On this morning I set out as usual on my round of cat visits and dog walks, and I started with a visit to a house just a few streets away. This young couple have two lovely silky black and white cats, and these cats come and go freely through their cat flap.
The owners had set off for a short holiday in France and I was on cat visit and feeding duty in their absence.
When I arrived I was shocked to find that the garden patio door glass had been smashed and, what seemed like, a million glass fragments were scattered all over the tiled kitchen floor, and onto the furniture and worktops. What a mess. There was no sign of the cats but that is often the case as they enjoy their freedom.
I immediately called Paul to join me and lend assistance and he arrived just a few minutes later. Paul first checked to see if there were any blood stains on the floor as this would indicate that the cats may have injured themselves on the glass fragments. No blood was found. We also did a quick scan of the house to see if there was any damage or signs of burglary. Fortunately all looked OK but doors had been opened suggesting that the intruders had scoured the house.
The intruder camera system in the kitchen had been disabled and also outside the intruder detection lights had been removed from the walls.
So Paul set to brushing up the glass whilst i reported the break to the police. As we had already gathered most details we were able to answer most of the police questions. They took details of the owners plus our own contact details. They said that a crime officer would contact the owners when they returned from their holiday. They also provided me with a crime reference number which is needed when reporting burglaries to the home insurance help line.
I then called the owners in France to relay the bad news. They were also shocked but relieved that we were there and that the cats seemed unharmed, and no obvious valuables were missing. They took note of the crime number as their next immediate action was to phone the insurance help line to arrange for a security team to secure the property by applying emergency repairs to the doors. They also immediately cut short their holiday to return home.
So whilst it was a shocking incident it could have been much worse. The cats were uninjured and seemingly indifferent to the events. Nothing was stolen and the insurance repairs made good all of the damage. For this the owners were very thankful.