Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Intruder in back garden & pond pump cable cut

We live in a mid terrace house in Wood Green, N22, and last Friday (12th October) we ventured into our back garden to find that our pond pump had been pulled out of the pond, the cable cut, but the pump left behind along with the cables. Nothing else was taken from our garden, so we are quite mystified as to who would do this & why.

Our house backs onto a garage where people rent individual garage units for storage etc, so we're thinking someone might have jumped over the back fence via the garage area, although none of our plants were trampled. Our garden doesn't appear to us to be that easy to access either.

Has anyone else had anything similar happen to them? Five goldfish were also taken from our pond 2 days before Christmas last year. We assumed the fish had been taken by a fox or heron, but now that we have evidence that someone was in our back garden last week, we think perhaps our fish were stolen….?

If anyone has any thoughts, please let me know.

Thanks.

Tags for Forum Posts: Intruder, cable, foxes, garden, pond, pump

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 17, 2012 at 15:31

A disturbed garden thief?

I noticed your post because we found our pond pump cable cut a few moths back - no rhyme or reason to it. But it looks like your pump was also taken out of the water and then abandoned; that's what made me think burglary. Our pump wasn't touched, just the wire. Go figure.

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Permalink Reply by Isabelle on October 17, 2012 at 18:06

Had the odd visitor in my back garden climbing over the wall until I added a treillis on top of that wall – on the advice of the builder who rightly pointed out that a wobbly treillis (or anything that doesn't offer a good grip) would be a good deterrent. It worked. Also looks nice with plants now climbing through it ;).

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Permalink Reply by Joss M on October 17, 2012 at 18:50

Or plant gorse at the bottom of the fence. A not-so-stable two footed landing into that stuff is the kind of mistake intruders only make once.

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Permalink Reply by John D on October 17, 2012 at 19:00

Is your pump noisy when running ? I have heard of neighbours who like to sleep with the window open being kept awake by the sound of plashing water.

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 17, 2012 at 19:09

That thought occurred to me John, but I didn't let it linger.

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Permalink Reply by John D on October 17, 2012 at 19:52

Personally, I love the sound of running water. Of course, the 3am trip to the bathroom is the downside.

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Permalink Reply by Kazzah on October 18, 2012 at 11:55

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for your comments & suggestions and own experiences. It could have been a disturbed garden thief as Hugh mentioned. I'll do as Isabelle suggested and add some trellis to the top of the back fence, and look at planting some gorse at the bottom of the fence. I was tempted to booby trap the garden (ha ha), but I wouldn't want to hurt any animals or birds that come into our garden!

Thanks again everyone,

Katherine