A burglary changed my mind

[FranZ]

Don't worry and be happy AND . . .
make sure you have an off-site backup of your photos, in case they do not go for your cameras but take the more easily sold computer hardware . . . .

 

[daveleo]

My homeowner's insurance includes the list of camera gear (under "personal items") that I update every year.
Also have an alarm system.
That aside, a druggie will just kick the side door in, steal some stuff and be gone long before the police get here. Even the alarm installer said that nothing is going to prevent a determined thief.

As said above .... your photos are probably worth much more to you than your cameras, so store copies offsite.

 

[:: Mark]

You should be so lucky that they just take your cameras.

Our neighbour here (Barcelona) was broken in to last year while she was away for work. They *emptied* her flat, taking everything from the computer and camera to her clothes and even the cans of coke in the fridge. Nothing prepares you for such loss.

We ourselves had our new home broken in to while away for christmas. The police disturbed them but could not enter because we were not there, and the house was subsequently occupied and the locks changed before I was able to return. After a pointless year of fighting to recover access through the courts, we eventually re-entered after the main door was broken. We spent three days and nights defending the our home while builders bricked everything up. The house was completely destroyed inside - walls broken, the bathroom smashed and every piece of metal stolen - from the water heater to the taps and door knobs. The highlight was at 4am having to fight off one of the occupiers trying to get back in by climbing the wall and brandishing a 12 inch knife - and not being able to call the police because we were afraid that they might determine that we were in our own house illegally. We fought him off with buckets of his own piss (which still sounds as absurd as it was). Two years on and the house is still unusable, needing almost complete reconstruction.

Insurance is completely useless in these cases. And no one here will provide cover at any reasonable price for anything as expensive as a Leica.

And if you think that Barcelona is bad for crime when visiting, that is nothing compared to the reality facing the people living here.

 

[Calzone]

No homeowners insurance?

I had renter's insurance. My dealings with the insurance company was like getting robbed a second time.

Police are not like on TV. Basically indifferent. A big insult. Pretty much I became a P.I. and fed the detective on my case info. Three local crack heads were the perps and were responsible for about 25 break-ins in my neighborhood. These two brothers and cousin had rap sheets.

As further insult one of the guys plea bargained and only got probation and drug rehab.

My policy now is to live in a building at least three stories up without a fire escape with a steel door and deadbolt for security. Pretty much you would need to be a SWAT Team or be Spiderman to break in.

Also this bad experience carry's over into when I walk around. If someone pulls out a weapon: I have the right to use lethal force. Also I carry around the rage from being broken into, the violation, and my response to a robbery might be inappropriate.

Pretty much I learned the law does little to protect a victim, and the insurance companies do everything to resist settling a claim making a victim feel violated yet a second time. Nothing like old fashion street justice.

Cal

 

[Paul T.]

@Mark. So sorry to hear that.

I actually apprehended a burglar on the way out of my house with a laptop etc. I have no interest in guns or violence but simply chased him and London bobbies turned up.

He was exceedingly arrogant, but not quite so arrogant when the police managed to find him in the nearby wood where he was hiding.

But the parallel crime story is that he'd been through the justice system and was around nine months into a four year sentence by the time we got the money from the insurers.

Thanks for the wise advice here about gun safes and similar - and backing up. I do have a separate portable HD with the last 10 years of family photos which I keep separately from other hardware. Although the rueful comments about being able to find the damn thing on return from holiday apply to me, too.

 

[grouchos_tash]

A friend on mine got his car broken into, they took a 5x4 field camera body, the exposed film and threw 3 lenses into the bushes down the end of the street.

I have all my serial numbers recorded, home insurance (covers me out of the home up to £2000) and a naive sense of security.

 

[:: Mark]

Yes, it was pretty scary.

For amusement here is a photograph of the guy climbing up the wall, and then of the knife he was carrying - abandoned the next night after after a police patrol passed and scared him away.

The guy was an illegal immigrant and clearly high on drugs.

I documented the full year of occupation using a pair of GRs, one of which was destroyed by the criminals while shooting. At the start, they intended to sell drugs from the house (which has a non-shared entrance to the street), but this failed after we kept calling the police and taking flash photographs of them and also the vans that we believe were being used for illegal trading to/from Morroco (these were eventually shut down by the police).

I have several thousand images from the year, but I still do not feel up to collating them for a proper project.

The worst part was the police informally advising us to hire some thugs to beat up the people in our house and kick them out, because the legal system here is so unbelievably broken. I do not want to live in a society in which the only response to violence and criminality is more violence and criminality.

