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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to think I should be able to leave things in my garden without them being stolen?

71 replies

StarTravels · 04/11/2015 00:12

Just that really.

Perhaps foolishly I left two 8 litre Kilner drinks dispensers in my garden, along with some small halloween decorations and some bottles of beer. I left them overnight as I was part way clearing up following a party. They were stacked up right next to my back door in my gated garden. The kitchen window looks out directly onto it and you can't easily see it. Someone has walked in from the street and somehow managed to clear off with all of it. I'm impressed they could carry it all to be honest. I'm guessing more than one person was involved. I would have been less annoyed if they had just taken the beer, but to actually steal my kilner dispensers and some glass decorations seems a step too far.

Was I BU to think I could safely leave this overnight without someone walking in and just taking it?!

OP posts:
Fatmomma99 · 04/11/2015 00:25

apparently so. But a horrible thing to have happened, and I guess you must feel quite violated (I would!). Flowers

wasonthelist · 04/11/2015 00:27

Yanbu I love the UK on the whole, but I find the number of thieving sods depressing.

GuiltyPleasure · 04/11/2015 00:33

YANBU. On the day we buried my mums ashes we'd been at hers tidying the garden & left the lawnmower tucked away behind a gate. 2 hours later we returned & it had been stolen in broad daylight.. It wasn't even a decent mower & I hope it electrocuted the bastards!

Mmmmcake123 · 04/11/2015 00:43

Yanbu this is something I wouldn't expect it to be necessary to hide

Rainbunny · 04/11/2015 01:14

I'd check Ebay and any other selling sites, you never know. My friend found his stolen bike that way.

TrashPanda · 04/11/2015 01:43

My parents had someone go into the shed in the back garden and nick a load of stuff from their big chest freezer. Ignored all the expensive tools and 2 motorbikes but took loads of frozen bread and smoked fish Confused

SecretWitch · 04/11/2015 01:53

Sorry this happened,Op. We left the back of our Subaru open once in our dodgey neighbourhood...thieves nicked 2 bottles of Diet Come and our cat blanket.

BusShelter · 04/11/2015 01:59

That's really irritating. I leave stuff outside my front door all the time. I should probably stop.

StarkyTheDirewolf · 04/11/2015 02:45

I got the fright of my life early this year, we had just moved and had a skip out the front, and were clearing the garage, so had some bits stacked up round the side of the house not being thrown away, just moved out to successfully clear the garage went in for tea, came back outside afterwards and there were two women and a man shifting my boxed stuff onto a van,and another fella peering through the back window!

I Could have understand it I'd they were taking things out of the skip, I appreciate that's fair game, but they were essentially stealing my Christmas ornaments and mine and Dsis baby things which my dm had saved!

Told them in no uncertain terms to give me my things back and to remove themselves in four letter words They did, but I was shaking for a good couple of hours afterwards!

YANBU!

gabsdot · 04/11/2015 11:23

We had the Christmas lights stolen off a tree in our front garden.
Some feckers will take any thing.

DoreenLethal · 04/11/2015 11:34

thieves nicked 2 bottles of Diet Come

Nice.

Sighing · 04/11/2015 11:54

I left my daughter asleep in the pushchair by the backdoor with her older sister's coat over her whilst I rushed the eldest in to the loo. (3 big steps would have woken her up) I didn't completely shut the back gate it was 2pm. Our bathroom was next to the backdoor. I sorted daughter. Leaned in my kitchen to switch on the kettle (opposite bathroom) whilst watching daughter wash her hands. I heard the gate bang. I swung open the backdoor and someone had taken my daughter's (spare, battered, cheap in local supermarket) coat!
To be honest I was too shaken up to give chase.

BreconBeBuggered · 04/11/2015 11:56

Diet Come, mmmm

Years ago we accidentally left our shed unlocked and the next time I went in there, I thought DH had done a drastic bit of tidying while I was at work. It was only when he went in that he twigged that the lawnmower and loads of tools had gone AWOL. Thing was, the garden was completely fenced in and the shed door faced a large sports field, so it wasn't exactly the most discreet bit of robbery. There must have been at least two of them hoiking the goods over a six foot fence onto the front driveway, and nobody blinked an eye. Robbing bastards.

