Burgled by a girl called Yessica
We got robbed... or burgled rather as everyone keeps telling me (apparantely robbed is when are mugged or in a hold up and burgled is when they come into your house when you aren't there. So... we actually were there but let me explain. First of all I guess I should explain where Jesper and I live. Basically it is an area with a huge amount of student living apartments of various sizes. Jesper and I live in 18 square metres with a bathroom and then share a kitchen with between 14 (the number of people supposed to be living here) and 20 (the number of people that are usually living here). The place we live is called Lappkärrsberget better known to the students as Lappis. It is a great place to live for parties and hanging out with lots of other students, but when it comes to security... well it doesn't really exist.
I mean... we have had brushes with this sort of thing in the corridor before. Last time I was here we had a party and a Dutch calling himself the Checker (apparantely it is a really cool thing to be called in Germany ??? yeah I don't get it either) who strolled off at the end of the night with a large quantity of the corridor's supply of alcohol. And then there are the food thieves who raid the kitchen every so often (there is a universal code on the door which pretty much everyone in Stockholm knows). But somehow I don't mind the food stealing so much... I mean I can understand being hungry (hey I've been a backpacker in Norway). And of course there was the crazy husband of the Asian woman who used to live here, who would periodically show up in the kitchen and watch TV and then try to drag her down the stairs when she finally came out of her room. So living is Lappis is definitely never boring... you don't need TV here.
But anyway... I digress slightly. So... the other day I came home from meeting my supervisor for the first time (she is really nice but I will write about that in another post) at about 2.00. When I arrived at the outer door to our corridor there was a girl standing there, having just rung the doorbell. Another girl from our corridor opened the door and let both of us in, I said Hej and went to my room assuming that the 1st girl was a friend of the girl from our corridor. Jesper and I decided to go the kitchen and get some lunch and walked past this girl as we went (she seemed to be about to leave). We stayed in the kitchen for a while having lunch, only about 20 minute and then went back to our room. I went to get something out of my handbag and couldn't find it so I started to get really worried... I mean there aren't very many places a big handbag can hide in this tiny room. Jesper thought it would be somewhere until I said, "Well where is your ipod?". We looked for that and saw that it was missing too. We realised it must have been the girl we didn't know and so we ran outside to see if she was still hangin around Lappis.
Jesper told me to go back upstairs and cancel my credit cards straight away while he would walk towards the station and see if she had dumped any of our stuff along the way. He also called the police. Unfortunately he took the keys with him, so when the police came I couldn't show them the room. And here is were it started to get really weird. Jesper gets a phone call from some kid at Albano (a few bus stops away) saying he has found his wallet. So Jesper heads off to get his wallet while I am back home trying to entertain (or rather being interviewed) by the hugest police you have ever seen. I mean I understand now why Sweden is such a safe place (although I know getting burgled would seem to suggest otherwise)... no one in their right mind would want to mess with people that big. I mean the woman was taller than Jesper and huge and muscley and utterly terrifying. I was scared and I hadn't done anything wrong. But I always get this feeling around policeman anyway so multiply that by 6 ft 4. I have a theory that at the police academy here they have one of those height markers you have to walk past when you are a kid and want to ride a rollercoaster. Only there's is set to 6 ft2. Anyway... the scary woman interviewed me and did not seem impressed at all with my tale of woe.
The police then headed off to Albano to meet up with Jesper. Meanwhile Jesper had been playing detective and had got his wallet from the kids (miraculously all his cards were still in it) and found my wallet (slightly less untouched... as in they left my blood donor card... hooray) lying nearby. And here is one of the weird things... it was lying next to a gigantic bag of cashews, a box full of boxes of truffles and some discarded George Michael cds (can't say I was surprised about those). While Jesper was trying to find the pitiful cards the girl had left behind some construction workers walked by. Jesper asked if they knew anything about this and they said they did and could probably tell him who did it. They said a couple of junkies had been driving around their site looking for stuff to steal and they had taken down the registration number of the car. Honestly who does that? And how did Jesper manage to run into them?
