Immediately it is clear what had happened: someone had bent the upper door segment open, to enter the car. I open the door - it is unlocked, although I had left it locked. The interior light does not switch on. Battery empty? No, whoever was in the car, had taken precautions to switch that light off, so as not to be seen. I turn it on, it works. The car inside is a mess - more than the usual mess when I drive it: the glove compartment is open, all the cables and stuff I had inside, is spread on the seat. The inside wall under the steering wheel is ripped open - obviously someone had tried to get access to the electric wires, to start the car. I turn the key to start the car - the instrumentation lights go on, but the engine does not get cranked, just silence. Well, this is the immobiliser. It had happened to me last year when the battery had been completely drained - the car could not be started for one hour. That means, the wannabe-thief had been here just one hour ago!
I call the police in Pudsey. They come around midnight. Take down the details. Nothing else they can do. Fortunately this is just a cheap car. I am somehow not very upset about the mechanical damage - I think I can fix that, just bending back the door. But I am upset that whoever that was, operated just 10 m away from me, as I was sitting in our living room on the sofa. Maybe he even peeked into the window, saw all those boxes and "gadgets": the TV on the wall, those PC displays, etc. - not a very comforting thought!
Next day, Tuesday, I cancel my morning meetings at the Uni - have to wait for the police forensic expert. When he comes to the house around 11am, he tells me that due to the rain he cannot do anything - no fingerprints are preserved on the door surface. And on those riffled plastic surfaces inside on the dashboard, it is impossible to get any finger prints.
So now I can try to bend back the door and put the stuff in the car back in place. It is harder than I thought to bend the door. The thief must have used a metal tool. I can narrow the gap, but in the rain I am not able to do much. So I fill the gap with bubble wrap and plastic foil, and take the Suzuki for driving to work. Of course, the battery of the Suzuki is empty. Why? No idea - no light was on. Just the radio on standby, or the clock. Or some leak current somewhere... Anyway, the voltage is down to 1V, and I use my portable starter battery to jumpstart the car. Runs fine, gets recharged during my ride, and starts fine when I drive back.
Before going to the Uni, I decide to stop at Maplin, the UK version of something like Frys or Conrad Elektronik: I have to update my video surveillance system. I get two more cameras and a USB box for 4 video inputs. In the evening, I setup the cameras and connect them - now I have 24h surveillance around the Cottage. The software performs motion recognition and saves a video file, anytime when motion is detected. I also can upload it to a web server.
Now on weekend, I did some fine-tuning of the camera positions. Next time anyone tries something funny, I will have it on video!
What is it here in the UK with the crime? Half a year ago, my bicycle was stolen, from a "locked" room in the Kirkstall Brewery student dorms! Never before had a bicycle been stolen from me, not in Germany, not in the US, not in France during a bike tour in 1995. But here in the UK, just a few months after I bought it, somebody else decided to claim ownership of this bike.
And now this break-in into my car! Again, never ever before had someone tried to open any of my cars or rental cars. In Ebersberg (Germany, near Munich) I had my car parked on the street every night for 6 years. In Thousand Oaks (US), my vehicles were often parked out on the street overnight. Nobody stole anything, ever. Only once, a group of "pranksters" in Thousand Oaks had smashed a window of the car - and they smashed every car on the road that night. But no break-in for the sake of stealing something.
Well, I guess it is a plain fact that in the UK there is more criminal activity. The question remains unanswered: why is this so? Has it always been so? Is unemployement the reason? Who in his right mind would want to steal a car worth 350 British Pound?