Having lived through the year, and having been attacked several times I strongly recommend not tackling the criminals yourself if there is any other option.

 

[Calzone]

Yes, it was pretty scary.

For amusement here is a photograph of the guy climbing up the wall, and then of the knife he was carrying - abandoned the next night after after a police patrol passed and scared him away.

The guy was an illegal immigrant and clearly high on drugs.

I documented the full year of occupation using a pair of GRs, one of which was destroyed by the criminals while shooting. At the start, they intended to sell drugs from the house (which has a non-shared entrance to the street), but this failed after we kept calling the police and taking flash photographs of them and also the vans that we believe were being used for illegal trading to/from Morroco (these were eventually shut down by the police).

I have several thousand images from the year, but I still do not feel up to collating them for a proper project.

The worst part was the police informally advising us to hire some thugs to beat up the people in our house and kick them out, because the legal system here is so unbelievably broken. I do not want to live in a society in which the only response to violence and criminality is more violence and criminality.

Having lived through the year, and having been attacked several times I strongly recommend not tackling the criminals yourself if there is any other option.

Mark,

This is sad. Barcelona is said to be a beautiful city, and there must be such a sense of history.

There is a great moral debate. I for one think it is alright to fight evil and sometimes violence is appropriate, but I also try to be a kind and giving person. Revenge to me is too premeditated...

Cal

 

[David Hughes]

The local police/CID could tell you if you live in a crime hotspot or else it was a one off. Insurance, a dog and a safe are the usual answers; plus that book of serial numbers.


Regards, David


PS Every time I see a camera on ebay etc without an instruction book or box I wonder...

 

[oftheherd]

You should be so lucky that they just take your cameras.

Our neighbour here (Barcelona) was broken in to last year while she was away for work. They *emptied* her flat, taking everything from the computer and camera to her clothes and even the cans of coke in the fridge. Nothing prepares you for such loss.

We ourselves had our new home broken in to while away for christmas. The police disturbed them but could not enter because we were not there, and the house was subsequently occupied and the locks changed before I was able to return. After a pointless year of fighting to recover access through the courts, we eventually re-entered after the main door was broken. We spent three days and nights defending the our home while builders bricked everything up. The house was completely destroyed inside - walls broken, the bathroom smashed and every piece of metal stolen - from the water heater to the taps and door knobs. The highlight was at 4am having to fight off one of the occupiers trying to get back in by climbing the wall and brandishing a 12 inch knife - and not being able to call the police because we were afraid that they might determine that we were in our own house illegally. We fought him off with buckets of his own piss (which still sounds as absurd as it was). Two years on and the house is still unusable, needing almost complete reconstruction.

Insurance is completely useless in these cases. And no one here will provide cover at any reasonable price for anything as expensive as a Leica.

And if you think that Barcelona is bad for crime when visiting, that is nothing compared to the reality facing the people living here.

Note to self: Don't visit Barcelona.

 

[Prest_400]

You should be so lucky that they just take your cameras.

Our neighbour here (Barcelona) was broken in to last year while she was away for work. They *emptied* her flat, taking everything from the computer and camera to her clothes and even the cans of coke in the fridge. Nothing prepares you for such loss.

We ourselves had our new home broken in to while away for christmas. The police disturbed them but could not enter because we were not there, and the house was subsequently occupied and the locks changed before I was able to return. After a pointless year of fighting to recover access through the courts, we eventually re-entered after the main door was broken. We spent three days and nights defending the our home while builders bricked everything up. The house was completely destroyed inside - walls broken, the bathroom smashed and every piece of metal stolen - from the water heater to the taps and door knobs. The highlight was at 4am having to fight off one of the occupiers trying to get back in by climbing the wall and brandishing a 12 inch knife - and not being able to call the police because we were afraid that they might determine that we were in our own house illegally. We fought him off with buckets of his own piss (which still sounds as absurd as it was). Two years on and the house is still unusable, needing almost complete reconstruction.

Insurance is completely useless in these cases. And no one here will provide cover at any reasonable price for anything as expensive as a Leica.

And if you think that Barcelona is bad for crime when visiting, that is nothing compared to the reality facing the people living here.

This is something simply enfuriating.

Occupation is a huge problem here, basically the law does nothing with it. For a long time nothing. Many do wish Politician's homes should be occupied as to have something done.
I think you may have the edge the first hours by claiming they are trespassing and stealing, but once they squat in... Lengthly and painful process. You actually did the most effective thing.