The police showed up and took Jesper back to Lappis. I was so jealous he got to ride in a police car (although I found out later it wasn't as fun as I had thought but you'll have to wait for that). While he was in the police car he overhead them talking on the radio so now we know everything about this woman. Her name is Yessica (sorry Jessica but it pronounced like that in Sweden). I know her last name too but I can't write it here cause maybe she would sue me. The car was owned by her and her husband and she has commited lots of crimes before (she was actually being interviewed that very morning at Östermalm precint). I can even find out where she lives thanks to a very creepy Swedish website that lets you find out any details about a person you want to... where they live, what they do, how much they earn, even if they are married. Not that I am going to. So Jesper showed up back at Lappis (he said he felt very small riding in the elevator with the 3 policeman, I am surprised they even managed to wedge into our tiny elevators). Then there was a whole lot of talking in Swedish, the police came into our room, had enough of a look around to note that it was messy and not much else and left.
By this stage our nerves were extremely frazzled and we were pretty upset. I had lost my handbag with my wallet (which I got back minus everything I wanted in it... I don't even have an excuse to buy a new wallet), my phone and my ipod. Jesper had got back his wallet too (also old and cruddy) but had lost his ipod. So we decided gin and tonics and spag bol were in order. Just as we were about to sit down to dinner we got a phone call. The police. They had caught her and they wanted us to come and identify her. She had been prowling around at Albano where she left the wallets... I have no idea why she went back. So the police came and picked us up and once again I felt like I had done something really bad (especially since the car doors are locked on the inside). We drove over there and sat in the car (luckily it had darkened windows) while they shone a big light on her. She was wearing different clothes which threw me a bit and I didn't want to say it was her unless I was sure. But I said I thought it was and Jesper said he was 70% sure. Then they scary huge policewoman said in Swedish "It might have been helpful if you had brought the good witness" (the other girl who saw her). She really didn't like me.
So... they said that our id and the fact that she had admitted to being at Lappis that afternoon were enough for them to search her properly and the car and take her in for questioning. It was a different car though and she was with a different man than her husband. Another weird thing is that the police saw the car at Lappis when they first came there (they noticed it because it was parked weirdly). I think her husband must have been hanging around too.
I guess they didn't find anything cause after trying to ring them all week (the police don't love us anymore, they never write, they never call) we found out the case had been closed. That was the day I got really upset about it... ever the optimist I just hadn't really excepted that I had lost the stuff in my head. I don't care about the wallet, or the ipod and phone, but the handbag belonged to my grandma and it was the thing I have from her that reminded me most of her. I guess I am pretty devastated about losing it. But you know... it has taught us a lesson... we have to be more careful now and not trust people as much. And definitely lock our door even if we are going a few rooms down in our locked corridor. And it could have been worse... they could have taken my passport with my bloody visa in it =). It's just a real shame that I had to lose that bag.
I mean... we have had brushes with this sort of thing in the corridor before. Last time I was here we had a party and a Dutch calling himself the Checker (apparantely it is a really cool thing to be called in Germany ??? yeah I don't get it either) who strolled off at the end of the night with a large quantity of the corridor's supply of alcohol. And then there are the food thieves who raid the kitchen every so often (there is a universal code on the door which pretty much everyone in Stockholm knows). But somehow I don't mind the food stealing so much... I mean I can understand being hungry (hey I've been a backpacker in Norway). And of course there was the crazy husband of the Asian woman who used to live here, who would periodically show up in the kitchen and watch TV and then try to drag her down the stairs when she finally came out of her room. So living is Lappis is definitely never boring... you don't need TV here.
But anyway... I digress slightly. So... the other day I came home from meeting my supervisor for the first time (she is really nice but I will write about that in another post) at about 2.00. When I arrived at the outer door to our corridor there was a girl standing there, having just rung the doorbell. Another girl from our corridor opened the door and let both of us in, I said Hej and went to my room assuming that the 1st girl was a friend of the girl from our corridor. Jesper and I decided to go the kitchen and get some lunch and walked past this girl as we went (she seemed to be about to leave). We stayed in the kitchen for a while having lunch, only about 20 minute and then went back to our room. I went to get something out of my handbag and couldn't find it so I started to get really worried... I mean there aren't very many places a big handbag can hide in this tiny room. Jesper thought it would be somewhere until I said, "Well where is your ipod?". We looked for that and saw that it was missing too. We realised it must have been the girl we didn't know and so we ran outside to see if she was still hangin around Lappis.
