To worry that we might get burgled after meeting some of the blokes doing our house extension?

[ilikeyoursleeves]

Ok this may sound very judgmental of me but I am genuinely quite concerned. We are nearly finished our house extension, its being plastered, roughcasted & plumbed at the mo. All the tradesmen so far have been fine, pleasant & hardworking. The plasterers / roughcasters arrived last week & they are so rough looking, swear all the time, growl when spoken to and frankly give me the heebies. So much that we have decided that one of us wil be in the house whenever they are here. The main guy spent about half an hour the other day fixing his car on our drive then washing it with our hose, I kid you not.

The plumber arrived today and he also looks dodgy. I overheard them slagging off all the other tradesmen and generally being arses. Turns out he plays the guitar & he was asking about my husband as he saw his amps & guitars upstairs. My dh was quite a serious musician in days gone by & has loads of musical instruments worth ££££ so he is now worried these guys will nick his guitars or sell our keys down the pub!

I usually feel fine with folk but somehow I feel these guys are dodgy. Aibu to worry?

well, I left two very pleasant but rough looking and sounding carpet fitters (skanky van too - sub contracted through big carpet shop) and our passports and birth & wedding certs disappeared.
You shoudn't judge by appearance and accent - but sometimes you can't help it

(my dh is a big common bloke with dirty (work stained) clothes and wouldn't steal in a millioon years)

what the last person said

QOD!

What did you do? Could you prove they nicked them? Did you get them back?

why was he upstairs looking at his guitars?

if he's a plumber i presume he was in bathros only?

were you upstairs with him?

Nope, it was about a month later that I needed passport and they were nowhere to be found.
We have an open filing cabinet, like a wooden rectangle with hanging files and it was just in the conservatory by the lounge door when I went out.
Had to get new birth cert, deed poll, wedding cert & passport - then a year or so later when dh needed his passport we realised how irreplaceable his were/are - he is a forces baby and had 2 birth certs. I had a photocopy of his passport so we were able to get a new one - no idea how I can ever register him dead though!! Don't I need birth cert for that?

We never even spoke to the carpet people - what could we prove?

He had to bleed all the radiators in all the rooms as he was fitting a new one. I have no idea if he really did have to bleed the radiators (though think he did cos I remember another person doing this once for something similar). No I wasn't with him at the time, I was downstairs.

QOD, that's a bit scary. Must hide our passports!

Would it be really horrible to stop the project now ilikeyoursleeves? My mum had some builders in renovating/painting and she is very trusting. They were in all the rooms of the house and she didn't move anything.

After they left, some of her jewelry was missing. And there was no way to prove it.

I don't allow anyone in my bedroom until I remove my jewellry or I stand there while they do the job. I stood at the doorway when we had a new bed brought in last week.
Sorry, I don't trust anyone anymore, and frankly if the plumber is mentioning the guitars, I would be very wary.

And why do you give your house keys to people working in the house?? That is a big no-no.

The extension has been going on since July so we had to give some keys to the joiner and brickie to access our sockets for power as we obviously couldn't stay in every single day since July. I trust them, they seem fine but it's the new guys that are dodgy. My DH went a bit mad when I said the plumber had been in his music room but there was no option as he had to bleed the radiator. We have thought now of moving all the guitars etc to one room and getting a lock for the door just now. We are obviously going to change the locks once the extension is finished but DH is worried now that the plumber knows what's in the house. My jewellery etc is stored in DS's cahnging table behind my breastpads :o

PS I can't stop the extension just now as we would just need to get other workies in and these guys have seen the house / had the keys anyway- we just want it finished as it is seriously doing our head in!

Plumbers always bleed all the radiators no matter what they're doing :)

It could just be that he saw the guitars and so he started to talk about them.

Better safe than sorry though.

Yes potplant. I am going to buy a lock on the way home from work tomorrow and we will put everything of value in DS's room. Particularly seeing as our insurance is void for anything stolen within the home during building work!

If you trust the joiner and brickie can you confess your worries to them and ask them to keep an eye out?

You are probably worrying about nothing, but you can never be too careful. Hide valuables for sure.

My mum had a plumber in the loft for a couple of days sorting out the tanks; months later my she realised all my stepdad's highly collectable Hornby engines had all been nicked from the loft - there is no-one else it could possibly have been. Dumb thief left all the original boxes behind, thereby halving the value immediately....

Having been burgled twice in the last fortnight I would see if you can get a crime prevention officer round to discuss home security. Putting the instruments in one room is all well and good, but you'd need serious locks/reinforcements to deter a burglar who is already in your house.

