Lock Your Doors

The old Well in Well Street Trelawnyd
It was well st and not Welsh Street that the robbery took place

This story appeared in the local paper
The " Brave Woman" I know fairly well. She's a mom of two and stories about her ordeal have circulated the village like wildfire and have ranged from a tale of how she chased the thief down Well Street to how she was beaten up at the kitchen sink.
Whatever happened , it must have been a terribly upsetting experience and it has reminded us all in this rural part of North Wales to lock our doors at all times.
I think I have been lucky, but I have been the victim of crime on perhaps three occasions in my life.
I've had a cheque book ( remember those?) stolen years ago and the thief tried to use it in a Jewelry Shop where by kismet he was served by my twin sister. An opportunistic thief walked into our sheffield home and walked away with the Prof's laptop and of all things a small Japanese bowl and here in Trelawnyd someone lifted the Prof's old moped during our biggest and most successful Open Allotment Days........But I have never caught someone in the act.
It makes me think just what I would do if I did.
Would I grapple with a stranger to protect our belongings?
In the US, shooting an intruder may seem more acceptable than it would here. 

I saw Gay Gordon this morning and he bellowed that any ginger haired sneakthief would get a swift boot up the arse if he caught him rummaging through Big Mary's knicker drawer.
The humour glossed over the fear that such an event has obviously caused him and many of the other locals.

How many of you have been the victim of crime? and what did you do about it? 
I would be interested to know.......

120 comments:

  1. Cycling in Thailand, a motorcyclist and pillion passenger came alongside me. She grabbed my rucksack from the front basket and they sped off. It contained, amongst other things, my lovely Nikon camera worth £450. What did I do about it? I spent almost six hours in two Thai police stations reporting what had happened. To my surprise, four months later the Thai police sent me CCTV photos of the thieves and asked me to identify them. Amazingly, I recognised them straight away but I never got my camera back.

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    1. I remember you blogging about this YP ...did you ever get any compensation?

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  2. Anonymous9:58 am

    I had an overnight bag stolen from my boyfriend's (now husband) car many years ago.
    Inside was a very distinctive jacket which I had embroidered and it's perhaps a good thing that I never saw anyone wearing it as I would have attacked first and asked questions later by the perpetrators hospital bed!
    I routinely keep the outer doors of the house locked, my dad was a 'bobby' and advised such!
    We have a Shillelagh which has been handed down through the family (I'm of Irish descent) and believe me, if I caught anyone in my house I'd not hesitate to use it on their cranium!
    What we've worked for belongs to us, and no-one has the right to attempt to take it from us, so I absolutely agree with the lady who chased him from her house. Sometimes we just have to let our natural reactions rule us, dangerous as it may be.

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    1. I have just looked on ebay for a shillelagh
      And found dozens!

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    2. Anonymous11:32 am

      They're still available, but as ours is well over three hundred years old, it's truly seasoned blackthorn and would definitely cause some serious damage!

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    3. I always thought a shillelagh was a musical instrument :)

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    4. It is Riona. You play it on the heads of thieves.

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  3. The only one that sticks out in my mind at 5am is the time someone broke into our garage and tried to steal my husbands tools... BUT we owned a darling Rottweiler at the time. Sweetest dog you ever met... until you try to do something wrong to her family... I had never seen her aggressive side until that moment. She kept the theif cornered in the garage until the police got there and said....'hey, can you call your dog off so we can get him?' lol So i count my lucky stars that that is the only crime i can recall. Hugs! deb

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    1. Winnie did chase a salesman off the garden when we first had her

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  4. I got sold some fake hash in Piccadilly Circus in 1969 once. That's about it.

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    1. I suspect your brush with crime has been from the criminal side thomas

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    2. I have never ravished an unwilling old lady, if that's what you're talking about.

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    3. I am so ashamed about how hard I laughed at this response.

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    4. Anonymous7:56 pm

      Me too.

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  5. when i was young i had a man break into my apartment in the middle of the night. he was after me. i fought him off and pushed him out the door. he came back so i grabbed my gun, pointed it at his head and told him his brains were about to be splattered on the wall. he ran like hell and never came back. the cops told me if he returned to shoot him and then drag him into my apartment so it would look like an intrusion.

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    1. Bloody hell.......you are in the lead with this story

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    2. Oh my God....this is terrifying!

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    3. Jaz, great you had the gun to use in self defense. That ended well with you safe.

