This afternoon I took my wife to the airport and was gone about 4 hours. I'm doing some work on the house so there's lots of stuff lying around. Stuff that any casual visitor would see. I'm a "drop and go" type; I like to pick up on a job when I get back, so I don't want to have to put things away.
I'm so used to doing this, and not having it nicked, that I tend not to give it a second thought. This evening, just for fun, I made an inventory of what was lying around, available for stealing (and is still out there now, as I write this):
- new block and tackle
- 2 nice aluminium ladders
- workmate (folding table)
- 2 extension cords
- socket spanner set
- chain saw
- 2 laser levels
- laser range finder
- jigsaw
- cordless drill
- electric drill
- various hand tools
- car battery charger
- mini-digger with key in ignition (not a fast getaway I must admit)
- 2 Kubota compact tractors with keys in ignitions
- John Deere mid-size utility tractor, key in ignition
- cement mixer
- nice two axle trailer to take it away on
- steel wheelbarrow
- garden shredder
- tank of diesel fuel and pump
And my experience is nothing unusual. Two farmers near me have well-equipped workshop sheds - without doors.
I don't know why folks around here (rural Dordogne) don't thieve, but I am truly grateful. It makes life feel completely different.
10 comments:
I think it has much to do with living in the country. Although we're in the burbs we're a little enclave of five acre blocks and only recently with the encroachment of suburbia have we thought to lock our doors or cars. The tractor shed door is often open and the verandah is awash with mulcher's and other equipment. Sad to think that as the houses creep towards our back fence, so will thieving marauders!
That is so great... even if I go upstairs for a shower I lock the front door!
baino - you're right, the country element has much to do with it. It would be interesting to hear from dumdad for e.g. to get a Parisian view. But not the whole story (see response to girl).
girl - I used to live in a small village near Cambridge, somewhat rural as I think your present circs may be. However rural crime is absolutely rampant in the UK. Horses in a field will have their rugs taken off their backs. I haven't locked the doors at night in three years. (But I do lock if I'm away during the day - just in case).
How lovely to live in such an environment. All your stuff would have disappeared in a blink in Paris.
I live in the inner banlieue and it's quite a sedate area. But I would never even go to the boulangerie at the top of the road without locking the front door.
A few years back when I had a VW Golf, I parked the car outside my house. In the morning I drove off somewhere and noticed the indicators seemed (I nearly wrote on the blink) to be malfunctioning. I stopped the car and checked: someone had stolen my indicator lights; wires protruded from the offending holes. Nothing else was stolen, just the indicators. Must have been a Golf owner who couldn't be bothered to go to a shop and buy replacements.
The first year I had this house we were burgled while on hols in the UK.
Yes, you're lucky to be living where you are!
Thanks for the comparative dumdad. I was wondering how much it was a UK / France contrast, but it looks more like a town / country thing.
if only everywhere was like your little piece of paradise!
What a place to live! I can't imagine what it would feel like to have that whole locking/constant vigilance thing removed. Somewhat freeing I would imagine!
mouse - could be should be, but why isn't it? I fear it's beyond my understanding.
lane - Absolutely. First time I've had this pleasant feeling since I was a kid growing up in a "dorp" in South Africa. There too we did not have to lock up or take keys out of the ignition. But that is a very different place now.
Sounds like heaven! I even have wheel trim ties on my hanging baskets so that they don't get pinched. (Believe me they get pinched and sold at car boot sales).
There is a known correlation between density of population and crime. Causation I don't know.
working mum - I'm sure that population density is part of it. Here in France we have the same population as the UK, which means about 1/3 the population density. It does make a huge difference.
Post a Comment