I'd also change your locks once work complete. Yes a pain and probably an unnecessary expense, but not that much in the context of your total build.

We weren't (as far as I am aware) burgled by former tradespeople. But I am now absolutely security obsessed because it has been a bloody horrible time. Bastards.

The joiner and brickie aren't realy out ATM though as their bit is pretty much done. I might say something to the gaffer though as I trust him and its him who sources these guys.

Sorry to hear you have been burgled twice Pooka, OMG! The lock on DS's door is just for just now until the work is finished, we will then put most of the guitars in the loft (he has about 20 ish!) and maybe put a lock on the new music room. We are defintately changing the locks on the doors once the house is done.

Thanks LYS - has been hellish. The positive with us is that we're pretty certain what they're after - they want the keys to dh's car. It's not like it's a TVR or an Aston Martin, but it is apparently a desirable (to theiving scum) hot hatch that they would get shipped out within hours of stealing. If only they could get hold of the keys. Having last year had a car stolen by key fishing through the letterbox we;re pretty careful. BUt after last week - well, it's just not worth having. It's going to be traded in for something less attractive to burglars. I simply CANNOT come home with all the children to discover a ransacked house. Poor dd was hyperventilating :(

I tell you though - the crime prevention guys were BRILLIANT. They rang and asked to come, having been made aware of the burglaries. Came up with lots of suggestions and current weaknesses (not huge, but not worth ignoring). Looked at and assessed all our locks and security processes. THings like - garden shed not especially secure. Full of gardening tools which would easily be used to break down back door/windows. If a burglar is found 'tooled up' they can be arrested. Much easier for them to get hold of equipment on site. We;re putting prickle strips on the top of the side gate. Trellis on all fences in the garden. Shield on the letter box. Security light at back. Mortice locks on the back french doors.

I used to be pretty relaxed about cleaners having a key/access to a spare key hidden somewhere. Leaving the side gate open for window cleaners. That kind of thing. Not any more.

To be honest, I'll only truly feel happier and more secure when the car is gone. Shame, because dh loved it. But - not enough to keep, and anyway he was cycling to work most of the time (open invitation to burglars - car parked outside/no one in - therefore keys probably in house).

Definitely a good idea to change the locks.

My mother had a new gas fire fitted, and never saw her engagement ring again.
She is so trusting and left it in a little tray on the mantel.

She still says 'But surely that nice young man...?'

Sorry to hear about the burglaries pooka, must have been dreadful.

I had a valuable hot hatch style car last year. Read in our local free paper about a few getting stolen in our area and it played on my mind so much that I traded it in for a big sensible mum wagon that goes from 0-60 in a fortnight, it's just not worth the hassle. I can't bear the thought of someone breaking in and coming up to our bedroom to get the keys, especially now with new DD in the house.

Our neighbourhood police are brilliant too - we reported some suspicious types hanging around last week, and they came round, took a statement, stepped up patrols, gave me a direct number to ring. Couldn't ask or more really.

OP - if you have a gut feeling that something wasn't quite right re the guitars, then yes I'd lock em away and change the locks.

Poor you Pooka, nightmare! We had an alarm but it's been ripped out with the building work. We never ever used it and didn't even know the code (it was in the house when we bought it). What the the CPO's say about alarms? We are getting 2 security lights at the back of the house and the locks on the doors seem good. We often have the back door unlocked though with the car keys lying nearby- I really should lock the doors as it could be so easy to swipe the keys.

Stressheaderic - police have been fantastic here too. So impressed with how helpful they have all been (and we've seen a few ).

Re@ alarms they said really people tend to ignore them going off. I do - in that if the one goes off on the big house over the road, I may look through windows at front of house, but wouldn't do anything else - you tend to just assume a cat's set it off.

So anywya - they suggested getting a good dummy box. DH has got one from the work suppliers (he has a business that was always broken into until they got monitored cctv). THey basically came up with heaps of ideas, some of which we're implementing, and some of which are a step too far for us. Like cutting down front hedges (which are lovely and our neighbours would be devastated). And side security lighting (wouldn't be fair on next door neighbours who live in a ground floor flat and have a bedroom at the side).

We still have the alarm box on the front external wall so hopefully that will be a deterrent.

I just wish these scum wouldn't burgle though! We were burgled when I was a kid, we came home to the guy still in the house! He threw a chair at my dad and it put a hole in the door. He then ran off down the street after jumping out the window and we found out that he was later done for attempted murder (not re my dad, re someone else!)

Lo and behold the rough roughcasters were sacked today! The gaffer found out they were only doing half days while they were taking payment for the full day. Good riddance!