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    4. My mom dated a cop who told her the same thing. Always bring them back to the property. Good on you for scaring him away.

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    5. Oh My Goodness, I am so happy you were safe and didn't get hurt.

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  6. When I was a teenager the family home was broken into twice when we were traveling, lost a good stereo in one of those; the first time I was in London someone picked the pocket of my soon to be X - took a wallet with 400 pounds in it. None of the three times were we aware until after the fact.

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  7. never been a victim. just lucky I guess?

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  8. Thinking about it I've been victim to a few minor crimes but the one I remember most was when I arrived home from a walk with my then 3 month old in a pram and when i tried to open the front door, it was chained from the inside and there was a stranger standing in the middle of my loungeroom. I was very confused for a moment then started to walk away with the pram. I was only a little way along the street when i saw a couple of blokes clear the side fence and run off down the street. I lost all the early photos of my son and quite a few sentimental pieces of jewellery.
    I'm useless when there is a crime, i freeze in fear for just long enough for them to have a huge advantage.

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    1. Do you remain very silent too? I would like to think I would yell enough to wake the dead

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    2. Why on earth would they steal photos of someone else's child? They must have been high. :(

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    3. oh, the photos were in the camera (on film)

      and no, i dont manage even a whimper

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  9. Anonymous10:29 am

    My ex sister in law was recently confronted at her back door of her bakery business by a balaclava garbed thief at 5am. She rarely bakes, normally her husband's job. She allowed him a sleep in for the day. She thought it was a joke but it wasn't and he forced her to open the safe and ended up with AU$13,000. While the business is seen to be successful, they don't make that much money and don't have ready access to a bank where they can regularly deposit takings. It was truly awful. Personally, back in 1979 an ex punched me in the face. In 1982 a work customer grabbed me around the neck. Not nice experiences, especially the latter when the following day we were flying to New Zealand for a holiday. Oh yes, had a new toaster stolen from the car, years ago too.

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    1. Why on earth did a customer strangle you?

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  10. I was physically assaulted about 24 years ago by a young person with severe disabilities at my work place . This is probably more a workplace injury rather than a crime . It was still a shock though. It wasn't until 23 hours later I realised I suffered a back injury and had to be treated medically .

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  11. When I was a teenager and still living at home I had lots of my clothes stolen off the washing line. Two police officers came round to take more information (remember when they had the time and manpower to be able to do that). One asked me to describe the clothes and any details that would help them identify them and I had to admit to sewing the zip with red cotton, my trousers were green, my Mum was mortified. I never got any of them back :-(

    Then a couple of years later, the week before I married my first husband our new flat was broken into and all our wedding presents stolen, the thieves even took all the food I had put on the shelves. This time the police got everything back, but they apologised as they rushed in on the thieves in their home they caught them eating our tins of ham and beans so we couldn't have them back!!

    Good police work .... I've never bought tinned ham since :-)

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  12. We returned home late one Sunday evening and parked the car outside in the road. When my husband was getting ready for work the next morning, he received a phone call from a neighbor across the road. Our neighbor was putting out his garbage and noticed that our car was propted up by old batteries and all our expensive wheels were gone. Another neighbor had his tools stolen out of his truck that same night. There were suspects but apparently they left town and the police did not pursue.

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  13. I had a freaky experience recently. I do a few evening shifts in a big supermarket to top up my wages. There is a delivery yard at the back, and the doors are usually open ( we were a bit complacent about closing them ). Not any more, we were shown CCTV footage of how many ' intruders ' have a mooch about, and no one saw. I am now super paranoid about shutting those doors, as I don't know what I would do if I had to confront someone, or just came face to face with someone unexpectedly. Especially being a big WD fan, I might put a screw driver through their skull in a fit of Carolness.

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  14. No, never; and I've never yet locked a door (unless going away for a while). Nor do I ever take the key out of the car.

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    1. John probably should've asked you how many crimes you have committed then, as you may be from the other side...

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    2. I have never locked a car anywhere but I do take the key with me in my pocket when I leave it at the station in the mornings. I never lock my doors at home either.

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    3. I've had a speeding ticket.... does that count?

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    4. Well you are no Reggie Kray, but you were a very naughty boy.

