Intruder in our dream house
by Les rats bleus • Sun 31 Jan 2016 18:27
Hi all,
We are newly registered to the forum (although we have been reading the posts with interest for over a year) and would have hoped that our first post in here would have been something less dramatic than what we are about to write.
First of all, let us introduce ourselves. We are Sandra and Graham and we were lucky enough to buy a beautiful house in the Creuse last April. We are not usually so lucky but we figured we were due some good luck to restore the balance. Unfortunately normal service has been resumed and after just nine months of house ownership in the third most crime-free departement in France, our home has been broken into and ransacked by an intruder whilst Graham was working in the garden 200 metres away from the house (I was in the UK at the time).
To cut a long and rather dramatic story short, the police caught the man inside our house and the processes of the criminal justice system were set in motion. The man was arrested, statements were taken, the scene of crime people came over from Gueret and eventually the mess was cleared and a now altered normality/reality was restored. I can't begin to say how much we have been affected by this incident. The beauty and serenity and the peace and tranquillity have been replaced by fear and caution. We had never been so much at peace with the world as we have been since living here – we’ve never been happier. We had finally found a place where we could belong, away from the worst of the human race... but apparently not.
Our question is, does anyone know what happens next? Will we be informed by the police of the outcome of the proceedings or will we need to subscribe to a local newspaper to find out the end of the story? Of course, being in a small community, the people at the local bar knew more about the incident than we did when we spoke to them yesterday evening, but our French (although improving rapidly) doesn't have the precision to understand entirely accurately what was being said to us.
We lived in fear of crime in the UK but in 25 years of living at our last address in a relatively high crime area, we had no such problems at all. So this is all a bit new to us.
I had rather hoped that my first post might have been about the best brand of washing up liquid to buy in France or perhaps a gardening question, but hey-ho.
We hope to take part in this forum in happier times in the future.
Sandra & Graham
We are newly registered to the forum (although we have been reading the posts with interest for over a year) and would have hoped that our first post in here would have been something less dramatic than what we are about to write.
First of all, let us introduce ourselves. We are Sandra and Graham and we were lucky enough to buy a beautiful house in the Creuse last April. We are not usually so lucky but we figured we were due some good luck to restore the balance. Unfortunately normal service has been resumed and after just nine months of house ownership in the third most crime-free departement in France, our home has been broken into and ransacked by an intruder whilst Graham was working in the garden 200 metres away from the house (I was in the UK at the time).
To cut a long and rather dramatic story short, the police caught the man inside our house and the processes of the criminal justice system were set in motion. The man was arrested, statements were taken, the scene of crime people came over from Gueret and eventually the mess was cleared and a now altered normality/reality was restored. I can't begin to say how much we have been affected by this incident. The beauty and serenity and the peace and tranquillity have been replaced by fear and caution. We had never been so much at peace with the world as we have been since living here – we’ve never been happier. We had finally found a place where we could belong, away from the worst of the human race... but apparently not.

Our question is, does anyone know what happens next? Will we be informed by the police of the outcome of the proceedings or will we need to subscribe to a local newspaper to find out the end of the story? Of course, being in a small community, the people at the local bar knew more about the incident than we did when we spoke to them yesterday evening, but our French (although improving rapidly) doesn't have the precision to understand entirely accurately what was being said to us.
We lived in fear of crime in the UK but in 25 years of living at our last address in a relatively high crime area, we had no such problems at all. So this is all a bit new to us.
I had rather hoped that my first post might have been about the best brand of washing up liquid to buy in France or perhaps a gardening question, but hey-ho.
We hope to take part in this forum in happier times in the future.
Sandra & Graham
- Les rats bleus
-
- 9
- Jan 2016