# house robbed



## predicament (16 Oct 2004)

Complicated story and need some advice from some of the wizened people that pass by in this forum.

My mother owns a house that she rents out to my sister who lives in it along with her 6yr old son and 1 other tenant that has moved in after answering ad in paper.   Turns out the other tenant has a drug problem, is a thief and does a runner owing rent but also takes a playstation and a load of games from the house.

Insurance wont cough up as it wasnt a break in.

Now, heres the tricky bit, the owner of the playstation is father of my nephew who unfortunately is no longer with my sister, he sees the boy at the weekends and had loaned him the PS and the games.  Hes being a bit of a w**ker and has demanded a new playstation and games from my sister and is blaming my mother for the guy doing a runner with the PS and the games and doesnt want to know about the fac tthe insurance wont pay out.  If he dosent get it he has vowed to make my sisters life hell.     

Ive priced the console and games at nearly 500e to replace. The father of my nephew is one of those types of people who cant be talked to so that road cant be gone down.
Very difficult situation for all and sorry for offloading this here but we need advice.  Anyone know what we can do?  Insurance obmbudsman maybe? It would be easy for us to tell him to feck off, but he stills sees his son at the w/e and we have to deal with that so cant use that solution either.
Any advice welcome.


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## rainyday (16 Oct 2004)

> Insurance wont cough up as it wasnt a break in.


Sorry to hear of your difficult situation. House insurance generally will not cover theft caused by paying guests, which is not that unreasonable really - If you bring the person into the house, you can't expect someone else to pay out when they misbehave. It is usually spelled out pretty clearly on the proposal form that paying guests are not covered. The situation might even bounce back at you if the owner omitted to tell the insurance company that the house was being rented out.

I'd be very wary about being dictated to by the child's father. I understand your sister's situation is difficult, but if she simply repeats again & again a nice one-liner mantra, he will eventually get the message that it is not up for negotiation. As a compromise, perhaps you could pick up a 2nd hand PS & one or two of the games for a much cheaper amount.


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## Marie (16 Oct 2004)

Hi - I agree with Rainyday, and since the things stolen were secondhand you or your sister could try replacing them by same or similar from eBay.  (post here recently that there was now an exclusively-Irish e-Bay....or at least one where you could pay in euros).  In the circumstances replacing the goods with reasonably-priced secondhand games would stop the argument.


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## Gordanus (16 Oct 2004)

*buy & sell*

Buy&sell has a website covering all their ads, my kids bought all their games equipment 2nd hand on it and were very pleased.   It's Irish and says what part of the country the seller is in, so no phoning someone and then finding out they'er on the other side of the country.


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## history (17 Oct 2004)

*robbery*

Get the kid to tell his dad that he is very sorry and that he will get him a new one from his alimony cheque to his mother. A no brainer. Tell father be reasonable (accept 2nd hand machine and games) or tell the kid what he is doing to his mother.


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## rainyday (17 Oct 2004)

*Re: robbery*



> or tell the kid what he is doing to his mother.


Don't involve the kid in the adult's battles - ever.


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## McJob (17 Oct 2004)

*Unreasonable papa*

You've tried to be reasonable with Daddy. Now its just time to tell him to shag off with himself. It wasn't his ex-wife's fault that she was robbed. He needs to get over it.


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## piggy (18 Oct 2004)

Hi predicament,

*Hes being a bit of a w**ker and has demanded a new playstation and games from my sister and is blaming my mother for the guy doing a runner with the PS and the games and doesnt want to know about the fac tthe insurance wont pay out. If he dosent get it he has vowed to make my sisters life hell.*

At the risk of sounding off-hand about this situation. The real problem here isn't the money for the playstation. This week it's this...next week who knows. 
I agree with the second hand playstation and games idea. However, at some stage someone needs to get a little tougher with this guy and set him straight. The key part of the sentence above is *"he has vowed to make my sisters life hell"*. Again, I don't want to come across as some sort of vigilante here, but - why would you let someone make your sisters life hell? If the second hand playstation and games won't placate this guy then I'd suggest someone sitting this guy down and sorting him out (and I don't mean violence) once and for all.