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  15. We had a power washer and some expensive tools taken in the night from our sheds 2 years ago. They were never found. We think they were druggie kids whose families live up our way. We have spread the word that we now have several loaded and ready guns and alarm dogs moved closer to us and will fire if need be. (Not to hurt mind you but to scare the holy beJesus out of them.) It makes me sad that your own "neighbors" would steal from you.

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  16. My family were burgled when I lived at my Mum's, my husband was burgled twice - not from walking through unlocked doors but by breaking and entering. My aunt has had a chain ripped from her neck and I had a coin purse taken from my hand when I was a child. Worst of all was when my frail Nan (in her 90's at the time) was in bed when my step granddad opened the door to a stranger. The stranger raced past him up the stairs and rifled through My Nan's bag which was next to her bed. Another Nan had her bag ripped with a knife and her purse taken out when she was on a bus. I could go on and on......but I won't. :-)

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  17. Living in NY and in Argentina, you had to have keys and keys to get through all the locks on all the doors to get inside your home.
    In Argentina we were warned many times about not letting strangers into the building, not wearing attention getting jewelry etc.
    We were never robbed in BA .. We were never robbed anywhere ..
    But now that I am alone in a home in a country like setting .. I am afraid of the dark, of robberies, of all kinds of things. I need a dog, I have discovered that 2 cats are useless unless you just need some warm little body in the bed at night .. something that reminds you that you are not truly the only person on the planet.
    So .... so far so good, no robberies.

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    1. Doesnt have to be a big dog...just a loud one

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    2. True, small dogs are brilliant alarms. My standard poodle was very big but he was also very sweet, he would help the intruder in any way he could.
      As soon as I have settled in my own mind, where I am staying ... a dog will be added to my little family. I miss having a dog.

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  18. We've been burgled twice. Dealing with the insurance company on both occasions was far, far more traumatic than the crime. Unfortunately the only piece of jewellery recovered was the most hideous 'Elvis' type bracelet my husband had inherited from an uncle.
    What an absolutely fantastic 'karma' story about the cheque book.

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  19. Brave lady indeed! Fortunately I haven't ever been in such a situation, but a couple of years ago some little S*$T stole the (handmade by me) wreath off of our front door! While we were in the house! Cheek of some people!!! Hope your neighbour is OK after the ordeal.

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  20. Replies
    1. You are far too empathetic for your own good at times, John... don't ever change.

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  21. When I was about 14 and instructed to "go and get that hair cut" by my mother I asked the barber for "just a trim" but he proceeded to give me the look that was ready for the military. A criminal haircut. (I think he knew my mother).

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  22. When we bought our Florida house the previous owners left us a beautiful, very old elephant statue/fountain in the garden. We had a leak inside the house and had to hire a contractor to fix it. We gave him a key to come and go while we were away. One day "the power went out" and our security camera went down for a bit. The only way to have unplugged this camera was to have had access to the inside of the house. When we returned the elephant was gone. Given the weight of it and the layout of our property, someone would have had to back a truck up to the side yard and 2 men carry it to the truck. The contractor denied knowing there was an elephant, but OMG did he struggle when I questioned him. I was so sad to lose this lovely old elephant and it was something you could never buy again. We also had plans for him to be the fountain into the pool.

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    1. Getting your elephant nicked! Thats a first

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    2. And I am sure it was a very stylish elephant .. Karma Raz ... that elephant will topple over one day just as that pr*ck contractor walks past ... barefooted .... :)

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  23. During the Great Recession many local homes and busineses were burgled. Eventually someone noted only one storey homes were robbed, leading the police to conclude a professional gang was involved, for the reason professional burglars avoid two storey homes because there may be someone upstairs and the game is up. Eventually of the group was caught, and he ratted out the others. Don't know if any gingers were involved.

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  24. We're lucky here. Don't tell anyone, but I never lock the doors.

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  25. When I was a young nurse working in a New York City E.R. I lived in a building with a basement laundry, Being naive I put uniforms into wash and went back to my apartment only to find later that some had been stolen. After that I always took a book and stayed in the laundry room until my laundry was was done.

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    1. What on earth would someone want with nurses uniforms?
      Oh on second thought...i shouldnt ask

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    2. I see a man with hairy legs in a nurses uniform and high heels with lipstick crookedly applied and a bad wig.

