To ask if a burglar would bother with you?

[justhadenoughofitall]

Caveat this with I know burglaries are awful and this is a lighthearted take so don't read on if it could be upsetting.

Was on our way out and DH fussing about the double lock on the door and mumbling about not making it easy for burglars to get in, and it just struck me with 'WTAF would they take"?

We have an old TV, sofa is battered, no fancy kitchen devices, only good jewellery is my engagement ring that's permanently on me, everything is digitised and on iPhones which are with us, old laptop, no cash. I had this image of a burglar standing bewildered, shaking their heads feeling sorry for us.

Am I alone in this?

I always say, if a burglar broke in he'd probably leave me something out of pity. only half joking

I thought something similar not long ago. I have no TV or games consoles. Only laptop is my work one which is almost 5 years old and more than likely to be with me or in the office. Tablet cost 150€ new so wouldn't be worth much second hand.
No jewelry at all. No designer clothes.

4th floor flat with no lift so I doubt they will go to the effort of taking the fridge or washing machine.
Don't even have any expensive perfume or cosmetics. No hairdryer or straighteners either.

Ha! I used to say a burglar would be disappointed if they broke into ours- nothing works 😂 this was years ago when we had no money and literally everything in the house had something wrong with it.

My DM thought the same as you OP, so had no insurance. When she was burgled they took what jewellery she had, including some of my Grans stuff. Nothing £££ but huge sentimental value. She's never felt safe since, she's got a couple of big metal bars she puts across her doors now. Bastards

Honestly I always thought this too. However, I was burgled last year and it absolutely broke me and I ended up moving house as it made me feel so violated and I never felt ok in my house again. That may sound like an overreaction as I would have thought that before it happened to me.

Basically I came home alone to two men in my bedroom which was petrifying. They’d smashed my patio to get in and absolutely ransacked the place. All my underwear, sex toys and personal stuff was chucked all round the house. The worst thing was I could smell their aftershave lingering in the house for days and they’d left muddy footprints all around the house. As a woman living alone at the time, I was scared they’d return. Spent a fortune on CCTV and an alarm and extra security but my home never felt safe to me again.

Oh and the only thing they took was a sterling silver bracelet worth less than £20 off Etsy with my DDs name and DOB engraved on it. I literally have nothing of value and never have.

I also don’t care about “stuff” so they could have taken anything and it wouldn’t have bothered me. It’s someone being in your personal space and touching your sentimental and private things that is the worst thing about being burgled in my opinion. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

The point is, they don't know what you have until they get in and once they get in, they might as well grab what they can even if it isn't worth much.

When someone broke in a few years ago they took a £20 note from my coat pocket, a slice of chocolate cake, my work lap top, and the keys to my car ( not the car though). Work laptop was replaced by work immediately and I can’t imagine it was any use as it was totally locked down and secure as it was a government department issue and around 6 years old to boot. but the car key meant we had to have the locks changed on the car in case they came back. A lot of hassle for us for basically £20 and some chocolate cake.

They didn't take much really, but given we were upstairs sleeping I guess it was take what they could before we woke up.
They did our feeling of home though and we moved as soon as we could sell the house. It was horrible experience

My parents lived in a fairly nice semi in an ok estate 20 yrs ago but owned nothing of any value at all. They absolutely TRASHED the place looking for stuff - it caused them so much distress they had to move 😢

I was speaking to a reformed drug addict and burglar only just yesterday. He said that back in the day, he would steal ANYTHING to make some cash for his next fix.

They'd need their wits about them here

I don't think our things are outrageously expensive or worth a lot, but they don't know that, burglars are usually hedging their bets and hoping they'll find enough of value. We have always bought decent newish cars but nothing that would be on a steal to order list.
We do have a robust security system though - cameras, obvious (extremely loud) alarm, motion sensors, shock sensors and notifications if anyone comes up to the door/enters or disarms the system. We've never been burgled but I've always believed in deterrent being a good method of prevention (as far as you can prevent it).

Edit: We do arm the system at night to the setting that will set the alarms off if there is any activity downstairs.. no idea what I'd do if it ever went off though. 😂

We're not on mains gas, so most likely is theft of heating oil (including the tank I guess), which is very easy to do and very profitable, but can be outrageously expensive to put right.
Cars are crap, so unlikely anyone would bother taking keys for them.

But otherwise, it'd be someone looking for money for drugs, so probably just nick anythibg and everything - wouid be expensive to replace (tv, laptop) and potentially to fix damage, but theyd probably only get £100.

Not here in Edinburgh. There's a lot of old money in this city. My daughter's boyfriend's wealthy family have been burgled so often - despite all the usual deterrents - that they've had to have bulletproof glass fitted on their house.

Any burglar who breaks into my house is probably going to leave it tidier than they found it. And with very little to show for it.

We were broken into recently (London). Downstairs and in view there were a couple of ipads lying around, a lap top, some nice noise cancelling headphones and a set of house keys on the side, all of which were ignored - car keys only taken and car stolen. Also quite targeted as we have 2 cars (second one is v obvs a bit rubbish) and the keys for that were left behind. The police (who, incidentally, were really nice - v responsive, v kind and reassuring) said that obvs these were specialist car thieves after the specific car, but in general burglars just don’t take phones iPads etc these days - not much resale value and they effectively all have trackers in anyway.

We were broken into 2 days after we moved house, they only took a couple of TV's that didn't have much value, but the worst thing was the feeling of being unsafe, that someone had been in our house. It took me ages to feel safe there.

We were broken into before Christmas and my husband (and his brother, as his was here too) had their e-bikes stolen. By the time we heard them and put the light on they were off with them, presumably into a van. Never to be seen again. Our garage is joined to the house so it has rattled me quite a bit. I wake up every night about 2/3am just so on edge and actually start to feel this dread every time it starts to get dark. I know it’s just a financial thing for them, I know they aren’t interested in hurting me/my kids but it was just so scary that it actually happened to us 😢 I think jewellery, cars and things in garages like tools or expensive bikes are their only real interests but I just can’t shake the constant on-edge feeling. We have spent £1000 on security systems to put them off coming back/make me feel a bit better. I wish I could go back to my care-free life before when I wasn’t so aware that these weirdos are out every night doing this 😑

I’ve often thought this. We’re very minimal and not into “stuff” so genuinely don’t have much of value. DH has a 10 year old MacBook, my engagement ring is worth a fair bit but I’m always wearing it anyway but other than that our sofa, bed and dining table are probably the most expensive things we own.

They're sorted if they love Ian Rankin novels 🤷🏻

Also to add to that, the only thing worth stealing in our house now is the car keys and we have an average family car, not anything flashy but it has put me off even having that. Thinking of buying an older car outright just to completely rule us out 🤦🏻‍♀️

My car was broken into once... they took nothing and left us an asthma inhaler...

@Rachelff Victim Support (or Victim Support Scotland, depending on where you are) offer a lot of free advice and support for people who have been burgled and feeling the effects from it. I volunteered with them a while ago and the support is fantastic, if you feel it may help. 🙂

🤣

I once went into my back garden to find my German shepherd had a young chap pinned to the fence. he’d been there 40minutes apparently and the dog wouldn’t let him move dog wasn’t barking just stood in his guarding stance teeth bared with a low growl every time laddo twitched
So good luck burglars also please note son of psycho dog has a partner in crime these days