WHY PEOPLE SUCK SOMETIMES // our new life had a bumpy start

So we’ve done it. We’ve finally left the bright lights of London to fulfill our dreams of a suburban, child-friendly idyll in the Home Counties.

The move was, frankly, horrific. There’s only so much you can pack away with two kids under 2.5 so, come moving day, I still felt completely unprepared. There was stuff everywhere, a baby and a toddler to tend to, and a parking warden outside telling up to hurry up (even though we’d paid to suspend two parking bays outside our block).

To top it all off, our buyer’s truck turned up early and his movers were literally hovering outside our front door.

The whole scene collapsed into chaos. The team of movers started stripping the flat at such lightning speed I couldn’t keep up. They even started loading black bags of rubbish into the removals van before I had a chance to stop them!

In the melee my carefully placed boxes ended up anywhere and everywhere. Stuff I’d put to one side, like the kids’ winter jackets, my laptop charger, jewellery and important work documents, were spirited away – possibly never to be seen again…

By the time we finally finished, I was so shell-shocked I didn’t even look back as we drove from the flat that had been our home for five years. Dan and I sat in stunned silence for the rest of the evening, incapable of even stringing two words together.

Our place needed renovating before we moved in, so we spent the first few nights in a well-known budget hotel, before being taken in by a very generous relative.

WHY PEOPLE SUCK SOMETIMES

So we were eating dinner in the restaurant attached to the hotel when, as we later discovered, a van pulled up tight alongside OH’s work van, parked in the hotel carpark. The men inside punched a hole in the side door, and peeled the metal back like a banana skin, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. They forced the side door, then pushed their way through the wooden shelving and into the back of the van.

They went through all the personal belongings that we’d been keeping in there until we had a chance to unload them at the house, or in the hotel.

Every single one of OH’s work tools were stolen. He relies on them to carry out his job, but they left him just a measuring tape, and a pencil. Sports bags containing clothes and every single pair of his shoes – gone. They’d rifled through a box of my stuff, chucking it all over floor, but miraculously missed my grandmother’s engagement ring (it was waiting to be reset – I hadn’t even realised it was in the van, due to the chaos of the move).

They took two cheques, generously given to the girls by their great-grandad and waiting to be banked into their Child Trust Funds, (I don’t know how they planned to use them, as they were made out in their names) and even my Tesco vouchers had been nicked.

But what upset me the most was realising they’d also stolen a bag containing six hand-painted coffee cups we’d made in a Pottery Cafe for the grandparents. Big Sis had painted them herself, and we’d put her hand print on one side, and Lil Sis’s footprint on the other.

It wasn’t the cost of them. As you mums will understand, it was the sentimental value. They’d obviously seen the bag filled with the tissue-wrapped cups and grabbed them, hoping they might be some fancy gifts we’d bought. I can just picture them unwrapping them later, realising they’re not worth a penny to anyone else it the world, and chucking them. And it breaks my heart.

Thank goodness they also left the kids’ double buggy and the baby’s swing – presumably only because they couldn’t fit it back through the wrenched open door. 

It was only 8pm at night, but these guys clearly knew how often the carpark was checked, and that the CCTV screens weren’t very well monitored. The footage showed they were inside the van for nearly half an hour while we were just metres away in the restaurant.

I’m angry for several reasons. Of course I’m angry at the people who think it’s OK to wait for other people to work hard, then just take from them, rather than making their own way in the world. Danny and I aren’t rich people – they would have been able to see that from our modest belongings, and the fact we were staying in a budget chain hotel in the first place. We clearly weren’t businesspeople on an all-expenses paid trip, and they could see from the double buggy that we had young children.

I’m also annoyed at the hotel’s response. They knew there was a security problem in that carpark and yet the CCTV screens went unchecked for at least half an hour. When I told the about the break-in they didn’t seem surprised. They didn’t offer an apology, or even fake a bit of empathy.

Most of all I’m angry that our exciting, fresh start has been tainted. Ironically, one of the major reasons we left London was to get away from all the crime.

So that’s why people suck sometimes, but I’m trying not to let it get me down too much. I know it could have been much worse – we’re all safe and well – and I don’t want to give those b******s another moment of my time.

Have any of you been victims of crime?