Stolen Disability Bike and Walker

On 20 July both my Disability Bike and Walker were stolen from my shared downstairs hall where I keep them. This is a ‘locking the stable-door after the horse has bolted’ warning story.

I own my 1^st floor Burgoyne Road flat and the ground floor flat is rented to a young family. Since moving here in 2000 we all only used the Yale lock because the mortice lock is old/illegal i.e. not suitable for a shared hall and no one had keys anyway.  I have lived here happily for 12 years but since keeping a Disability Bike downstairs (2011) I thought that I should improve the locks. I recently asked the Safer Neighbourhoods Team to come and give me a security assessment after they had left a flyer through the door. They of course recommended a proper legal mortice lock i.e. a fire-safety, thumb-turn mortice lock instead of the existing one and recommended three local places to go and buy with a 10% reduction offer. I was in the process of organising this but was away for a week before this was done. I came back to find no Disability Bike and no Walker in an empty hall!

There are many possibilities as to how my bike and walker were taken – a picked Yale lock or the door not properly shut I.e.  last person in not checking that the Yale lock was engaged fully. There was no ‘sign’ of a break-in so it was more probably an opportunistic-crime because of the latter reason.  I have since been told that very late-night groups of men have been seen pushing front doors to see if they are loose.

Now I have the correct mortice lock plus some other security things. I have stopped short of installing CCTV which the police said was not expensive and not unusual, after I had laughed when they asked me about this. I may change my mind though.It has taken me a few weeks now to write this and I am sorry if it is a bit long BUT I thought some background was needed and may help others. Moral of this tale is – first to get a good mortice lock – if you already have one which I suppose most of you do – and secondly, lock it at ALL times,  that is, after coming in and going out.

Dear HoL  members and visitors, learn from my mistake. Lastly, It could have been much worse and the thieves could have tried to enter either of our internal hall doors to enter our flats. I always use my mortice lock on that anyway.

P.S. I still have the key for the bike so it could only have been rolled outside by easily turning the brakes off.

Take care, G.