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  26. When I was about 6 years old I was sitting on my mom's lap watching tv with her and my dad one night in our living room. My dad heard a strange noise that he thought was coming from outside (the front of the house). He opened the front door and looked out, and a man was cutting through the screen on the window of one of the bedrooms. My dad yelled, and the would-be intruder started to run. Dad looked around, there was a glass Pepsi bottle on the front step, so he grabbed that and chased the guy for several blocks with it. He didn't catch him.

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    1. As a kid, i bet you didnt sleep for weeks

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    2. I wouldn't have !!! I was in the shower when I was 10 and I heard a noise and saw a mans face at the bathroom window... by the tub/shower. I yelled for mom, told her to tell dad to get away from the bathroom window, I was in the shower. She said Dad is at the store ..

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  27. Doors are always locked here and two useless, but loud, dogs. I saw the police handcuffing a teenage girl on the drive of the farm next door. They came over after and said that she had told them she had gotten in our house by the cellar door, to which I replied that she did not, as the doors are all locked at all times and the dogs would have barked. Turned out she went in at our new neighbors from NYC, who think the country is so safe you don't need to lock doors.....

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    1. And they laughed at me when we moved here (farm country NY) and I had all new locks put on all the doors.

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  28. I've been burglarized a few times but never robbed. had a bicycle or two stolen out of the shed which wasn't locked. maybe some tools on another occasion. been a long time and don't remember exactly. never had anyone break into my house.

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    1. Yes , i am aware, i didnt differentiate between robbery and burglary

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  29. Nothing serious, just a WHAM! t-shirt from a washing line (many moons ago).
    Husband left the car unlocked on the drive, the dogs barked the house down- we thought they were bellowing at next doors cat! One laptop and a mobile phone went awol.

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  30. When I was traveling for training I watched a man stealing tires from under vehicles. I called security. No result. So I cut him off at the pass, so to speak. I knew there was only one way out of the motel parking and went that way in my pajamas carrying my tire iron. My timing was great and as I slapped the window on his vehicle he became quite scared. Just used my hand, not the tire iron. He sped off onto the freeway. Hotel security was drinking coffee and when the police arrived I was told the the thief would not return this night "because he knew a crazy lady was staying there".

    I did not think til later he could have had a gun. I was just mad because he had a truck load of spare tires...one which was mine.

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  31. I had a wallet lifted by some gypsies in Munich -- my attention was diverted by a cute child while mama went for the wallet in my handbag slung over my shoulder... Our house was broken into over the Christmas holidays when we were away during a sub-zero period of weather. The culprits left the doors open and came in through the bars of the cellar window and up the cellar stairs. They broke through the door panel with an axe and even tried to knock the wall down with the axe (they failed). Fortunately, my best jewelry I had taken with me and what they took was not too precious but added up to a nice sum. Our insurance policy was new for old so in the end and for once we came out better. But the shock of seeing your belongings flung around when returning late in the evening and then having to deal with the police -- is not in any way pleasant. Then there was the time I was gardening in the front and the thief came in the back door and stole my wallet as well as my husband's. I had the strange experience of seeing the till receipt that the thief had signed -- when she used my card in the petrol station of our friend and neighbour! My husband's card was recovered when the shop assistant looked at the long haired youthful customer and suspected that no way was he a Royal Air Force Squadron Leader!

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    1. How wonderful ( to have a squaddron leader as a hubby not the obvery)
      My mother in law was robbed by gypsies on the barcelonda train

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  32. My daughter had her car damaged because she parked on "there road".
    She had just passed her test so we brought her a little run around.
    As the road we live on is busy i told her to park it round the corner on a cul de sac but not to block anyone.
    First notes appeared sellotape to the windscreen, then newspaper clipping in the post about bad neighbours.
    Then swearing and cursing at her as she got out of her car which really upset her.
    So off to the police we went with all the evidence but when we got back someone had reversed into her car causing a lot of damage.
    A policeman came out he went door to door and he came back and told us who he thought had done it but without witnesses nothing could be done.
    Strangely afterwards this family would wave at us as there drove past, I soon put them straight.
    This is still continuing as my next door neighbour has just found out.

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    1. Every place has a family like that....our village has one too

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  33. Yes. The one that sticks in my memory was when I was in Paris, on the subway, and three middle-aged English women were holding onto the pole when a young man tried taking one of the women's handbags.

    She would have none of it, tugged so hard the would-be thief lost his grasp on the bag, and she calmly proceeded to close the bag which he had opened, and bash him over the head. Repeatedly. She kept this up until the next stop when he ran out as soon as the doors opened.