At least, by law, being able to call the police and have them effectively kicking them out of the place would be effective enough.

Many people live "freely" this way. Some with some fair reason, others without. A fault of the system was the huge evictions that happened during the crisis, there was a lack of nonrecourse debt option, which is just a worse prospect for those affected.
The craziest example are criminal organizations breaking in and taking over flats and then subletting this!

In which district are you living? Gothic quarter has a huge problem with the "narcopisos" AFAIK. Organized crime breaking in and using the flats as drug trafficking bases.
Eixample seems to be less affected by this, as the suburbs and outer towns.
I live further down the coast, where there's a huge stock of summer apartments and I've been told that Okupas are quite common, they come from the cities and just take over places here. My town has 25K registered residents but becomes 150K at summer...

Also, housing prices seem to be trending towards bubble status again but the economy is in shambles (to the locals). Basically there is a misadjustment between prices and salaries.
1000€ at least for any housing in Barcelona... That's the normal wage here.
The above issue of ocupation is a factor for rental prices being high too. Many histories of people not paying rent, and also, ransacking and destroying the propiety when they leave.

Mark,

This is sad. Barcelona is said to be a beautiful city, and there must be such a sense of history.

There is a great moral debate. I for one think it is alright to fight evil and sometimes violence is appropriate, but I also try to be a kind and giving person. Revenge to me is too premeditated...

Cal

IMO. It's a great place to live and visit, just not for work (given the post-recession conditions) and there's a bit of circus around Politics, like the incompetence in regulating this issue. And of course, the issues of any city.
There's the option of living in the nice towns out of BCN (Sitges, San Cugat come to my mind), where many elites are located.

 

[oftheherd]

Yes, it was pretty scary.

For amusement here is a photograph of the guy climbing up the wall, and then of the knife he was carrying - abandoned the next night after after a police patrol passed and scared him away.

The guy was an illegal immigrant and clearly high on drugs.

I documented the full year of occupation using a pair of GRs, one of which was destroyed by the criminals while shooting. At the start, they intended to sell drugs from the house (which has a non-shared entrance to the street), but this failed after we kept calling the police and taking flash photographs of them and also the vans that we believe were being used for illegal trading to/from Morroco (these were eventually shut down by the police).

I have several thousand images from the year, but I still do not feel up to collating them for a proper project.

The worst part was the police informally advising us to hire some thugs to beat up the people in our house and kick them out, because the legal system here is so unbelievably broken. I do not want to live in a society in which the only response to violence and criminality is more violence and criminality.

Having lived through the year, and having been attacked several times I strongly recommend not tackling the criminals yourself if there is any other option.

That whole situation just baffles me. I cannot imagine such a thing happening. Especially the reaction of the authorities to all that happened.

Did the police volunteer to be the thugs?

While I understand reluctance to resort to violence, personally, I would be very inclined at some point to test the waters and see who could be most violent. Especially if I caught the person climbing up to my window. If he does that enough he has to expect he might lose his grip at some point and fall.

But in general, however much I might wish to do things like that, I would know that I would have to be unbelievably cruel to have a chance of chasing them away and not having to worry about retaliation against my family. People like that only worry about satisfying their own desires, and don't really care how much they hurt anyone else. Some actually delight in exercising power over other people.

I really sympathize with you. What a terrible thing to have to go through.

 

[Paul T.]

Don't let stories like this put you off Barcelona. It's a wonderful, and very safe place to visit. I'd go back for the Gaudi architecture alone. Hell, I'd go back for the amazing vegetarian food and craft beer!

Barcelona is just as safe as London, and a lot safer than most large American cities:

https://safearound.com/danger-rankings/cities/

I think you're right to say one should still visit Barcelona, but it would be naive to say there are fewer criminals preying on tourists in Barcelona than in London.

I love the city to bits; but the number of people attempting well-known scams (fake vomit etc where they 'clean' your coat, distraction techniques etc etc etc) in Barcelona is significant compared to London or Paris (which aren't perfect of course).

And I agree of course Barcelona is far safer than places like the West Side of Chicago etc, but of course not too many people are walking around the street gazing up at beautiful Modernista buildings in the West Side.

 

[:: Mark]

This is something simply enfuriating.
In which district are you living? Gothic quarter has a huge problem with the "narcopisos" AFAIK. Organized crime breaking in and using the flats as drug trafficking bases.

All of the problems occurred in Clot, near Glories. The area is suffering from a combination of poverty, illegal immigration (mainly from North Africa) and a complete failure of governance. This is resulting in huge illegal markets with hundreds of people selling everything from junk to stolen items, and the development of several growing shanty towns around the highly misnamed Glories square.

