolation I had was that I'd been carrying on me a small bag containing my camera, laptop, pda, gba, and various chargers and adaptors. (worth $5000+)

My cousin was fantastic, he gave me beer and cigarettes and words of wisdom. My other cousin came over and was equally comforting about the whole thing. I just felt so fucked having just said goodbye to my girlfriend (the principal reason I moved here) and then my key belongings. I didn't even have a change of underwear.

This morning, however, when I was driving to work I got a call from the recruitment company through which I'm employed. Someone had found the bags in the street and had called them. I sat through an important meeting and raced over to this guy's house, and he'd found almost all of my gear, undamaged, and taken it back to his house. My only losses were my favourite t-shirts (a junkie with good taste?!), my toiletries, and a pair of ratty swimming trunks. I just can't believe they didn't touch my brand new Dr Martens, obviously expensive suits, good quality skater jumpers, or near-mint condition dive equipment.

I bought the guy a bottle of nice Scotch for his trouble. He went a long way to restoring my faith in humanity.

So in conclusion I'm in a bit of a confused emotional state. I think the closest word to describe how I feel is 'relief'.

As for the situation I described above, I'm pretty sure it was the exterminator.

I wuz robbed last night! They came into my flat through the open bathroom window, after climbing up the drainpipe (I live on the first floor, else I'd never leave the window open like that), made their way to the hallway and riffled through my bag on the table there, nicking off with my wallet and my book of cards (credit & debit, doctors, loyalty, NI etc) before clambering back out through the bathroom window.

I was sitting in the living room on the computer, some music playing, but not too loud as it was 11pm... I heard some noises out in the hall/bathroom so got up to look, but they were gone by the time I turned on the bathroom light and opened the door.

It's pretty scary, as I live alone, and it's horrible to think that some theiving low-life scummer was just 10 feet away from me creeping about my wee flat in the dark and going through my stuff.

So many if onlys...

aye, read about that on fb earlier, alex. Bit of a shocker, must have been an alarming discovery. Chin-up.

Scummer's found floating in the Clyde over the next few weeks bludgeoned to death with bicycle d-locks may be attributed to me and my rabid desire for revenge.

what's a loyalty card?

Tesco clubcard and all that pish (Waterstones, Sainsbury's).

I just found out that my friend's dorm room was robbed, they took a lot of his old CDs and even some rare vinyl! I think he is SOL, he is never going to get an answer on this.