Which one, and at what age?
Our home was burglarized; I was 33.
I had my car stolen once.
It was a 10 year old Ford Corsair 2000E. I went to an Al Stewart concert in Birmingham with some friends. I had parked a stone’s throw from the theatre. When we returned to the vehicle it was conspicuous by its absence.
Mulling over the incident later, it dawned upon me that the thief was none other than Stewart himself. Think about it. There was a 20 minute interval in the show. Ample time to leave the theatre, find my car, steal it, hide it somewhere nobody could find it and then return to the show as if nothing had happened.
Stewart probably does this all the time. I hope the police raid his home and discover all those old bangers he’s stolen from audiences the world over. The bastard needs to be brought to justice before the entire global transport system is brought to a halt because he’s got all the cars.
On the positive side, I really enjoyed the concert and I would probably go again using public transport.
How can something be conspicuous by it’s absence? I would have thought it’s absence was obvious… :dubious:
Burgled 5 times: once in Cardiff where the smackheads ended up living in the house for a few days, vandalising it; four times in Dublin.
Company van stolen, used in a raid, returned in a bit of a mess (Reading, UK).
Car broken into and wallet stolen out of car (Galway, Ireland).
Car vandalised 19 times in one year (Dublin).
Another car had the wing mirror kicked off twice (Dublin).
Our house was broken into and vandalized when I was a little kid in suburban VA
My wife’s car was stolen a couple of years ago in Takoma Park, MD, I was probably 36 or 37 at the time.
Last year, in our new home in Washington, DC, it was late at night, I was in the basement when I heard someone trying to break in to our basement door. I grabbed a crowbar and my dog and ran out to crack the skull of whoever was out there. I run out the front door, jump off the stoop raise the bar and scare the living crap out of a baby possum that was trying to burrow into the house. I also had the opportunity to meet my new across the street neighbor who was coming home at the time and has never really warmed to me since. He must think “that guy really hates possum.”
Broken into at home whilst we were at home. Bludgers managed to remove a screen from the outside which I couldn’t even do from the inside. They did from a 10 foot drop to cement so probably two of them- one legging the other up. Lost jewellery etc. They were in and out within five minutes.
My car got vandalized and had the radio, flight computer-calculator and a Ruger 10/22 stolen out of it.
The cops were a joke. There were clear fingerprints on the windows, dash, EVERYWHERE!!! And they were unable to get one single print successfully.
I wonder if being a college student in a small town where everyone knew everyone and they all disliked us students had anything to do with that.
Oh, I was 21 at the time.
-Tcat
Some drunk guy wandered into our house, while we were home. Cops came 5 minutes after we called and he had taken off, they caught him and now he gets 6 months for the 4th charge of driving drunk.
Also had my car stolen, unfortunately the cops found it after it had been driven in first gear until it ran out of gas, and they covered the interior in fingerprint dust. I never was able to clean the stuff off.
House broken into a couple of times on the west coast.
fortunately its all stuff, never was a victim of a violent crime. That has to be the worst.
Had my wallet stolen (at church no less) when I was 15.
Just recently, someone used a credit card number of mine to purchase $1000 worth of iTunes stuff. The real kicker is that I had cancelled that account a month or two previously. My family suspects someone working for the credit card company was responsible, but the fraud prevention people told me they would cancel the account, issue me another card, and credit all the charges back to me.
Lots of times. Everything from auto theft to burglary to domestic violence to sexual assault. I bet if I had to come up with an accurate list, I’d miss half a dozen.
I had the tail light assembly, radio and glovebox stolen out of my car. What really pissed me off is that they drilled the locks on the passenger door and on the trunk to get in. How stupid does a criminal have to be to not try the door handle before going to the trouble of drilling the locks!? The doors were NOT locked, but now the locks have to be replaced as well.
Oh, I was about 25 at the time.
I had my wallet stolen out of my gym locker about two weeks ago. Lost $40 and all my credit cards, driver’s license, etc.
Sux.
Regards,
Shodan
From answers.com:
A quick Google of conspicuous by its absence produces 4,090,000 hits.
This has been just one of them.
I shared a house with 4 other girls at Uni for my second year, which quickly split into two factions: us three and the other two. Once the year was over, and we’d all moved out of the house, we found out that for the last three months of the year we shared, the two were systematically robbing the three. My friend lost clothes, I lost a camera, all things we assumed we’d just misplaced.
The worst thing, though, was that one of the girls had been opening our post, and stealing whatever they could use. In my case, that was a bank card and two separate cheques I’d been sent for my birthday, which one of the girls paid into her own account after forging my signature.
Both girls were arrested, but released after a police caution and the return of all money stolen. (We never got the other possessions back or compensated for). Two months later we were all back at our small University after the summer break and they never showed the slightest remorse or contrition. Ah, the joys of shared living!
When I was 17 I had my car stereo and about 12 tapes stolen. It was the theft of the tapes that pissed me off more than the stereo. Seemed more personal somehow.
A few years later another car was broken into and a bunch of gifts that I was going to send to my nephews were taken.
There was yet a third car break-in with another stereo stolen.
These were three different cars by the way and these all occured in neighborhoods that would not necessarily be considered “bad”.
When I was 23 (on my birthday, in fact) I was beaten and raped at knife point.
Had someone attack me on the street once. He tried to drag me off and ended up breaking my left arm. I immediately went for his face, trying to break his nose, but instead got him in the mouth, breaking two teeth (I still have a scar from the one that was embedded in my knuckle). I then managed to get on top of him and start pounding his head into the sidewalk, though I have no memory of that.
That’s how the police found us. The guy had a record as long as my broken arm.
I was sexually assaulted a long, long time ago. Ditto for assaulted by a boyfriend, a long, long time ago.
I had money stolen out of my car a long, long time ago.
That’s about it. In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t made out too badly. 
My wallet was stolen, by a coworker, when I was working, about 10 years ago.
My car was broken into in the lot at college in the late '90’s; my backpack and some CD’s stolen.
My apartment was broken into about 4 years ago. Nothing was stolen.
Thankfully, all non violent.
My wallet was stolen during my sister’s wedding, a couple of years ago.
The women in the wedding party had all left their purses in the bride’s changing room in the back of the church. Some kids in the neighborhood obviously realized that we would be preoccupied during the ceremony, and they snuck in and grabbed my wallet and a few other things from the room.
I was lucky it was only kids. We found my wallet outside - they had taken my cash but hadn’t bothered with my credit cards.
(My mother’s purse was right beside mine, but they left it alone. Her purse contains a receipt from every purchase she has made since 1973. The kids rightly determined that it would be more trouble than it was worth to look through all that to find cash. An example of clutter as security system.)