Break in at Albany Park

[meh]

I've posted this already on the Albany Park board but I figure it can't hurt to ask around more widely...

Just wondering if anyone has seen anything suspicious between 23:00-0:00 tonight (19/4/05) around house number 9/the top car park area?

Our house has been broken into (whether through the kitchen window or the front door we're not sure yet) and they (whoever they may be) have taken a laptop, phone, both chargers and a wallet (though not, for some reason, the iPod that was sitting right next to the wallet).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Encouragingly, we phoned the police almost an hour ago and have been reliably informed that "someone should be there soon"...

[Humphrey]

Thats funny, whenever one of the local residents makes a complaint about the music at a party being too loud, they are there in a flash. And yet, a student house has a break-in and they take over an hour to show up. I wonder why that could be.

[hr]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/humphrey_clarke/

[flarewearer]

I think albany seems to be a soft target for thieving pikes, in the year i was there, there was a lot of things stolen, and that nice couple who ran the place regailed us with stories of breakins past. Apparantely, since they put the cameras up in town, the local scumbags come down from the badlands and drink their buckie behing the liesure centre, making open windows or doors in Albania a prime target for petty theft. I hope you get it sorted soon, if not, milk all you can out the Uni's insurance policy. (you'll be lucky if you get a couple of Mars bars.)

[hr]

[s]It's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes. It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.[/s]
http://www.magnificentoctopus.com/

[xsilence]

Huh, if only I'd been looking out my window then, since it faces the car park and your house's kitchen window side.

I hope you get back what was taken!

-Ari

[meh]

Thanks, guys.

At this stage we've pretty much resolved ourselves to never seeing any of it again. An officer came round this morning to dust for prints to no avail, though she was kind enough to leave carbon powder smeared all over the desk.

Nevertheless, one of our neighbours spotted a suspicious-looking man behind the bin shed at almost exactly the same time as it happened and this morning we spotted a hand-print (ironically, after the prints woman had left) on the window ledge outside the kitchen, just above the area where the hedges have been trampled, so there might be hope yet...

(...it's just really unlikely)

[Intolerant Bastard]

I had my lap top, phone etc nicked from gatty two years ago. Bastards. Sut sure it's ok because they have probably had a hard life. bless them.

[flarewearer]

Quoting Intolerant Bastard from 18:15, 21st Apr 2005
I had my lap top, phone etc nicked from gatty two years ago. Bastards. Sut sure it's ok because they have probably had a hard life. bless them.

ah thats when I was there, I remember that incidence and how even after it two of our flatmates (who funnily enough lived on the top floor) never ever locked the door. I did A LOT of shouting at them. It goes without saying to keep your doors locked and windows shut in albania if your not there, and always keep the front door locked (as plenty of houses were broken into when people were in and the door was open, we had our fire extinguisher nicked, discharged around the corner, and then nicely enough, they put it back for us.)

[hr]

[s]It's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes. It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.[/s]
http://www.magnificentoctopus.com/

[meh]

So the 'Security Alert' e-mail sent out this afternoon has since been amended (mainly due to our complaining about it since it made us out to be far more careless than we actually are) to reflect that the property was not 'unoccupied' when the break-in happened. They've still neglected to mention, however, that the door 'which had not been properly secured' was slammed shut at least twice, it's just that those shitty electronic locks have a tendency to not work 50% of the time. We've since been told that 'All repairs should be reported to the Residence Manager or a member of her staff'. What they don't seem to get is that it's not something that needs repaired, it's a general flaw which I'm pretty certain we're not the first to complain about. For fuck's sake, even the police didn't shut the door properly when they left!

Students were also reminded that 'internal doors should also be locked when rooms are unoccupied', because of course we should always remember to lock our room doors when going upstairs in our own houses lest heroin addicts strike in the 10 minutes it takes us to come back downstairs. 'Cause that's exactly what you expect to happen every day.

They also forgot to mention that it took them 7 hours to cancel the keycard for the front door which was taken along with the wallet.

I think, though, my favourite part of the e-mail was when Ms Newton took the time to warn us how pesky it is to lose a bank card, whilst making little to no mention of, say, the £1000 laptop that went with it.

[flarewearer]

Quoting meh from 20:54, 21st Apr 2005
'All repairs should be reported to the Residence Manager or a member of her staff'.

Ho ho ho, the university are so fucking funny, they got rid of all the staff 3 years ago. Maybe we should go burgle their houses and send them a patronising email like this, then they might do something about it.

[hr]

[s]It's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes. It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.[/s]
http://www.magnificentoctopus.com/

[Jayne]

It\'s scary, you really can\'t trust anyone. I had my debit card stolen from my hall (Hamilton) just before easter and some swine used it to buy stuff from self service in tesco. It must have been someone in hall but the police haven\'t been much help. It shows that you can\'t treat halls too much like your own home and leave stuff anywhere thats not behind lock and key.

[White Knight]

Dear Meh,

Please Contact me, Your Senior Student! For christ's sake please Anyone (in albany) if you get a problem like this I can do something for you! Go through your committee and use us that is what we are there for! They will just send you a patronising email, like they did and tell you to get the fuck on with it.

We will keep on pestering the fucking people until they do something about it...

Rant over.

Please contact apcomm@st-andrews.ac.uk if you are having problems

[Raindance]

I posted mine on the Albany Park board as well but I guess this way more people will read it!

My house (number 36) was also broken into. My laptop, mp3 player and my mate's bank cards were stolen. Once again the house was occupied at the time and the door was left open because the thing just doesn't shut properly from the inside. This is clear because even the police failed to close it after they left!

It was all good fun having to give a police statement drunk at two in the morning having been at the rocksoc ball! To be fair they arrived within 20 minutes though.

In closing, come and fix our damn door! The glass has shattered in several places from us having to slam it shut every time we come in. I'm not too bothered by the loss, just that it was so easily preventable and that someone invaded my personal space.

[hr]

They take the knowledge, they take the know-how, and they take the individuals, and they invent a better scone.

[flarewearer]

Fife police couldn't catch an STI

[hr]

[s]It's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes. It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.[/s]
http://www.magnificentoctopus.com/