Break in in Tarragona while wending way back from Portugal

[EarthDemon]

I was parked overnight (illegally cos restricted to 15 mins) in the main drag at Tarragona, pretty much outside the dog friendly Hotel Lauria we were staying at. Went down last Monday morning to move vehicle and found they had got in through side window and nicked two laptops. Obviously I am a mug for having left them in the van but their audacity is breathtaking - right on the main street! I’m guesing they drew along side in another van with their loading door open and so had good cover. My van is RHD but has sliding door on RHS as it’s a grey import which perhaps worked against me. They opened the window very skillfully, no damage to locks or frame other than some small scratches, the silver backed blind is torn but may be repairable.

Reported to police and will probably claim. Six years of crime free three quarter timing van life and it really brings home that my windows are plastic and no kind of barrier to anyone with a mind to open them. Annoying to lose main laptop and ‘erase is pending’ so I lost that battle, but a great relief to know that my disk was encryptioned and access code is 18 characters.

Later that same day the Iberian power cut happened and we ended up helping transport poeple being evacuated from a broken down train and then taking some to Barcelona. The whole experience of goodwill somehow cancelled out the bad vibes from the break in.

The lesson seems to be don’t leave your laptop in the van in Spain. I have left it a million times in England and will probably continue to do so. This lot knew exactly what they were looking for and went to the cubby holes directly and also left valuable audio equipment which they are probably not set up to fence.

Having a great time touring around, not going to let it get us down but plan to be a bit more careful going forward.

 

[trevskoda]

They will reboot the l top or go in as admin and then sell on, dirty rats, it will bring them no good.

 

[Clunegapyears]

How blinking irritating. On the plus side, you are OK. And they didn't pull everything out of every cupboard ransacking looking for stuff.

Having been broken into in Copenhagen on our first year full time, we made the rule to use campsites in cities or stay a long way out and public transport in.

 

[Canalsman]

How blinking irritating. On the plus side, you are OK. And they didn't pull everything out of every cupboard ransacking looking for stuff.

Having been broken into in Copenhagen on our first year full time, we made the rule to use campsites in cities or stay a long way out and public transport in.

Better still avoid cities completely.

 

[Tezza33]

We have had two break-ins, both times we were too close to Barcelona, we avoid Cities completely now

 

[Harrers]

We parked in a public car park in Marseille in 2022. It was in May and we had tickets for both the European Rugby finals at the Orange Velodrome - one on the Friday evening the second on the Saturday. I had spent a lot of time looking for somewhere secure but there was nothing in striking distance available. I checked all the car parks and found one next to an appartment block which had cctv. After the Saturday match, we found an Indian restaurant and returned by taxi to the car park around 9pm. As I went to put the key in the lock I could see the lock had been forced open. Inside, every compartment door was open. The cat was still sitting on the bed apparently untraumatised. We checked and nothing appeared to be missing. We did have laptops in the van but had put them at the bottom of a box full of spare bedding etc. under the lift up bed. At the time we thought that they had spotted us returning by taxi and scarpered. We decided to leave the city immediately in case they decided to return later and take the contents of our wallets and our phones (having gassed us first - of course -joke!). It was a caculated risk parking there but nothing taken and little damage and perhaps the cat scared them off!

 

[trevskoda]

Best security is to leave the wife in the van.