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## Joe Nonety (18 Oct 2004)

*.*

First thing is find out the law as regards responsibility if borrowed goods have been stolen.
Remember as well, it was his son he loaned the stuff to not your sister or mother.
You don't say how many games, but lets say its 10, chances are your nephew only plays about 2 and has got sick of the other 8, so only replace those 2 and get a few new titles from ebay/buyandsell/etc.
This is for the boy's sake, not his father.
I presume your mother got at least some compensation from the month's deposit.
Did she also request a reference, letter from employers and a letter from the bank?
Even Chief Wiggum should be able to track down this thief!


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## reality (18 Oct 2004)

*.*

*Even Chief Wiggum should be able to track down this thief!*

...and then what? Ask him politely to give back the stuff he stole?

or get the gardai involved, snigger. (joke)


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## predicament (18 Oct 2004)

*status*

Alright guys, thanks for the advice so far.  
I'll address some of the points and questions.
As rainy has said, the child should not and absolutely will not be used as a pawn in any of this, we wont tell him about any of the behaviour of his father as he doesnt need to know.  How can you tell a child his father is an idiot and not expect him to take it in Oh so many wrong ways?  The child will not be involved.  he does love his dad and the time(1 day a week) he spends with him. Although most of that is(was) spent in front of the PS2 in the first place, but thats a whole other discussion.

It is always something with this guy so how to deal with the overall problem.  We could say no to him as Rainy said, calmly and repetitively but he has in the past adopted tactics (for example) like delaying regular payments or saying hed look after the boy on a certain night and then not turning up when my sister was all set to go out causing extreme angst.  
I cant see the sitdown method, which my parents always used on us as kids, working with this guy as the immaturity levels go beyond belief, this situation being an example.  we will look at this though as an option.

Yes she had a a months deposit from this guy and a reference, but the deposit and months rent was eaten up as hed left owing a months rent.  Big lessons learned there.

As to the gards, I dont want to turn this into a garda bashing post so please dont jump on this but I get a distinct impression the gards dont care
Firstly, the tenant was of eastern european origin. As there is another eastern european in the house and he is the perfect tenant she perhaps let her guide down slightly and probably trusted him more then she should.  Yes, she rang the job reference at the time and everything was kosher.  when she rang the job after the theft, she found out hed left the job.   She went to the gards, they listened to the story but said there was little they could do as even if they found him , which it would be difficult to do, hed have probably sold the PS2 by then.  
I dont understand this, surely theres something they can do, if the guys got a work permit then they should be able to track where he is, no? Complete apathy from them, or am I being over-expectant about what the garda can do?  (and yes I do believe cheif wiggum could catch him).  As I said though, please dont hijack this post and turn into garda bashing.

Yes there were about 10 games involved and Ive been sourcing these through buyandsell, boards.ie etc so tks for that but we want to see if a different resolution can happen first.


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## Guest (18 Oct 2004)

*status*

> ... (and yes I do believe cheif wiggum could catch him). As I said though, please dont hijack this post and turn into garda bashing.

Perhaps you should practice what you preach. :rolleyes  Even if the Gardaí apprehended this bloke then strictly it's your (or your sister's or your mother's etc.) word against his (what hard evidence/proof do you have that it was him for example?) and it's hardly realistic to expect the them to dedicate resources to the investigation (interviewing witnesses etc.) of such an alleged crime particularly when there was no forced entry.


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## Realistic (18 Oct 2004)

*.*

*it's hardly realistic to expect the them to dedicate resources to the investigation*

Eh? - why? I just don't understand this at all. A crime was committed. Gathering evidence is the job of the gardai. What are we paying them all that money for?


