All these people who cry "burglary!'.

great thread, seeker

Tortoise, you may jest, but a friend of mine accidentally set off her burglar alarm in a public place, and a passerby actually said "You'd be lucky love!".

If someone invites someone into their house and then they steal their stuff, well they should have been more careful really. If you invite someone in your house then it's pretty much a given that they can go into any room they want and take anythign they want, surely?

Rhubarb, so sorry to hear about your parrot. :( But this thread is taking comments made about the victims of rape and applying them to victims of burglary.

er rhubarb0, it's a metaphor for the idiotic excuses made for rape.

I would just like to flag up Antiques Roadshow as well; do you think it spurs people on to burglary, or provides an outlet for their acquisitive fantasies?

I knew this bloke who claimed he was burgled, but you only had to look at his house to realise he must be lying. Overgrown garden, peeling paint, he didn't take care of his place at all. Poor sod was obviously living in a fantasy world, nobody in their right mind would want to burgle him. He'd probably have been grateful if they did, ha!

It's a metaphor, rhubarb, nobody has said that.

Nobody ever says that about burglaries. I'm sure it's just an oversight.

I understand if you are burgled by a stranger.The problem is that you are more likely to be burgled by someone you know.

How are we to know that you didn't invite them to burgle you? You may have invited them into your home and offered to let them take a small trinket. How is the burgler meant to know this isn't an invite to come back and take everything you own?

Which thread does this relate to then? Come on, spit it out!

I was burgled when we lived in Preston. ds was just 3 months old and we took him and dd to dh's brother's house for tea. We weren't back late but we knew something was wrong when the front door wouldn't open. dh broke it down and the house was in chaos. The lean-to door had been forced open and then the back door window broken to get the keys so they could unlock it. They went through every room in the house emptying drawers, pulling stuff out of cupboards, but the only thing they stole was the one thing which was most precious to me - my pet parrot.

I'd had him since I was 17. I know he flew under the sofa to get away as I found his feathers there. But they'd taken one of ds's baby coats to throw over him and then stuffed him into dh's work bag.

The police came, said we weren't to touch anything until forensics came the next day so we had to go to bed with the house completely unsecure and in a total mess. I just cried and cried all night.

I still cry when I think of it. And yes, he was on 'display' if you like. His cage and perch (he was never locked in the cage) was in front of our back window so he could look out of the back. Anyone walking through the guinnel behind our gardens would have seen him, so the bastards would have been local.

So let me at the thread who says burglaries are all our fault and I'll tear them apart

Have you seen those placards where "Don't get Burgled" has been changed to "Don't Burgle"? Good work whoever did those.

I'm going to have to stop shouting 'burglary' now!! I'm going to start shouting 'buggery' instead and hopefully I might get the sympathy I deserve.

I agree that people who show people what they have in their home are really asking to be burgled.

Yes, those adverts for Milk Tray tapped into a rich seam of fantasy...I still think of the handsome balaclava'd stranger fondly, zooming off again on his jet ski to score some skag after selling a knock-off DVD player

It's all very well supporting the victims of burglary, and I don't deny there are some people who genuinely have been burgled through no fault of their own.

But imagine the poor teacher, who, in trying to support a confused, unhappy fifteen year old, finds that the lines become blurred, and a chat after school in the classroom suddenly becomes that little bit more, and getting mixed signals from the girl (and let's remember that some people who live in houses now are much, much more grown up and knowing than they used to be), the teacher ends up jemmying open her bathroom window and stealing all her parents' possessions. She sees him there and suddenly decides she doesn't want him to take the stuff any more, starts getting violent and he whacks her on the head to shut her up.... the girl and her family take the poor confused teacher to court, his name is dragged through the press as some kind of criminal, no-one lets him near their houses again, even though the courts clear him of any wrongdoing and give the girl a stiff talking to.

He loses his job, ends up on the burglary offenders list and is never allowed to house-sit again, despite being cleared of all charges,

Where's the justice?

They should all get burglar alarms fitted. If they don't they are simply asking for trouble.

Don't most women, secretly, have fantasies about being burgled? I mean, they play little games with their partners where he might steal something from them in a playful sort of way, and she has dreams about being burgled by a celebrity bit of rough? They pretend they don't want it, but really they do, all women do.

Except my wife of course

:o herecome, how were you reading my mind?

cross post

And of course, sometimes people are still in the property when the burglars are there. "No" they say "Really, no, put that back, stop it, help!" - but how do the burglars know they really mean it? And they aren't just having a laugh? Especially if the house owners have had a glass or two of wine!

Well, if you had some wine with your dinner and were later burgled while sleeping, surely it's your own fault and you were asking for it?

Also, did you put a clear sing "no! don't take my things!" up? How were they supposed to know you really did not want your things to be stolen?

Unless we're talking about statutory burglary....

It's not the burglars fault that he(or she) can't resist their natural urges

I think if you leave nice things around your house then you have to expect that people will want to take them. Some people specifically have evolved to be unable to resist the sight of valuable trinkets.

Frankly if you don't conceal all your belongings under dustsheets then what do you expect?

it's crap though when you've got a shit, ugly house, with no desirable belongings, and it still gets burgled. But then you should be grateful someone burgled it I suppose; without a burgler, who would want to enter an unattractive house?