Wonders Will Never Cease !

01 June 2011

Wonders will never cease! Yesterday I got a call from the police regarding our break-in and they thought they had found some of our stolen items. Now I am not usually very impressed with the way police deal with things and I was fairly sure that they had simply written off all of our stuff. But this time I have to say they did a great job.

Apparently some of the the tools were advertised in the local paper for sale. I am ashamed to say that I wasn't checking for this myself as it now seems really obvious. The police said that they had been keeping an eye out for some time in local papers due to the number of similar break-ins which were happening. They knew that the gear had to be sold off somewhere.

So they were able to trace the number left on the ad and get the address. You would think that the burglars would be clever enough to use a non-traceable number, but hey – we are not talking about the the cleverest of people here are we? So the police were able to arrest them, take finger prints, match those to our break-in and some others and the dim-wits are due in court sometime soon.

The gear we lost has for the most part already disappeared, but an electric drill and some tools are still able to be given back to us – after the court appearance of course. Thankfully I made sure I had serial numbers and photos of my tools. My insurance company recommended that I did that and they were right. It did simplify things a great deal. So, all's well that ends well I suppose. I feel much better, but still pretty angry.

Anyway these events did put us back just a little way. Obviously within days of the break-in I installed the front and back doors, cleaned up the mess and re-plastered the parts of the wall where damage was done. Upstairs I replaced all of the plasterboard and have now plastered those walls ready for painting.

This week I have been concentrating on plumbing. The new radiators have been installed and my mate has come round and done the new boiler. The whole system seems to be working well, but luckily it hasn't been cold enough to give it a good blast. I have also been working on the plumbing for the bathroom and the kitchen. I thought I would get it all out of the way together. But I am feeling all plumbed out. If I never see a length of copper piping again I will be a happy chap.

The coming week will be spent sorting out the bathroom. It is just a basic white suite with a shower over the bath. The room is tiny, but I have some clever space saving ideas up my sleeve. More on that next week.

So I guess that when all is said and done this has been an OK week. We are over our break-in trauma and hopefully it is all downhill from here. I need to get some money pretty soon though or it will all come to a grinding halt!