Jesper told me to go back upstairs and cancel my credit cards straight away while he would walk towards the station and see if she had dumped any of our stuff along the way. He also called the police. Unfortunately he took the keys with him, so when the police came I couldn't show them the room. And here is were it started to get really weird. Jesper gets a phone call from some kid at Albano (a few bus stops away) saying he has found his wallet. So Jesper heads off to get his wallet while I am back home trying to entertain (or rather being interviewed) by the hugest police you have ever seen. I mean I understand now why Sweden is such a safe place (although I know getting burgled would seem to suggest otherwise)... no one in their right mind would want to mess with people that big. I mean the woman was taller than Jesper and huge and muscley and utterly terrifying. I was scared and I hadn't done anything wrong. But I always get this feeling around policeman anyway so multiply that by 6 ft 4. I have a theory that at the police academy here they have one of those height markers you have to walk past when you are a kid and want to ride a rollercoaster. Only there's is set to 6 ft2. Anyway... the scary woman interviewed me and did not seem impressed at all with my tale of woe.
The police then headed off to Albano to meet up with Jesper. Meanwhile Jesper had been playing detective and had got his wallet from the kids (miraculously all his cards were still in it) and found my wallet (slightly less untouched... as in they left my blood donor card... hooray) lying nearby. And here is one of the weird things... it was lying next to a gigantic bag of cashews, a box full of boxes of truffles and some discarded George Michael cds (can't say I was surprised about those). While Jesper was trying to find the pitiful cards the girl had left behind some construction workers walked by. Jesper asked if they knew anything about this and they said they did and could probably tell him who did it. They said a couple of junkies had been driving around their site looking for stuff to steal and they had taken down the registration number of the car. Honestly who does that? And how did Jesper manage to run into them?
The police showed up and took Jesper back to Lappis. I was so jealous he got to ride in a police car (although I found out later it wasn't as fun as I had thought but you'll have to wait for that). While he was in the police car he overhead them talking on the radio so now we know everything about this woman. Her name is Yessica (sorry Jessica but it pronounced like that in Sweden). I know her last name too but I can't write it here cause maybe she would sue me. The car was owned by her and her husband and she has commited lots of crimes before (she was actually being interviewed that very morning at Östermalm precint). I can even find out where she lives thanks to a very creepy Swedish website that lets you find out any details about a person you want to... where they live, what they do, how much they earn, even if they are married. Not that I am going to. So Jesper showed up back at Lappis (he said he felt very small riding in the elevator with the 3 policeman, I am surprised they even managed to wedge into our tiny elevators). Then there was a whole lot of talking in Swedish, the police came into our room, had enough of a look around to note that it was messy and not much else and left.
By this stage our nerves were extremely frazzled and we were pretty upset. I had lost my handbag with my wallet (which I got back minus everything I wanted in it... I don't even have an excuse to buy a new wallet), my phone and my ipod. Jesper had got back his wallet too (also old and cruddy) but had lost his ipod. So we decided gin and tonics and spag bol were in order. Just as we were about to sit down to dinner we got a phone call. The police. They had caught her and they wanted us to come and identify her. She had been prowling around at Albano where she left the wallets... I have no idea why she went back. So the police came and picked us up and once again I felt like I had done something really bad (especially since the car doors are locked on the inside). We drove over there and sat in the car (luckily it had darkened windows) while they shone a big light on her. She was wearing different clothes which threw me a bit and I didn't want to say it was her unless I was sure. But I said I thought it was and Jesper said he was 70% sure. Then they scary huge policewoman said in Swedish "It might have been helpful if you had brought the good witness" (the other girl who saw her). She really didn't like me.
So... they said that our id and the fact that she had admitted to being at Lappis that afternoon were enough for them to search her properly and the car and take her in for questioning. It was a different car though and she was with a different man than her husband. Another weird thing is that the police saw the car at Lappis when they first came there (they noticed it because it was parked weirdly). I think her husband must have been hanging around too.
I guess they didn't find anything cause after trying to ring them all week (the police don't love us anymore, they never write, they never call) we found out the case had been closed. That was the day I got really upset about it... ever the optimist I just hadn't really excepted that I had lost the stuff in my head. I don't care about the wallet, or the ipod and phone, but the handbag belonged to my grandma and it was the thing I have from her that reminded me most of her. I guess I am pretty devastated about losing it. But you know... it has taught us a lesson... we have to be more careful now and not trust people as much. And definitely lock our door even if we are going a few rooms down in our locked corridor. And it could have been worse... they could have taken my passport with my bloody visa in it =). It's just a real shame that I had to lose that bag.
posted by Verity at
10:20 pm
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