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## Guest (18 Oct 2004)

*.*

> A crime was committed

Allegedly.


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## skegger (18 Oct 2004)

*.*

what difference does that make? Aren't all crimes 'alledged' until they go through the courts?


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## predicament (19 Oct 2004)

*unreg*

Unreg, you say the following
>Perhaps you should practice what you preach.  
Youre right, I should have.

>it's your (or your sister's or your mother's etc.) word against his (what hard evidence/proof do you have that it was him for example?) 
He was in the house.  Then he wasnt.  In the 2 hour window when my sister out of the house and came back, he went missing and so did the playstation. Unless the other model tenant whos lived there for 3 years (and whos bought presents for the kid), returned to the house from his night job, took it, and then went back to work on the same night then the guy who did the runner did.  There really is very little else to it.


>and it's hardly realistic to expect the them to dedicate resources to the investigation (interviewing witnesses etc.) of such an alleged crime particularly when there was no forced entry. 
So are you saying if there was a forced entry then it would be ok as then there would have been more of a crime or are you saying there was no crime at all because of the lack of forced entry?

> Allegedly

I take offence at this use of the word allegedly.  Noone else replies to any other post and says "allegedly" so Im wondering why mine?  Is it because I said hes eastern european?  Do you think Im trying to paint all eastern europeans as thieves? If so, I didnt make him eastern european, I didnt make him abscond owing rent and lets face it, noone else except him certainly didnt make the playstation go missing from the house the same day that he did.   But who am I, if theres something in one of my earlier postings on this thread that annoyed you, PM a mod and get one of them to delete it.  Im sure you know 1 or 2 of them.  Allegedly.


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## John (19 Oct 2004)

*PS*

Hi Predicament,

Ignore the guy who said 'Allegedly'. He's just one of the twits you get on these boards sometimes who just try to annoy people.

With your current situation heres what I would do. As said by some other people, source a secondhand PS and a couple (not 10) games. Offer that to the Dad, and tell him its that or nothing. If he then threatens to 'make your sisters life hell' , simply explain to him that all that will result in will be a barring order and revoking of any access rights to the kid. I suspect that would be the end of it.

As for keeping the kid out of it, good idea. However the kid will probably learn for himself, sooner or later, that Daddy is a git.


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## Realistic (19 Oct 2004)

*Holier than thou*

I agree with John. Unfortunately, there seems to be quite a prominant 'holier than thou' attitude on this site. If you can ignore that, you can get some great advice.

Game sell second hand games, and you can also get them from www.buyandsell.ie

(from Buyandsell.ie)


> Playstation 2. c/w 10 games, 2 controllers, memory card, vgc, €130. Contact: 012826547 / 0861522050 eves01-2826547.


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## jm (19 Oct 2004)

*Simple answer*

You should have never told the Insurance Company that the guy was renting , you should have just reported the goods stolen and said nothing about renting a room. 
You could have said they were taken from the garden , garden shed or front door forced. You couuld have slaimed for a few other items also.

Thats the smart way out of the loss , not entirely true or honest , but given the predicament you family is in , i would say that you do not need the hassle from the ex.


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## predicament (19 Oct 2004)

*help*

thanks for the suggestions and help guys.  I will ring that number this evening.


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## Joe Nonety (19 Oct 2004)

*.*



> You should have never told the Insurance Company that the guy was renting , you should have just reported the goods stolen and said nothing about renting a room.


Besides that being an insurance scam which is why people's premiums are so high, if you want to make a claim on stolen goods, you need to report it to the Gardaí. Lying to the insurance company is one thing but lying to the Gardaí is a serious offense.


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## rainyday (20 Oct 2004)

*Re: Simple answer*



> You could have said they were taken from the garden , garden shed


Great idea - what a genius. Insurance companies would never think anything suspicious about keeping a Playstation and games in the garden, or a garden shed, would they?


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