And Then We Were Robbed

Last week was shaping up to be one of our best in London thus far.  We had a friend down from Glasgow and our social calendar was filled.  We may have drank too much on Wednesday night but we rallied and headed to Carnaby Street with a few friends for a street fair on Thursday evening.  It was a great night.  And then we came home to find our place had been robbed.

Mike on his first day at uni,
with his backpack on

The thieves stole most of our electronics and Mike's backpack.  They broke in via the front door but it was closed and locked when we came home and nothing appeared amiss from the exterior.  The first clue something nefarious had occurred was when I walked into the hallway and saw a bunch of stuff on the floor in the living room/bedroom.  I asked Mike what had happened, since he's the last to leave in the morning, and he didn't know what I was talking about.  That's when I knew.

We lost our digital camera, our camcorder, Mike's 17" Dell laptop, Mike's iPod, and my Acer netbook.  Luckily, the thieves weren't giant dicks and they didn't break anything just for fun.  They also didn't take our external hard drive, which has a bunch of irreplaceable stuff on it.  Everything they did take is replaceable.  Eventually.  But, not now.  With 3.5 months before we move back to the States, we can't afford to replace anything.

Buying my Acer netbook in 2010

It took the cops just over an hour to arrive.  They were great.  There were three of them and they immediately apologised for the delay.  Apparently someone was robbed at knife point just down the street and they had to attend to that first.  Of course that's more important.  Actually, I was surprised the cops came at all.  My car was broken into in Salt Lake and a purse was stolen off the back seat.  I got nothing from the cops.  Apparently, Salt Lake cops are busier than London cops.  Doubt it.

The cops also sent a forensics guy over.  He searched for fingerprints and found a footprint on the door but in the end determined the thieves had been wearing gloves.  The cops posited that we were hit randomly.  The thieves probably were knocking on doors and those that weren't answered were targeted.  Fortunately, the cops believe our thieves were spooked mid-burglary and left without completing their heist.

Our landlord had the locksmith over on Friday and our place is more secure now.  The cops don't believe the thieves will return.  We received a call from them on Sunday with an update on our case.  Forensics had come back negative so with no clues they had to close the case.  We won't be getting any of our stuff back.  No one will be punished.

Happily, we discovered our support network in London is pretty great.  My employer has let us borrow a disused computer, a coworker let us borrow his tablet until the computer was sorted, and Mike's employer was willing to help too (but mine was too fast).  Another coworker offered us her TV (but with the computer we don't need one).  And, besides my netbook and Mike's iPod, we were looking to replace most of what was taken once we arrived in New York anyway.  Besides the violation, the whole experience wasn't as terrible as one would expect.  Still, let's hope we never have to experience that again.  And, maybe we'll look into getting renter's insurance and keeping the serial numbers of our electronics somewhere safe.