exactly five days ago,during alan's afternoon break from work, he came home to find our apartment had been burglarized while we were all out (alan and i were at work and chichi was in school). in a panicked and teary voice, he called me at work to tell me the bad news. i actually had to tell him to calm down and check what are missing. yes, burglaries happen here, too, in France. it's not something new to me. i've heard of other filipino families' homes that have been burglarized before. heck, somebody even burgled my brother's home in Marseilles last year (good thing, though, that here in France, burglars break in to people's homes when the occupants are not at home). but still... it's something that you never expect, or you never imagine would happen, in your own home. especially when you live in a very, very, very old building like ours.i mean...
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| how the burglar broke our door to get inside our apartment |
really, our building is ancient. and not like the 'chic' kind of ancient, mind you. it's cheap-ancient (arghhh..... one day i'll take a picture of the building where our apartment is housed and you'll understand what i meant). or maybe that just made our building easier to get into, because it's old, not that much security, etc...
the repairman that the insurance company sent us to check our door after the break-in told us that our door lock was made of very good quality. apparently, the wood in which our door was made of probably wasn't. because the burglar was able to hack into it (literally) to get to the lock.
it's a good thing, though, that the burglar (i'm pretty positive it's just one person) who entered our apartment was only after some cash (and jewelry). i wouldn't say what he was able to take away was just some petty cash. and the jewelry... oh, i don't even want to think about how much they're worth... there wasn't a lot that was taken from me, just a couple of gold rings and some pairs of earrings (i don't own a lot of gold jewelry), chichi's jewelry were worth more (coz she owns more than i do)... and alan has most. i never realized he owned a lot until we started to assess the amount of the jewelry that the burglar took, because alan never liked to wear any gold jewelry before. and he seemed to have taken a fancy to alan's wrist watches, and perfumes as well.... i swear i don't even want to start thinking about how much all those cost... but trying to think positively, i just thought that, if the burglar decided to also take all our other valuables at home (which, consist mostly of tech gadgets) he would have gotten much, much more. i would be totally devastated if that happened because those things aren't something that you can just save up for to buy any day.
i think the burglar was most likely to be in his teens. owing to the fact that he didn't bother to take any of our gadgets (which were all over our home), which meant that he didn't want to bother about selling those stuff, and the fact that he took interest in alan's perfumes. and lastly... because he took the time to open and devour chichi's calendar chocolates (i don't know how to describe it, but it's a box containing pieces of individually wrapped chocolates where you open just one piece each day, it's a french christmas thing... and it certainly is a hassle to open one piece, much more all of them while you're burgling!). he could have eaten any other food or chocolate at home, but he ate chichi's. that's a "children's chocolate", dude! geesh, he probably hardly ever got some when he was a kid.
what's sad, though, is the fact that in burglaries, our insurance does not cover cash, and stolen items that have no proof of purchase. most of our jewelry were given to us as gifts, and those that we bought, we no longer have the receipts for. so basically, we really won't be getting any compensation from our insurance.
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| a view of our bedroom floor from our tiny hallway. |
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and while i'm still glad and thankful that the burglar didn't take away everything (like what happened with my brother's home where the burglar took all of their cash and valuables... you know, jewelry and all the stuff that could be hand-carried).. i'm most annoyed with the fact that he left our home in such an awful mess! i mean... each and every one of our relative has always known that you'll never find our home neat and in order at any random day. in fact, there's a whole bunch of fresh laundry that needed to be folded and put away that were piled just on top of our bed, and some of chichi's toys in every corner of the living room. but to leave our home like this, with every single piece of clothing scattered on the floor... even those summer and autumn/spring clothes that we've already packed and put away. and even chichi's small clothes, and ours, that we don't use anymore and were put inside boxes... the old and small and new and clean and dirty clothes... all of them mixed and scattered all over the place. man, what was the dude thinking??? well, i know he was looking for money. but did he really expect us to stash our cash in the hamper???? and the papers... oh the papers that we've painstakingly sorted into categories and folders are all helter-skelter on the floor of the living room and some in the dining area as well. he just left us with two-weeks' worth of organizing and sorting!
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| and this is how he left our living room |
the door's lock has already been temporarily repaired. the insurance company is yet to get back to us to have the whole thing replaced. the fingerprints taken, the police reports filed, and chichi's calendar chocolate replaced.
yet two thirds of the mess on the floor still remains. we haven't even started sorting out all the eight years' worth of accumulated papers/documents that the effing bast*rd scattered all over our place.
and chichi was soooooo looking forward to putting up the christmas tree this weekend.
oh well, good luck next weekend.
