My home was broken into, now it resembles Fort Knox

Life can hand you some tough lessons at times, and this is one I learned only recently. What I now know, I want to share.

It was a quiet Monday afternoon when I received a panicked phone call from my partner, Damo. He was flustered, upset.

“Someone’s broken into our house,” he said. “Mum was dropping off some stuff at home and she found doors open and our clothes everywhere.

“I’m heading home now.”

My stomach dropped. I rushed to meet Damo at the train station in Melbourne’s north-western suburbs near our home.  

He parked his car there that morning, before catching the train to work. When I arrived, I discovered his car had also been broken into.

Later, we found the garage door remote he had left inside the car had been taken, along with his service book, which had our address in it.

The crooks drove to our address in another stolen car, opened the garage door, broken into the house and helped themselves to whatever they could grab.

Video of the crime would later reveal they spent 30 minutes rifling through our stuff, stealing some of our most precious items.

That included a beautiful ring I inherited from my grandmother a few years ago. I was heartbroken and inconsolable for the rest of the evening on that discovery.

Sadly, in this type of loss, I’m not alone.

The latest national figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2017, show 228,300 homes were broken into. That’s one every three minutes.

In Victoria, there were 42,170 burglary and break-and-enter offences recorded last year.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the type of burglary we experienced was not a common one. Usually, those looking to make money are opportunistic, making a quick smash and grab

“The specific circumstances leading to this particular incident are not something police are commonly seeing,” she said.

She also pointed to the great tips police have for keeping your car and home safer, such as locking all windows and locking your mailbox to prevent theft of personal documents. 

I also wanted to add my own tips from what I’ve now learned after our incident:

• Don’t leave anything that can identify your address in your car. That includes service books.
• Don’t leave remotes, keys, swipe passes or anything else that can allow someone to gain entry to your home or your office in your car, or visible in your home.
• Invest in a safe – a really heavy one. Lock away your spare keys, passports and any other high-value items in it. 
• Make sure you take photos of all your most precious items. Even if they aren’t worth a lot of money, it will help you prove what you owned both to the police investigating and to the insurance company if you need to make a claim. I didn’t and I’m regretting the hell out of it.
• Finally, make sure you report any break-ins to the police. Many Australians don’t – about one in 10 in 2017 – and your information could be vital.

As for us now? Well, we’ve invested in new locks, security cameras and an alarm. 

Damo isn’t leaving his remote or service book in the car anymore either and we’re warning everyone we know to do the same. 

So, if there is a next time, it won’t be so easy for the crooks to get into our home, or anyone else’s. Lesson learned.