GP’s car was broken into last night.  Usually he parks in the garage, whereas I park my car in a space on the street.  Last night he also left his out on the street.  Silly man.  The very first night we spent in our condo, 150 years ago, GP was too tired to move his car into the garage.  When we woke up in the morning it was gone.   It was found a week later abandoned along the side of a back road, with a missing battery.  I hope at this point he has learned his lesson and never parks on the road again.  He has bad luck.   He also has a nicer car than the ones left out in the elements, like mine.  The vandals smashed the side window and made a mess but took nothing as there was nothing to take.  What a drag. 

I have to say I am getting profoundly sick of the crime around here.   These are just some of the recent stories I've heard.


My colleague, Grace’s Bio teacher, who lives in an independent house, (the most vulnerable type),  has been here a year.  In that year, they’ve been broken into 3 times. The first time they stole electronics.  The second time, only a couple weeks later, they were angry that there was nothing valuable, (the Devil's Spawn having already visited), so they stole all of their winter clothes and pooped in all their bathrooms.  Yup, you heard that right.  I’m not sure what happened the 3^rd time. Then just 2 weeks ago, she was getting her baby out of the car at the preschool across the street when a thief did a “smash and grab” of her bag and drove off in a waiting car.   The family is German.   She doesn’t need to be here.  I’m surprised they haven’t packed up and left.

Another colleague failed to shut her safety shutters in her 3^rd floor apartment.  She and her hubby went out for a pizza and came back to a ransacked house.  The thieves had scrambled up the pipes on the outside of the building.

Italians tend to blame the Gypsies and Eastern Europeans but often as not the thieves are Italian drug addicts or petty criminals.  I know the police caught the poopers and they were a gang of Italians.  The sentiment of unease is constant.  Whether remembering to put my purse on the floor behind the seat in the car because at traffic lights people smash in car windows and grab bags off front seats, (two friends), or carrying a purse on the side towards the buildings on a sidewalk because motorcyclists drive by and wrench bags off women's shoulders, (friend of mother-in-law broke her hip from the fall).  You always have to be vigilant.  A gypsy stole Grace's 3 euros change from her train ticket out of the slot in the ticket machine, (Gypsies stand beside these machines begging and obviously thought Grace was an easy target), and an acquaintance's daughter has had her phone ripped out of her hand while texting, not once but twice!  OK, so she's not so bright, but still....

I'm off to lock my windows and doors before going to bed.  xxoo me