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Burgulars!


pj
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We have owned our holiday home for only 5 months, at the start of the year we were broken into, we have been back in the UK for five days after spending 3 months there and have just heard it has happened again!

Is this a common problem? Have fitted alarm, any other suggetons would be welcome.

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I don't want to speak too soon but this problem is another reason for not buying out in the sticks and seems to affect some areas more than others. We have had 4 houses in this area by St.Malo over a period of 20 years and before becoming resident for the last 8,used to leave our house unoccupied for 4-6 months at a time. Each house had to have fairly substantial renovations and we used to leave timber and other materials in view from the road in 2 of them in an open fronted building. the Garden tables and chairs where left out and al the tubs andpots etc. Never had any trouble and never heard of any from neighbours.In some cases the neighbours,all French, were a field away.Mind you we had no UKers living near us!!
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It's often the case that burglars come back for a second bite because they expect you to have replaced what they took the first time with nice new stuff. Petty crime such as burglary always rises in a recession too.

Having not experienced any such problems in our entire lives in UK, within the first year of being here France we got burgled whilst we were away for a couple of weeks. Fortunately they haven't been back and my security is (I hope) sufficiently beefed up to not only deter but also thwart any efforts to actually gain entry.

Of course you'll never stop a determined and prepared thief but thankfully most are not like that, just opportunists. The police reckoned our 'visitors' were p1key kids who took advantage of that oh so obvious and blatant 'come and get us' invitation - closed shutters !

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A couple of lights and a radio, wired through a timer to come on at varying times is a very cheap deterrent.

Or get a couple of these, but be prepared to have to clean up a mess after any attempt has been made to enter your premises. [Www][:D]

.

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There seems to be a myth that France has little or no crime compared to the UK, well it does, you need to read the French papers and in particular your regional paper. I treat my house belongings here in France in the same way I did in London. Everything is put away, all the doors and windows are secure, we close all the shutters when we go out and all my gardening stuff is kept firmly locked away in the garage and I have not had a problem.

I also have not had a problem with insurance companies in France. My experience has been that the insurance agents are just as 'bent' as some of those making claims. I have also found that as time goes by its a good idea to find a local agent that has strong family ties with the place where you live, I shall explain why.

Our washing machine went bang, we took it to the local shop, they told us it could not be repaired. Whilst they were looking at it I looked on the Internet to buy a new one fearing the worst anyway, I found one for €400. When the shop told me it could not be repaired I asked about getting the same model I had chosen on the Internet, they wanted €600 (now that's what I call a serious markup). The owner then asked who I had my insurance with so I told him "Oh that's my wife's brother, I'll have a word". Well we have an excess of €100 on our insurance so what he did is make a new invoice out for my old washing machine for €700 and gave it, along with his report, to his brother. A week later a new machine arrived at our house, the one I wanted, and it didn't cost us a bean. I mentioned this to my neighbour and she told me that's how its done round here, everybody win's except for the insurance company. On the other hand when we lived in London somebody really did spill a full glass of red wine on our cream carpet, the insurance company as good s told us that its an old trick that people do to get a new carpet and so they wouldn't pay out even though it was covered by their insurance. Funny how I paid a lot more for my contents insurance in the UK than I do over here on a much bigger house yet I never managed to make a claim there without feeling guilty.

So my tip is Richard is to go get some wood and make sure you barn looks secure and complies with your insurance companies requirements then contact your local insurance agent and make a claim, don't forget to tell the police by the way.

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Very rare that this place is actually EMPTY, but when we go out the dog's room is open so they have the run of the grounds. To enter the house or grounds you'd have to get past Them That Lurk. Even the gendarmes won't enter, so cowardly pikeys after nicking a strimmer etc would certainly NOT contemplate it unless they were insane.

Those "items" - they're like the old fashioned poacher deterrents. Maybe a better one would be the shotgun mounted on a swivel that swings around to give the criminal 2 barrells of buckshot? Messy though................
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Some years ago an elderly french farmer fed up with his farmhouse safe having been "Done" three times, set up a sawn-off 12 bore, loaded with buckshot inside the safe, so that if the door was intruded, then this pulled a wire and fired both barrels.

After the gendarmes had finished scraping up what remained of the safe cracker, they did the old boy for manslaughter.

No sense of justice............

[Www]

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[quote user="Quillan"]

So my tip is Richard is to go get some wood and make sure you barn looks secure and complies with your insurance companies requirements then contact your local insurance agent and make a claim, don't forget to tell the police by the way.

[/quote]

I'd have to put in an application with the DDE before I did that lol.

No, I was stupid, I'd never had problems before, and was just too complacent. I've spoken to my insurance company and they don't think they'll be able to pay out as the main door only has a padlock on it. My own stupid fault for leaving that stuff there.

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