And it wasn't even Friday 13th...

[venta]

Those of you following yesterday's saga, will be aware that Andy's car keys were stolen. His car was left unlocked (we couldn't lock it). It's one of those annoying kind with complicated keyfobs, which means that pressing one button sets the alarm, undoes the locks, kills the immobiliser... so Vauxhall said it'd be two days til they could get the parts to replace them.

Once Forensics had been to do their stuff, and we could touch the car, Jez and Andy pushed the car in front of the house. Andy tried to immobilise it, but the engine management computer was too damn clever - most of the ways you'd disable a car would disable this one permanently... until you pressed the button on the key fob. Which we didn't have. Some kind soul had volunteered to bring some manual locks from a scrapyard and was expected imminently. So, we left all Andy's tools in the boot, ready to fit the locks, and sat down to keep our beady little eyes on the car.

Sadly, someone kept their beady little eyes on us, and thus managed to find a few minute window when we weren't watching. Between about twenty to five, and five to five, it went. Presumably the people with the keys came back, pushed it out of earshot, then drove off. (We were watching for people or movement, in the dark, so, having missed the going, didn't immediately notice the gone, and can't narrow down the window any further.)

We should have been more vigilant - but to be honest, I wasn't really expecting anyone to be brazen enough to pinch a car from within 3 yards of our front window, while we were in the front room, at tea time.

William, my elderly Peugeot, is still parked on the drive. The doors are locked, the crook lock's on - though this is little use since someone has a complete set of keys. I've disabled him by pulling some of his innards out, though they're trivial enough to put back, and a neighbour has said she'll park her car so's to block him in the drive. I'm hoping he should be safe - though to be honest, I doubt he's very stealable anyway.

We have new locks to fit to him, but the tools required to do so were... in Andy's boot.

Comments

[quisalan.livejournal.com]

Urk :(.

I can't believe that they took the car like that, but it explains why they took the keys. I still think it was strange they didn't take anything else though :-/. Hope your car is ok.

God damn it, we need house insurance here :-/.

Yuck

[lathany.livejournal.com]

You have my sympathy.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Terrible. Disgusting. I hope the TWOCcers get caught soon and that you get Andy's car back very soon.

You've ruled out everyone in your house, but from my position of disinformation, I would expect that they would have to be fairly local and/or fairly well-informed in order to be able to pull off something as risky as that.

Now there's the rub...

[venta.livejournal.com]

up. Both we, and the police, think that the house must have been pretty closely watched. Particularly yesterday afternoon.

In the house opposite us lives a drug dealer. Not the fast-car-big-money kind, the electricity-cut-off-looks-very-ill kind. She deals heroin, and gets raided by the police every few months. And yesterday had a houseful of people.

Now, practically everything in our road gets blamed on "that woman" and I'm usually arguing against this. Then again, I'm not one of the people whose house is dropping in value, whose children have ended up playing with needles, or whose car has been kicked in by her visitors.

I wouldn't accuse her of being involved. But sadly, if she were I don't think I'd be at all surpised.

Oh, and...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thieving Wemovers Of Cars ?

You've lost me.

As ever...

[venta.livejournal.com]

I work it out fractionally too late to prevent myself from looking silly.

Taking WithOut Consent ?

Re: As ever...

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Taking Without Owner's Consent. Evidently it was a bigger problem in my part of Teesside back in the day than it was in yours, otherwise the slang/abbreviation would be instantly familiar. :-) (It may well also be the case that having gone to a boys' school rather than a girls' school altered the usual topics of conversation.)

I had a suspicion that there might be something like that involved. A bloke I know went on holiday some years ago and left his house in the care of a housesitter. On his return, it turned out that some of his valuables were missing. It also turned out that housesitter's boyfriend had got her into drugs. Nothing could ever be proved, but... (As it happens, said bloke I know is reasonably near the top of my Bad Books for unrelated weaknesses of mind and short-sighted, greedy decisions, so I'm not too unhappy about it.) Time to (get your landlord to?) add new locks, I fear.

Going back about three messages: yes, I do remember Frances. Kindly pass on my compliments of the season to her.

Re: As ever...

[venta.livejournal.com]

I don't think car-theft was ever so much of a problem in Darlington.

We have changed the locks (house keys were on same ring as car keys). We have very good, secure locks on our front door. Unfortunately, it seems the door actually has to be locked for them to be effective ;) When we're all in the house, we don't lock the door - not least because it'd be a bugger to get out if there were a fire. I suppose we may start now, in the traditional post-equine manner.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Blee. Scary. Hope all is evetually resolved well and that nothing else wanders.

[mrph.livejournal.com]

Ow. Sorry to hear it. :(

[kauket.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm really sorry you're all going through this, I hope you are all ok, only really pissed off....

Give Andy a hug from me......I'd offer him Cyril, but I think he'd rather walk to work than drive that death trap ;)

Jo

Oh dear...

[ieyasu.livejournal.com]

...I have to agree that it sounds like it's a local, if for no other reason that it requires a bit of watching to pull something like that off, and you have to have somewhere to watch from.

This entire area is truly going downhill, sadly. There've been some disturbing occurences in my neck of the woods--and I live right next to a police station.

[grahamb.livejournal.com]

harsh *hugs*