Reginaldo wrote:Have had a holiday home in Spain since 2003.
In first year we were burgled twice!
First time we were out on Saturday morning...probably the buiders..took a while to realise it had happened...came in thro sliding windows , easy , and left thro front door!
Had grilles fitted to all windows and doors.
Second time was 4am...burglar opened sliding window and thro grille used fishing rod to pinch all my house and car keys from the coffee table. Took my hire car!
After that had window locks fitted and a burglar alarm. Like Fort Knox!,
Since then no problems...we take all precautions, lock everything, put keys on hook out of sight..we learnt bit by bit...but we are no longer the soft touch most newbie Brits are out here!
Even so..both burglaries incurred no physical harm..in the first our passports were left..in the second the carhire company insurance covered everything.
So..Spain is still a lovely place to live...if you offer it on a plate, someone probably less fortunate will try to take it!
Oh and more recently I left my new bike secured to a ballustrade with security cable lock in my front garden.
Too much trouble to take it round the back!
Sure enough at 4am one day I heard a metallic noise...leapt out of bed..and could only scream "stop thief"...
as some bloke used bolt cutter on the cablelock, and passed my bike over the ballustrades to his mate who pedalled off rapidly.
By the time I got downstairs and opened the door, the other one was long gone!
Did not bother to call the polce.
Another lesson learnt...nobody will pinch a bike from me again!
All in all, more an amusing tale than a frightening one?
We have had our holiday home since 2005 and the most burglaries/opportunist thieving that we have ever heard about was in the very early days of the house building, although in relation to the amount of housing being built around Quesada in those days it really wasn't that many. However, it was sadly the naivety of some of the new home-owners that was preyed upon by the thieves, as Reginaldo mentioned above.
There was not much on the Internet to inform people in those days, although there was a small basic forum hosted by Yahoo that was very helpful to a few of us on our large urbanisation at the time. I remember barricading our doors on the first night in the new house with tables and chairs because I was so scared (I had taken the few incidents that I had heard about on this old forum and blown them out of all proportion much to my OH's rolling eyes!
). However what it did do, was make me ultra security conscious and we fitted all the security as we could at the time.
The incidents we hear about now really are few and far between, considering the amount of housing and people in the area. Although, this makes it obviously no less upsetting to those who sadly do become victims.
When we started this forum it was inspired by that little Yahoo forum and I was determined to get newbies to the area better informed (of lots of things...not just security!), than some of us were in those early days and I still think that, as Reginaldo indicated, it's better to be aware of the things that can possibly happen, than to learn the lesson after the event.
With basic common sense and good security it's easier to not become a statistic ...but keep it all in proportion, not like me on my first night all those years ago
. Quesada and surrounding areas are statistically safer than most parts of Europe and the UK, as long as we don't leave our brains at the airport.
There are still some new house building in the area that could get targeted by opportunist criminals, so this topic link below is still relevant and may help some new home owners or renters :
safety-security-information-and-property-in-spain-hints-and-tips-f78/security-tips-for-moving-into-your-new-property-in-quesada-t1399.htmlJan