FeelingSmurfy · 04/11/2015 12:09

We had a radiator taken, men were working inside in front of the window, radiator on outside in front of same window, day time, someone took it! There was about 4 or 5 of them and they were by the window and inside and out all day, went to put radiator back and it had gone

Was good for us though, we got a brand new radiator in place of an ancient ugly thing, which the workmen paid for (we had suggested putting in side path behind a gate, and even then we expected to go halves or something but they insisted it was their fault and they were insured anyway)

FeelingSmurfy · 04/11/2015 12:10

Another time, when we lived in a different area, we had 3 X 2 foot trees taken from our front garden in the night, they weren't in pots or anything, they were actually planted in the garden and we woke up to find holes were they had been dug out!!!

munkisocks · 04/11/2015 12:23

YANBU!

2012 we got broken into one evening whilst we were out. Took most of our stuff including some jewellery my mum had given me that was passed down in the family.
March we had our garage broken into, they took nothing and thankfully didn't damage husbands Harley.
July garage broken into again. Father in law was doing drive and left one of his bigger tools in garage. Was stolen.
September car got broken into for a "satnav" which wasn't even a satnav but part if the fucking car dashboard!
Oh and other car got keyed in asda car park at weekend.

I could cry. We now have cctv around house. I can't wait to move. Not eve a really bad area, just feel like we can't have bloody anything.

DoreenLethal · 04/11/2015 12:43

We live neat a canal and have a canalside garden. We used to have a set of chairs on our decking next to the canal, and one day one of them was missing. A week later they came back and took a set of the cushions.

We gave the rest to my mum and bought a heavy handmade wooden set - too heavy to get onto a boat and nothing has gone missing since.

Smartieskid · 04/11/2015 13:00

My grandparents had there sit on lawn mower and mini tractor taken out the shed once they eve cut down a tree to get it out and my grandad being deaf didn't hear them

Sazzle41 · 04/11/2015 14:12

Sadly thats way of world now. My friend lives in 'naice' modern courtyard development but actually most of the houses are made up of 3 or more professionals who share due to cost of renting in London. Spate of burglaries and home invasions. (one woman only escaped rape by screaming place down and neighbours hearing her). I was so worried I bought my friend a fake CCTV camera and window stickers off Ebay saying security system or some such wording as she was often only one in her share at night. Hers was only house in the courtyard not targeted.

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 04/11/2015 15:08

Someone stole my Inlaws' tomatoes out of their greenhouse one night.

I had a broken microwave stolen that I'd left out for the scrapman. I found that very odd, surely whoever took it must have realised it didn't work because people don't generally leave fully functioning microwaves in the front gardens.

Worst one though - a friend had her bicycle stolen from her hallway while she was asleep on the sofa in the adjoining room. She'd gone home early because she was ill, so this happened in the middle of the afternoon in broad daylight.

whatdoIget · 04/11/2015 15:26

Diet come! Much better than the erm...full fat version

TheOnlyWayToEatSandwiches · 04/11/2015 15:37

How horrid all your stories are :(

We've been so lucky! Lived all over the UK with only a couple of very minor incidents (one shed contents, one rowing boat by a river).

Lived where we are now for 18 months and we don't lock the car overnight (it's on the street).

It's not bad everywhere!

KingJoffreyLikesJaffaCakes · 04/11/2015 15:55

Stealing frozen bread and battered old coats shows how desperate people are.

It's pretty sad really...

SaskiaRembrandtWasFramed · 04/11/2015 16:13

TheOnlyWayToEatSandwiches I think it happens all over, in all sorts of places. I have relatives who used to live on a country estate (Downton Abbey type place, not a collection of houses). They often used to find people wandering around their fruit and vegetable gardens helping themselves.

And when I was growing up on a farm, most summers we'd have incidents where people thought it was okay to drive up to the paddock and have a picnic. Their logic was, it had a lovely view so why shouldn't they. One Christmas, a man who arrived in a Range Rover was found helping himself to a conifer.

Some people are just cheeky sods.

TheSnowFairy · 04/11/2015 16:16

My mum's having a conservatory built and the builders left some bricks next to it. Next morning, they'd gone.

FFS people, just because it's in the garden doesn't mean you can nick it Angry

YANBU at all.