Marina da Gama has once again been in the news …
Today’s Argus blurted out the news that Marina Da Gama has been plaqued by a spate of robberies with thieves entering the properties from the waterside. This article was immediately picked up by the other media and I have even found an article on the internet which reads:
Dec 13 2008 Armed robbers in speed boats have started attacking and looting the super-rich families in Marina da Gama, a beautiful waterside community only 25 minutes away from Cape Town ‘s central business district in South Africa.
We all know that waterside robberies are not that an uncommon phenomenon in Marina Da Gama. For years robbers have stolen our little dinghies and pedalos, or they just wade the shallow water to get to the waterfront properties. This is why I cannot see the silly little security scheme which the Association dreamt up as being effective at all. If you have gueards patrolling your streets, the thieves will find an alternative way of getting into your property. The more organised the security, the more ingenious the thieves get and the more dangerous the situation becomes.
I believe that we all need to me more vigilant. I agree that one should be able to leave your doors and windows open, but that is not the way things are in South Africa. Just because you have a guard patrolling the streets, it does not mean that you are safe. Quite the contrary, the chances are that you will relax your vigilance which (in this case) leaves the back-door open for the thieves to get it. Most of the intrusions into our homes are because we feel safe enough not to bother to check our own homes to see where a thief may gain entry. In South Africa today, one cannot be too careful. Look at your home with they eye of a thief, and then take whatever steps necessary to safeguard your property. Don’t rely on others to protect your property for you. Take responsibility for your own and your neighbour’s safety. Secure your home and be vigilant. Know and look out for your neighbours and if you see anything untoward, raise the alarm. Oh, and please secure your watercraft. I am sure you do not want it to be used to break into your own or your neighbour’s property.
On a side-issue, I have to giggle at Marina Da Gama being seen as the home of the “super-rich”. Sure, there are some relatively affluent people in Marina Da Gama, but the majority of us are just simple, middle-class folk, who, in these trying times, are strugling along to make ends meet. Granted though, it is a most spectacular middle-class suburb which, had all gone well, could have been just that – the home of the super-rich.
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Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackAn article about ‘pirates’ stealing cellphones, cameras and computer from ‘multi-million rand’ MDG properties on the front page of a national publication…
In the body of the same newspaper an article about a small rural community near a major city where people are being gunned down in their homes with the women folk raped and men folk killed with seemingly no motive…
What was the editor smoking?
All things being relative, the crime here in MDG is pretty tame and no worse than the standard sporadic crime experienced everywhere – and it’s nothing new!!!
Mind you, it could well get worse now that these easy pickings and modus operandi have been so widely advertised.
MDG residents should lock their kids up at night (believe it or not the little darlings get up to all sorts of mischief) and take normal safety precautions like locking the back door at night and securing possessions left outside.
But to publish an article on the front page of a national newspaper when there is so very much more deserving news both worthy of and desperate for the press exposure is simply disgraceful.
I was woken at 3am on that fateful monday morning, my dogs woke me and when I went into ther kitchen to make a cup of tea after making sure the property was intact and secured, I got goosebumps and the strangest feeling I weas being watched, so I switched off the lights & went to bed.
twenty minuites later I heard the squad cars that had been called to my neighbours house. Both neighbours on one side of me has been broken into.
I feel lucky for now, that I had the dogs, though that is not enough as I had dogs when broken into in Kenliworth some years ago.
In simple terms we live on the Cape flats however one looks at it we do.
I feel all of us should work together as a community and stop all the fighting that I see sometimes on this website, it is truly dreadful.
We all live in dangerous times and need to work together, be thankful to those who are making efforts at reinforcing our safety and get involved in the most positive ways possible.
The first entry here by “Author in Crime” says that because no security system or guards can ever give us 100% safety, therefore we do not need security patrols. You don’t need a degree in logic to see the idiocy of that. Of course we each need to care for our own security. But at the same time we also need to have street security a la ADT or Chubb and be preapred to pay for that. Criminals will always be around. We need to make it as diffuclt as possible for them. That includes our own behaviour as well as using external security measures.
I know of a convicted criminal who was employed by one of the major security firms to install burglar alarms in people’s homes. He is currently in jail again for breaking into a vehicle in Muizenberg. The firm was aware of his criminal record before employing him.
You have full right to spend your money on any security you wish, but you do not have the right to dictate to me how I should spend my money, nor should your wishes infringe on any of my rights.
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