Ask most people for their Top Ten f

Ask most people for their Top Ten fears, and you'll be sure to find being burgled fairly high on the list.
An informal survey I carried among friends at a party last week revealed that eight of them had had their
homes broken into more than twice, and two had been burgled five times. To put the record straight, none of
my friends owns valuable paintings or a sideboard full of family silverware. Three of them are students,
in fact The most typical burglary, it seems, involves the theft of easily transportable items – the television, the
video, even food from the freezer. This may have something to do with the fact that the average burglar is in
his (or her) late teens, and .probably wouldn't know what to do with a Picasso, whereas selling a walkman or a
vacuum cleaner is a much easier much. They are perhaps not so much professional criminals, as hard-up
young people who need a few pounds and some excitement. Not that this makes having your house turned
upside down and your favourite things stolen any easier to accept. In most cases , the police have no luck
recovering any of the stolen goods. Unless there is definite evidence, they are probably unable to do anything at
all. And alarms or special locks don't seem to help either. The only advice my friends could come up with was
'Never live on the ground floor' and 'Keep two or three very fierce dogs', which reminded me of a case I
read about, where the burglars'loot included the family's pet poodle.