Cecil Hills House targeted – house attacks burglar

I’ve seen a show on Tv about hoarders… people who just can’t throw anything out.  They end up living in squalid conditions, with newspapers, clothes and rubbish piled to the roof of their house.  The back yard is often a disaster as well.  It’s a genuine mental condition, like obsessive compulsive disorder and it makes life terribly difficult for sufferers and the families.  And for a burglar in Cecil Hills as it turns out!

I attended a property in Cecil Hills recently – it was not an emergency callout out, the owners son wanted me to come and install window bolts on all the windows and to redo all the deadbolts on the doors.  He warned me it was his mother’s house… she was a hoarder…. and not to make any comments on the state of the house.  She was elderly and very defensive about her lifestyle.

I attended the house, and it was pretty amazing.  It was only just possible to get into the rooms, and it took a great deal of effort and working with the son to move the stacks of rubbish and paper around just so I could get to the windows to fit the window bolts.  Now I understand home security desires… but it seemed overkill to be installing security of this level for a house that was almost inaccessible anyway…. till I heard the story.

The elderly lady had called her son in the middle of the night to advise she was being broken into.  He lived 20 minutes away so he said call the police.  She refused, embarrassed about the state of her house and asked him to come right over.  He did… expecting to find the burglar was either a possum, or a real burglar perhaps who had long gone.

Instead he had arrived to find the burglar still there.  he had pried open one of the windows, crawled inside, but was now unconscious as a result of a massive pile of rubbish falling on him.  Apparently it took 30 minutes just to extract him and he remained out to it the whole time.

With his mum not wanting the police involved, the son put the man in his boot and drove him to a hospital some 50 minutes away.  He left a note in the man’s pocket that he had taken his license, knew exactly who he was and where he lived and to expect trouble if he ever came around to his mother’s house again.  Perhaps not the best way to deal with the problem… but he did not think the burglar would dare return.

Anyway, so with window bolts and deadlocks installed, I have not only ensured the home is much better secured… I’ve done a community service, protecting the local burglar community from harm – breaking into this place was a dangerous thing to do!

The moral of the story though is that house thieves are looking for easy targets.  The rich looking house on the hill, with a locked security gate, alarm system, cameras, sophisticated locking system… well it might well house a treasure of easily disposed of goods… but getting in will prove a major problem.  I run down house might not contain as many juicy items to steal… but if access to what is there is much easier then its more likely to be targeted all the same.

Just because your house has never been burgled doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen… its usually just  a matter of time.