Big Janner
MB Enthusiast
Thank you for your comments
We had been away on a three week tour of Europe and were heading home. We’d stopped in Affalterbach for lunch with our engine builders and that night we stayed in the V8 hotel at Motorworld in Boeblingen before doing the final leg home next day.
We were getting lots and lots of false alerts from our motion sensors and cameras which were keeping our children awake - they were young, it was almost 0100 and we all needed to be up at 0600 to get to the Eurotunnel - so we silenced the alerts.
We received a phone call from my father in law at 0700 as we were heading to the car, to tell us that a neighbour had noticed that our front doors and flanking windows had been knocked through and away from the brickwork, and were lay at 45 degrees.
We checked the cameras, and incredibly the first silenced alert was just five minutes after I silenced them, and was the thieves stepping on to our drive. Had I not silenced the alerts then I would have seen them and could have sounded the alarms.
To add to that, on the first day of our holiday the home security system received a firmware update and completely bricked the control unit, meaning that when the door was knocked through, the sensors didn’t trigger and the alarm didn’t sound.
It was a once in a lifetime holiday but as well as losing the ashes, the alarm failure, our dog also passed away on the second day, and when we arrived home we were greeted with cars parked on our drive and teenagers drinking in our front garden.
We arrived home precisely 24 hours after the car was taken, literally to the minute. A footballer who shall remain nameless was renting the house opposite - he was away and his home-alone teenage daughter had a Facebook party which was out of control.
Had the party happened the day before then the car and ashes wouldn’t have been stolen. Had the thieves arrived a day later then the car and ashes wouldn’t have been taken. Had the alerts not been silenced or alarm not failed then they might have aborted.
Minutes after we heard the news I remembered that I had taken our baby’s ashes to work with me the day before our holiday, and they were still in the car - I was taking them to have jewellery made with them as a surprise, but ran out of time.
We were all devastated. It was a very long and very painful journey home.
And there's me worrying about my car
Hey ho . . . . .now I know better