Tonight program ITV1

[Trigger]

I have lived in a small mountain village for eight years now. It is 1km from a motorway and twice in the last three years we have had burglaries in the village probably carried out my opportuniists coming off the motorway and very likely foreigners - not Spanish.

How many times might that have happened in the UK? Think I will take my chances here.

Why do you say the burglars were not Spanish? To my knowledge many Spanish youngsters are getting into drugs, even in small villages.
What small mountain village did you live in in the UK? They are generally as crime free as Spanish Mountain villages.

[Trigger]

[quote="ICCSL"]
One of my daughters lives in Southampton and every week there is some report of violence or robbery there. Here we might have a report like that once in a couple of years.
[quote]
I don't think you can compare Southampton, a city of 220,000 people, to a small mountain village.

[Campo Kenny]

But they do for some reason unknown to me

[Noodle]

This feeble attempt at a docmentary was, in my opinion, a pathetic piece of tabloid journalsim at its worst. It was trailed as "stories of Britons targeted by criminal gangs in rural Spain" but singularly failed to provide a properly researched and statistically evidenced programme to support its thesis. In fact it spent a lot of the time recounting details of crimes on the coast!

It attempted to send out a message that Spain was an unsafe place to live and that all you people thinking of escaping to live in the sun would be better of staying in the UK, yet even the victims of one of the burglaries made it clear that if she'd had a similar property in rural England she would have been burgled long before it happened here!

However, this show was worthy of a best documentary BAFTA compared to Dispatches on Channel 4 at the same time. It was billed as an expose of airport security throughout British airports but was nothing more than a lame attempt to have a swipe at BAA about everything from car parking to retail policies. Interestingly, it was made by that guardian of journalistic integrity, Andrew Gilligan!

[ICCSL]

[/quote] Why do you say the burglars were not Spanish? To my knowledge many Spanish youngsters are getting into drugs, even in small villages.
What small mountain village did you live in in the UK? They are generally as crime free as Spanish Mountain villages.[/quote]

One of the burglaries in the village involved them entering the house whilst the owners were in bed. They went into their bedroom and the Spanish owner was frightened to wake her husband up or show that she was awake because of the possible consequences. She knew they were not Spanish because she heard them speaking before the came into the room. The language was not Spanish and she thought it was probably Romanian or Lithuanian.

The other burglars were caught and were not Spanish.

I didn't say that I lived in a small mountain village in the UK. Actually I lived in Bideford before I came to Spain.

[ICCSL]

I don't think you can compare Southampton, a city of 220,000 people, to a small mountain village.

No you can't but if you add up all the little areas around us and the towns which probably cover the same amount of area as Southampton you can make the comparison.

[Trigger]

I didn't say that I lived in a small mountain village in the UK. Actually I lived in Bideford before I came to Spain.[/quote]

So if you haven't lived in a mountain village in the UK, you don't know if they are that different to Spanish ones!

[Trigger]

I don't think you can compare Southampton, a city of 220,000 people, to a small mountain village.

No you can't but if you add up all the little areas around us and the towns which probably cover the same amount of area as Southampton you can make the comparison.

Again you are not comparing like for like. Crime is greater in cities than country areas. You couldn't compare Devon with Bristol, Bath & Swindon could you?

[Maggy McGee]

I have no doubt that there are a lot of ERG in Spain we have seena few in action on the streets snatching bags etc but I do question the response of the police force out here in Spain, I myself, as were a lot of my neigbours were burgled a few years ago and the police said it was the work of ERG but I know for a fact it wasn't it was my own kind 'English' but as I did not have the proof the police were not interested at all, basically they told me to claim on my insurance (they obviously thing all the english are stinking rich).
My advice is:
Do not tell your neigbours anything about your comings and goings.
Be careful who you talk to in town in the bars
Bragging about your 48 inch LCD TV in the bar is not good.
If you have more than one property good for you, but keep it to yourself.
Do not go around your local otwn dressed to kill.

All the things that are common sense really.

[katy]

Yes, seeing the type of some of the Brits here and living off their wits I could imagine there will be Brit burglars. It is always in Sur about Eastern european gangs but the spanish prisons are also full of spanish criminals.

We know someone in the Civil Guard and he said most gangs are not interested in empty holiday homes, they want hard cash and then credit cards and jewellery that tourists carry around. A lot of the crime is done by people living local as they always seem to know about the arrival of some unfortunate holidaymaker!. Another point he made (I admit to this too) many people leave off their alarms when they are in the house even during the night. I leave ours off because I have 3 cats who like to come and go so leave a window slightly open for them.

[peteroldracer]

I have 3 cats who like to come and go so leave a window slightly open for them.

In the UK we had trembler sensors fitted to all doors and windows, and a cat-flap in a strong outer door. This meant no false alarms from PIR sensors due to cat's (or our) movement in the night, but an attempted forced entry set it off immediately.
There is no point having alarms in the campo as it would be 20 minutes before the fuzz could get here - if they could hear the thing in the first place - and this seemed to be the problem with the victims featured on that show.
As one of them (the wife) said, if they had a home like that out in the country in the UK it would have been attacked sooner and often.

[patricia]

I leave ours off because I have 3 cats who like to come and go so leave a window slightly open for them.

And where did you say you lived exactly

[Julie]

In both UK and Spain, we leave doors/windows open and keys in the car, no problems as of yet at either home, so maybe we have been lucky, but I hope if I am having robbers at either place, that they come in take what they want , and don't wake me up, I would have a heart attack

[katy]

Maybe we have become a bit blasé,after reading the thread it does make one think. We leave lots of things around the pool without a thought. There is also a full set of golf clubs awaiting delivery to the animal charity which have been outside since xmas. PS. the window left open does have rejas and we have two dogs in the same room

[wendyakemp]

I always leave the key in the door in the U.K. People knock on the door and say "you've left the key in the door" and I always reply " that's to let people in"......How else do people open doors? The police knocked one day just to tell me the key was in the door, I replied "do you know this house? No-one in their right mind would come in uninvited "

P.S. I have been burgled, it was late on a New Years night and they came in through the unlocked back door, we all slept on and they got so confused with all the car keys they left with a bit of loose change and not much else. On a more sensible note we always keep our purses,wallets etc near the bed and always use a safe. My view is don't worry, 99% of burglars don't want confrontation, they just want the goods and away.
The man who burled me was a man on the run, over 200 miles away from home and trying to get cash to live off, turned out he'd mowed someone down in his car in his home town and they died. The police were after him but so were the local hoods.

[ken2]

reading this thread as made me think, i have lived on this complex of over 150 apartments, loads have been robbed, two last night, one as lost all the ladies jewels, they got in through the wreckers,you no the slid bolt at the top and bottom, well they use a bar to open the gap then push the little leavers, then slid the bolts and yes the wreckers are double locked, but with the bolts slid you can just pull them open,, so buy them big metal clamps to go around the wreckers just above your lock, well its another deter ant, ??? does anyone know what pitch of sound is aloud in Spain,?? with all the robberies around us,(we been done too) i have never heard a alarm go off,?? car alarms yes?? but house ones no,i have not got one fitted, i did bring a cordless one with me 9 years ago, but bloody mobile phones and taxi's set it off, (i think) so does any one know of a good cordless one,??that is aloud here in Spain,