A Chilliwack mom who forgot to lock her house up during an afternoon nap with her children last Saturday afternoon lost her purse to a thief who returned later that night and stole her car with keys from the purse.
But worse things could have happened, said the woman, whose name won’t be published for safety reasons.
“The what-ifs are just too scary to think about,” the woman said. “What if it had been someone more menacing that came in?”
The woman said she and her children, all under the age of six, were sick with the flu and decided to take a nap last Saturday afternoon.
But she forgot to lock the door.
While the family was sleeping, someone came into the house and stole her purse, which contained her car and house keys, and some other “sentimental” items.
“We knew our house keys were in the purse, so we barricaded the house ... but we didn’t think about the truck,” the woman said.
In the morning, the tan-coloured Ford Ranger was gone.
Luckily, there was almost no gasoline in the vehicle, “so when it ran out of gas they ditched it,” she said. It was recovered by police undamaged.
Chilliwack isn’t the Big City, but the reality is home and commercial break-ins are a problem here, and property owners can’t leave their doors unlocked anymore.
“In this day and age ... you should take proper steps to make your property secure,” said RCMP Cpl. Lea-Anne Dunlop.
And if your car keys are stolen, there are other anti-theft options like buying a steering lock or removing the vehicle’s battery.
“It’s an expense, but vehicles are much more expensive than the work required to protect them,” she said.
rfreeman@theprogess.com