I got burgled — again!

This is what my front door looked like when I got home from work on Thursday 11th January:

At about 1pm on Thursday afternoon, in broad daylight in a busy industrial area, someone drove up with a crowbar and forced the door open. That is a very good quality deadlock in a solid wood door, so it took quite a bit of effort. It needed probably a dozen strokes before finally the door frame gave way. The door itself was damaged in the process, and the main doorhandle was completely wrecked:

Once inside, the alarm starts beeping, and they had 60 seconds before the alarm went off. In those 60 seconds, they went through all my drawers (13 of them) and my cupboard, and took (that I know of):

• All my jewellery boxes (two large ones and about a dozen smaller ones)
• Vanilla moisturiser/soap/bath gel set in display case
• Feijoa fruit moisturiser/bath gel set in display case
• A counted cross stitch kit
• A paua-shell inlaid picture frame
• A gold watch
• A toiletry bag
• An old camera
• A battery charger
• My washing basket (presumably to carry off everything else)

As soon as the alarms went off, the neighbours from three doors along, and the neighbours from upstairs came to investigate. They saw the door, but the burglars had already gone. The people in the apartment downstairs heard a car leave, but nobody else saw or heard anything.

The neighbours called the police, as did I when I got home, but they didn't come. I filed a report with the burglary squad for insurance purposes, but there's almost no hope of finding either the offenders or my stuff.

I suspect they will be very disappointed with the take. Despite the fact that there were two large jewellery boxes and a dozen small ones, my jewellery probably isn't worth over $300 in resale value, although it will cost closer to $2000 to replace everything. Almost all my jewellery is junk. There are only a couple of things with sentimental value, nothing that I will really miss terribly. More than anything else it is a hassle.

I'm insured, of course, but now I have the problem that the insurance company likes to see receipts or photos of the items. As many of you know, I hate having my photo taken, and I don't have receipts. A lot of the stuff is years old, and only cost me $20 or so, not something I would keep a receipt for. Also, a lot of it was given to me. So many people give me dolphin earrings that I just have no idea how many dolphins I may have had. I figure I must have had at least 30 pairs of earrings, and probably half of those were dolphins, but for the life of me I can only remember about 5 pairs.

So, if you are insured, go and get your camera right now, and go and take photos of everything you own that you might want replaced after you get burgled. Store them in your gmail account and you won't regret it, I promise.