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I often have to write reports for this newspaper about break-ins and burglaries. They are commonplace, God knows. I've thought, from time to time when writing them up, about the victims of such crimes and felt a passing sympathy for the violation of their home that it represents and the loss of their property.
I know a whole lot more about how they're feeling. I was the victim of a burglary on Saturday week last. The house was left unattended for only an hour. It was locked up tight. It was the middle of the day but it didn't stop those who decided they wanted to rob my possessions. Some money was taken, jewellery of huge sentimental value and fairly significant financial worth too, along with other items.
No one was home at the time. Family and friends who sympathised said that was lucky. It could have been worse if someone had been there. Someone could have got hurt if they'd been discovered. Some family members were more stoic than I, taking some comfort in the fact that a lot of other items like laptops, tablets, televisions and tools and garden equipment weren't touched. I wasn't able to be as measured about it, I'm afraid. I took no comfort in considering how much worse it could have been or how much more they could have stolen.
A white-hot fury descended on me as I thought about those who felt it was okay to enter my home and steal things from me that I'd earned through hard work. People who's lifetime work it is to go about the country stealing other people's property - and seemingly, doing so with impunity.
I know a fair bit about the people who robbed my house. They are from Limerick. They drive a green Jaguar. They broke into two other houses on our road last Saturday week at lunchtime. They have been up and down the country stealing. I know all this because the Gardai said so. Why, if they know so much about them, can't they apprehend them I wondered? Because, they said, they would have to be caught with my property on them and for me to identify it as mine. So, could they keep an eye out for what seems to me to be a very conspicious type of car, I wondered? Not that easy, it seems.
My sister knew how I felt. She's been broken into on several occasions over the years. She understood the impotent rage I felt, the burning desire to come upon those who violated my home and took my stuff and beat the living daylights out of them. The last time she was burgled, the Garda who arrived to investigate made an observation and gave her husband and son some advice.
He noted that they appeared comfortably off and said it was no wonder they were targeted. His advice was for them to visit a market about 30 miles from their house the following Sunday where they would almost certainly see the tools they'd had stolen being offered for sale. Neither the observation nor the advice helped my sister's mood any.
"If you know our property is going to turn up at that market, why don't you go there and recover it and prosecute the people offering it for sale?" was the perfectly logical question she asked. She didn't get a satisfactory answer.
The gardai who came out to our house following the robbery were helpful and sympathetic and efficient. They were also pragmatic. Burglaries are commonplace and property is seldom recovered. If you're lucky enough to have house insurance and there aren't too many 'get-out' clauses built in by the insurance company to avoid paying, there'll be some monetary recompense for the stolen items. Sentimentality has no value.
As for securing my home, given the choice again I may as well leave the doors open to minimise the damage burglars cause than have them burst open the patio doors like they did.
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