A Hillcrest mother, fed up with her rented home being burgled repeatedly, has decided to leave the area.
|||Durban - A Hillcrest mother, fed up with her rented home being burgled repeatedly, has decided she has had enough and is leaving the area.
The home of Julie Graham, 44, and her 18-year-old son, Tyler, had been broken into seven times in six months.
The final straw was when it was broken into last Wednesday. Then on Monday her neighbour was burgled.
Although she has not been harmed in any of the incidents, Graham fears for her safety because in the most recent burglary, the thieves placed a lethal blade from her son’s knife collection beside her bed. She said she believed this was a “warning” of possible harm should the thieves come back.
Terrified, she sleeps barely an hour a night and has an iron bar and a Taser at her bedside.
In the seven incidents the thieves have made off with goods valued at R52 000.
Among the items taken were two laptops, two smartphones, tools, watches, jewellery and cash. Numerous windows have been broken.
Graham’s three dogs have been injured during the robberies.
“I’m uninsured, I’m unemployed and I can’t afford insurance. Even if I could, no insurance company would want to cover me now. They’ll say this is a high-risk house.
“It’s very hard, it’s not like they’re hitting only the rich, but the poor, too.”
Graham said if it hadn’t been for her dogs, a pit bull and two mongrels, the house would have been stripped long ago.
“They would have come in here and taken absolutely everything.”
Graham said she believed she was “being watched” and was a “soft target”.
She said her elder son, Jonathan, 27, who lived in England, refused to visit her with his two children “because of the high crime levels”.
Her landlord’s attempt to tighten security had proved futile.
“I once walked in on them coming through the burglar guards.”
Graham added that the police had upset her by refusing to take fingerprints, saying “it wasn’t a violent crime”.
“I asked them if someone has to die or be beaten up,” she said.
Waterfall Crimewatch chairman Steve King said a gang were operating in the area.
According to crime statistics released last week, Hillcrest recorded the second-highest number of burglaries of homes, after Pinetown, in Durban between April 1 last year and March 31 this year.
The Mercury