24
Jun
2013
By Calvin at 15:16 GMT, 12 years ago
Police in Shropshire are urging people to keep their doors locked while out in the garden.
The warning follows a sneak-in burglary at the home of an 82-year-old Market Drayton woman while she was watering some plants.
A thief entered her home through the kitchen door and stole £30 from her purse inside a handbag.
“The incident serves as a reminder to keep doors to the house secure while gardening or relaxing outside,” said a spokesperson for West Mercia Police.
“It only takes a few moments for someone to sneak inside through an unlocked door and to help themselves to anything of value lying around. It’s best to be safe and secure and to keep doors locked as a precaution while outside or in the garden.”
The Market Drayton incident happened at Charter Court between 6.10pm and 6.25pm last Wednesday (June 19). Anyone with information which might help identify the offender is asked to contact Market Drayton police station on 101.
Information can also be given to the anonymous Crimestoppers number by calling 0800 555 111.
TCPW Comment: How precisely this incident occurred is not entirely clear from the report, but the message is still sound.
Take this common scenario: You’re sat in the lounge of your terraced home finishing a cup of tea on a hot summer’s day and you decide to water the garden. You leave the lounge and go out into the garden to hose away, leaving the lounge window near to the sideboard just slightly open, because the cool breeze wafting through the gap had been cooling your sweated brow.
After watering the garden you return to the lounge to cool off and also to make that call to your friend. You walk to the sideboard where the mobile phone had been charging and notice that it’s gone. The lead’s still there, but it’s not until you’ve checked the other usual places where you might have left your phone that you realise that the window in the lounge is now wide open.
We all know what’s happened, but for a moment you just can’t believe it’s happened to you; somebody’s had the audacity to lean in through the window and nick your phone off the sideboard!
A lot of multipoint locking windows and some locking handles fitted to ordinary windows do allow you to key lock the window in a very slightly open position to allow some ventilation (for use when you are at home and up and about), but unless you have this facility please follow Shropshire police’s advice and close and lock your windows and lock your doors if you’re in the garden.
It can be a pain, but you know it makes sense!
Original Source: West Mercia Police: http://www.westmercia.police.uk/news/news-articles/police-warning-keep-doors-locked-while-in-the-garden.html