The irony is that we were trying to move to Clot to get away from the Raval, where we currently live (a few minutes walk from Las Ramblas). The narco pisos were in the street next to us, where the flats had been illegally occupied and used for drug dealing. In the end it took months of nightly mass protests from local residents before the city council would allow the police to act. We have had bloody syringes inside our stairwell, after people managed to get in during the night to shoot up. Syringes are a regular fixture in the streets around here, and it is almost impossible to walk down the lower part of Las Ramblas at night without being solicited by the prostitutes and drug sellers. All of this then fuels the problems of general crime in the city.

Several of the flats in our building have been broken in to and robbed in the last few years, and we now have a video surveillance system running 24/7. As others have suggested, we also keep off-site backups of everything important.

The problems of drugs, drunken tourists, prostitution and theft have exploded in Barcelona over the last three years - at least in part because the politicians only seem to care about largely meaningless idealogical battles rather than building a safe, sustainable and prosperous city environment. That said, most tourists visits here are safe so long as you avoid the worst parts of the Raval late at night, and are careful to take precautions against pick-pockets and bag snatchers on Las Ramblas and the metro system.

 

[skucera]

I can't believe none of you have gun safes, I own two. They range in price from a couple hundred dollars to a few thousand. Chances are you don't need a very large one and the cost would be cheaper than getting an insurance policy.

I have both in closets with one anchored in concrete downstairs and the other anchored in a wooden floor upstairs. They both have dial combination locks that would require someone with safe cracking experience to get in. These things are extremely secure.

You can lock all your valuables in it and important papers with your cameras and lenses. It's smart, secure and inexpensive. Most sporting goods stores carry a variety of sizes as prices.

The thread focuses on cameras, not guns, but your point is a good one. I have two gun safes too, but I store guns in them, not cameras. However, in jurisdictions that ban guns, storing cameras in large gun safes would work very well. I have only one camera worth enough to inspire me to store it in the gun safe... I don’t have room right now but I could sell off a few pistols to make room easily enough.

Scott

 

[Prest_400]

The problems of drugs, drunken tourists, prostitution and theft have exploded in Barcelona over the last three years - at least in part because the politicians only seem to care about largely meaningless idealogical battles rather than building a safe, sustainable and prosperous city environment. That said, most tourists visits here are safe so long as you avoid the worst parts of the Raval late at night, and are careful to take precautions against pick-pockets and bag snatchers on Las Ramblas and the metro system.

This.

As I'm not commuting daily to BCN nowadays after having graduated (UPF), I'm not having much news about more local issues. I do recall the problems with illegal markets around Glòries, and Narcopisos specially because of it being broadcasted around.
Raval itself, I've been told (and seen) that above C/Hospital is better than its below (historical Barrio Chino) side.

I'm not sure, but the inner-mountain districts as well as eixample don't seem to have as many widely reported squatting issues.

Last month I went around with some friends, who ironically live in the farther area of St. Andreu and don't frequent the center. Locals don't go downtown much I guess! We were surprised at the sheer amount of shady guys offering "coffee shop" in the Ramblas. Didn't see that even just a few months ago.
Saddened by the political circus and sheer neglect on this issues.

As visitors, Barcelona is a great place and just have to take the common precautions. The issues here are mostly important if you settle somewhere.

 

[Ronald M]

Leave some trinkets out where they can be seen easily. Hide or lock up the rest. Generally burglars spend less than 10 minutes in a home.

My inlays used to leave a few hundred dollars on the dresser in the bedroom when they went on vacation. Please take it and leave was what they wanted.

Last advice, do not hide valuables in the master bedroom. That be the first place they go. Hall clothes closet second.

 

[ABrosig]

Hard to believe that burglars are interested in your old fashioned cameras. This kind of people usually think that film is no longer available and that those cameras are worthless.

Erik.

I've usually found very little in the way of thinking involved in someone who'd do something like this. Its typically more of a "Grab it and figure it out later" mentality. But I agree, don't let the actions of a handful of jerks ruin your enjoyment of the vintage cameras in your collection.

 

[pepeguitarra]

The burglars visited me in the form of a workers who was left alone doing some electrical work. Out of about 40 cameras and 100s of lenses, he only took the Optio Point and shoot. Same thing happened in L.A., when they broke into my car couple of years ago, and out of 30 CDs, they stole only one. That tells me I am getting old or the music I like is not good enough, they were mostly classical guitar pieces by Segovia.