    "Bloody cheeky little git," she said with great disgust, and her two friends solemnly nodded their agreement.

    The spirit that won the war, methinks.

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    1. If I had seen this in action I would have never stopped laughing.

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    2. Oh to have seen that !

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  34. We own a cottage about thirty minutes away and used to spend the summers there. We would check it periodically the rest of the year. On one of our checks we found it had been ransacked and quite a few things taken; luckily we kept nothing of great value there, only "second-best" furnishings, dishes, etc. But the feeling of violation was still there. We contacted police and were told there had been a string of robberies along the coastline where our cottage was, and some of the items had been showing up in yard sales in the nearest town!

    At home we keep our outer doors locked. Except my husband has had a hard time remembering and still forgets from time to time, even though our neighbourhood has been a target at different times (most residents away at work all day, upper middle-class homes).

    Not far from our town, a number of years ago, a family I knew had a fugitive being chased by the police burst through their front door, run through their kitchen as they ate breakfast and run out their back door, police following close behind ...

    I love megan blogs' story! An ample purse filled with the necessities makes a good weapon, but you have to have the wit and courage to use it as well, as that lady clearly did!

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  36. I had my first house broken in to and a TV and VCR stolen. I was especially upset as the VCR contained a video tape with an episode of Brookside I had recorded, but not had chance to watch :-) x

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  37. Only once. A mugger tried to grab my shoulder bag in Hackney in London. I struggled with him for several minutes, gaily oblivious to the possibility he might have a knife or some other weapon. But he got the bag in the end and I had to replace no end of credit cards and what-have-you.

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    1. A shoulder bag! How wonderfully dapper

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  38. First loved Megans story.
    When I was still at high school I work at a Drive In Movie theater. Now all gone from the landscape.
    I worked at the concession stand and one night one of the male employees decided it was a good idea to strangle me. I was restocking the shelves and general clean up and next thing I am being strangled my someone I knew who was so strong. The next thing it was over and joking around he left. I have neck problems to this very day. Never knew why it happened and he was gone never saw him again. Not sure if any money was taken.

    Adore the photo of you and Mary on the side bar.
    cheers, parsnip










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  39. Touch wood, I have never had anything huge happen to me in my life that would involve any sort of fight. I did have my purple bike pinched from my front yard when I was 8, but that's about it. And I am grateful that was all.

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  40. I was victim of the dancing gypsies in Spain... carnations in mouth n' all picked my handbag !
    My son's bike was stolen during a week of bike thefts in the village. Bloody little tossers were getting paid for the bikes with dope. What made me SO angry was that he'd been to the same primary school as them; they'd had tea in our house & he in theirs & at 16 they brazenly walked down our path & nicked his bike for a bit of pot.
    Some bikes were recovered but not Joe's which had been his birthday present.

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  41. At our exercise for the over sixties class last week one of our members told how the previous day she had heard a noise and gone into the hall to find a man in this thirties walking through it. When she asked what he was doing he said he was looking for work and did she want the fascias cleaning. She told him to get out of the house or she would call the police and luckily he went, but she did warn us all to keep our doors locked even in the daytime - a sad indictment on the times we live in, but probably wise advice.
    Oh, and by the way, I still use my cheque book. New ways take a long time to reach up here!

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  42. PS... In Italy last week a dear local man stopped me & asked if I spoke English. He advised me to keep my handbag on my inside of the road shoulder as It could be swiped !
    On a brighter note, when we lived in Spain some builders needed to move husband's car. They moved it along the road then called to tell us he'd left his wallet on the seat !

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    1. That happened to me when we first moved to Buenos Aires. The thieves come right up on the sidewalk on their motorcycles and grab your bag off your shoulder ... sometimes really hurting the person who was carrying the bag.
      I used to wish I could carry a crowbar so I could 1- hit the bike rider 2- jam the bar into the wheel spokes and make him crash.

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    2. Wow super women ! ummmm the crowbar idea is interesting.
      I took one tour in Rome to see some of the main tourist sites before we went off on own. I carried a small bag cross body inside covered by my light jacket. Our guide told us all little tricks to be safe because the motercycle grab was very popularat that time. Plus the one were they slice the bottom of your purse and then when all the stuff falls to the ground the children rush in and grab.

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  43. Well I received a phone call one afternoon from a lady who said she had found my wallet full of money and credit cards etc on the pavement in Auchterarder, fortunately with my phone number on my business cards, and I could have it all back if I could meet her at the Findo Gask turn off in ten minutes tine. That was very nice of her. I had not even noticed it was missing.

    It was certainlya better experience than my house being burgled age 10, our windows being shot at then later stoned because my dad was a policeman, my car radio being ripped out through a smashed side window, my wallet being nicked from my jacket pocket in Edinburgh and my lady's wallet being nicked from the very bottom of her bag in Rome. Mind you, I did pinch some sweets and dinner tickets when I was a wee lad.

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  44. Oh my goodness, I have just realised how much theft I have endured - three rounds of stolen wallet, three house break ins, two car break ins, two shop break ins....mostly the things taken were minor and replaceable, but things of value to me beyond monetary value were also taken and that really pisses me off. The worst cae was the first shop invasion back in the early 90s - I was beading a wedding dress bodice and had left it at work in a bag for some reason. The burglars took all of the CDs, and they grabbed this bag to put them in. I couldn't care less about the very replaceable CDs but the 20+ ours work gone into that bodice really hurt. Needless to say the useless insurance company wouldn't compensate me a cent for it.

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  45. Anonymous7:01 pm

    Just minor stuff here...solar lights stolen off the front garden and floodlights stolen at Christmas....the worst was about a month ago someone hacked into my Visa information but Visa was on the ball and called me to advise that they had cancelled mh card and were issuing a new one. Didn't cost me a cent. There have been home invasions not to far from s. We always have our doors locked and our windows have locks we can use so they can be open a bit for air and still be safe. It's not a nice feeling is it?

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  46. We have had thousands of pounds worth of equipment stolen by the local travellers site, and I have been known (to the humour of the family) to have been sat in the shadows, baseball bat in hand, for nightly hours on end to catch them again.......and beat the shit out of them!

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    1. I must add that I found out three days ago exactly who the culprits have been over the years, and where they live. Revenge will be soooooooooooooo sweet.

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    2. I hear evil laughter coming from over there ...

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  47. When I was a child our apartment was broken into twice. One time I was home sick and we had started leaving the skeleton key in the lock. I heard it being fiddled with and walked from the bedroom into the living room and in as deep a voice as a young girl could muster said, "Hello?" They stopped and ran like hell. I caught a glimpse of them out the window and called the police. My mom came home two minutes later from the store to find me upset and with the cops. Another time my mom and I came home to the same place and found everything strewn about the stairs leading to our second floor apartment. Immediately I panicked about where the cat was and found her safe and sound under the bed. The violation one feels from a robbery is awful, not as awful as physical/sexual assault no doubt, but there is something vile about a person thinking they have a right to take things that you have worked hard for.
    We also had our cars broken into and stolen a few times.
    A couple of months back Chase Visa sent me a fraud alert. Someone had the gall to use my card at the post office, on Craig's List and on Timberland.com.
    Thieves should be set on fire. Bastards.

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  48. In Buenos Aires sometimes I would carry my money in a pocket and not in my purse .. just in case the purse got snatched. No one would ever manage to get their hand in that pocket .. ever. Not even the husband :)

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  49. You said crime, not theft. So when I was a teenager I was jumped after getting off a bus at dusk in an empty parking lot. He tried to rape me. Rather than use the self-defense techniques I learned in school, I curled up in the fetal position on the asphalt. He could not get my clothes off despite trying hard. All I saw of him was his silhouette half naked running away. You never really know what you will do when you are attacked I guess.

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    1. Oh Donna how traumatic. You did so well to defend yourself too . So true in we never know how we will react in an attack. I was assaulted at work and my first memory was hearing screaming and then I realised it was me screaming.

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    2. Oh Donna ... :(
      Bless your heart ... and you Leisha .. so terrible, so sad. It makes you (me) wish that the person who did this died a very painful early death.

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    3. Let us all know, is the curling into a fetal position the best. It does sound so?

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    4. Well not per the self-defenses classes but it worked for me once. Probably because he did not have a weapon.

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  50. Hi John, actually I meant to comment sometime ago when you were planning your trip to Australia. I wasn't too sure that it was a good idea to let people know you were both going to be away and when. They say you shouldn't do that on Facebook and I'm sure your home could have been tracked down.

    On a personal note, when I was extremely pregnant I couldn't sleep one night and heard someone downstairs rattling our living room shutters. No doubt thinking that since it was so hot we had the shutters pulled to but the windows open. I picked up my son's baseball bat and had to go and investigate but they had run off by the time I got down there. But not sure what I really thought I was going to do at nearly 9 months pregnant - I could have just sat on them I suppose.

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  51. Oh, just a month ago Miss Chef had her entire knife kit stolen from her pickup. It was in one of those big metal storage bins installed in the bed, and she'd forgotten to lock it after a late night working at a charity event (oh, the irony). She calculated it was worth upwards of $500, probably much more as she'd custom-ordered the roll itself. But what angers me so much more than the money is the fact that someone stole the tools of her livelihood. Such disrespect for the skills and experience those knives represented. I burn when I think of them in the hands of some useless ignoramus who wouldn't know a boning knife from a kick in the ass.

    Miss Chef wanted to electrify the body of her truck, so if they came back for more they'd get the surprise of their life! Of course she did nothing, other than order a bunch of new knives and the cheapest roll she could find.

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  52. A friend, a lady of mature years, recently went to Portugal on holiday with two other ladies of a similar age. They were walking down the street when one of them was knocked to the ground by a youth who attempted to yank the gold chain from around her neck. So the other two beat him up, bashing him with their handbags, jumping on his legs and kicking him in the goolies.
    He staggered to his feet and limped away. They didn't bother mentioning it to the police!

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    1. Not long ago my OH discovered that his credit card statement had a fraudulent entry on it - some bright spark had used his number to pay for ........... a county court fine!

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    2. LOL !!!!! I thought the ladies beating the crap out of him was funny but the bright spark made me giggle too.

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  53. I used to live next door to a lovely, very large man. He used to keep a samurai sword under his bed. He woke one night to a thief in his house and chased him out with his sword and gave him a poke on the backside with it as the thief scaled the back fence.

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  54. One that come to mind is a nigh time visit to the beach with a boyfriend. It was quite a deserted beach, though not far from suburbia in reality. When we got back to the car park, no car. Nobody else there. We had a long way to walk, especially with sand in unmentionable places! Luckily it was found unharmed a week later parked in a nearby shopping centre carpark. Someone else didn't fancy the long walk, I guess. Maybe they had sandy nether regions as well! If they didn't, I hope karma got them with a nasty rash at some other point!

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  55. We've experienced break-ins in three different homes. We were at work every time. Boston's Beacon Hill, Washington DC's Georgetown, and San Francisco. Very upsetting, but not threatening. All our heirloom jewellery was taken over those three times. So, nothing left to lose?

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  56. Some years ago I was stationed in South Wales. There was a shortage of officer housing and I had to live off base. We rented a maisonette with a garage in a block across the road. My cars side window was smashed whilst parked at the side of the road. There after I parked in the garage. One night I got up, about 3 am, went to the toilet and happened to glance out of the living room window. I could see two lads trying to jemmy my garage door. Without a second thought, clad only in my boxers, I raced out the front door and down the three flights of stairs. As I went out of the security door I grabbed the piece of 2x2 that residents used to prop the door open with when bringing in shopping etc. I sneaked up behind these blokes, who were considerably bigger than the looked from the third floor and beat the snot out of them. I left them there and went back inside tossing the wood into the communal bins as I passed.
    The cheeky swines called the police! Half an hour later I had a police officer knocking on the door asking me did I know anything about it. "No" I replied, putting on my best grave face. "Oh well" said the officer smiling " if only the person who attacked them had said something like get away from my garage. Then I'd have something to go on. I guess I'll have to just arrest them for attempted burglary instead" he smiled and bade me good night........

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  57. I was not too violently mugged once, had items stolen from my student digs, nothing major. But I did once wake in the night immediately aware that an intruder was in the room and rummaging around in the as yet unpacked suitcases we'd brought back from holiday the day before. Without a thought I sat bolt upright shouting all the while, in a voice I frightened myself with, 'Get out of my house'. I then spent the next few hours comforting the six year old who had only been looking for her teddy bear. Oops.

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  58. If an intruder came into the house and I was alone, I would just head out a back door and quietly call the police. If my children or grandchildren were in the house, I would have to shoot to kill. Thankfully, my dog can detect 'bad thoughts" half a mile away and no one comes near unless my dog knows them. He's an extremely protective border collie!

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