I own an apartment in PDC and its ben broken into 2 times in 3 weeks. This is so heart breaking. all cash, tv phones laptops etc been stolen.These scum need to be stopped. Has anyone seen anything suspicious or know anything goim on in the area.Any info may help. please. Dont know what to do. feel like selling up .only bought the apartment 6 months ago. Is this a regular occurence in lanzarote or am i just unlucky???????

You don't say where abouts in PDC your apartment is !

It's nearer the old town. Few mins walk from biosfera shopping centre. Why would u need to know the exact location. Is there nice and not so nice areas of pdc.

I'm sorry about your break ins. Do you have the same level of protection as your neighbours? If they have shutters and bars and alarms, it's probably through bitter experience, and might be something to consider for your place. It seems thieves go for the easiest target. It's also well known that, having burgled a place, they sometimes wait a few weeks for the owner to get new kit with the insurance money, then do it again.

Hi Walker

Thats exactly what happened. I Wish i knew this, iwas naeive thinking theyll never come back a 2nd time. how foolih was i. its disgusting. I wonder are they morrocans or what. they even took food out of the fridge. how desperate are people. we are in the process of getting new windows and bars on them too. of this doesnt work im mjust giving up

Sorry to hear this. Unfortunately there are gangs of illegals that target apartments in pdc and costa as unfortunately they know they are easy pickings. Agree with Walker in that investing in spanish grills or secure shutters is the way forward.
Hopefully things will get better for you from now on.

thanks richt.

The grills are being put in now along with an alrm so hopefully this will put an end to it. I would love to put in a camera and set them up. i jus may do this.

My wife and I always go to Playa Blanca and have never had any problems there. Such as shame to have to take similar precautions as you would in the UK. I am an American, originally from Georgia and in the town where I came from people sometimes still go shopping on hot days and don't even lock their cars and leave the windows down. Seldom is there ever a problem as a result. You don't have anywhere near the amount of burglar or car alarms there as in the UK. Perhaps maybe legal, private gun ownership may be the reason why. I heard someone in the UK visiting California was quite surprised to learn that it is not standard practice there to put a lock and chain on outdoor patio furniture, as it is in the UK.

I've never put a lock and chain on my patio furniture in my puff.

And I've never felt the need to buy a gun.

I live in a fairly big town just outside Glasgow, we rarely lock our doors when we're in except at night.

I think you have to use basic common sense anywhere these days. I would not leave my car open or unlocked anywhere, even in my own driveway at home. We did have someone try to carry off our bbq once. As for guns, it seems that the Swiss of all people are the third largest private gun owners in the world. Maybe that is why they have very little crime and are known as a peaceful nation. My wife works with someone whose husband and son were attacked after a football match at Wembley Stadium for wearing the other team's attire. In 40 years of following baseball in the USA, I have never heard of anyone beaten up (or shot) at a baseball game. Statistics show that the vast majority of American gun crimes are committed with guns either bought illegally or stolen. Not by people who go through background checks and fill in the forms and go through waiting periods. At least you won't be arrested and carted off in the USA for legal self-defense. Many states have a law known as the "Stand your ground law". It basically makes it legal to use deadly force to defend yourself or others wherever you are, should you feel you or they are being physically threatened.

Hi Mike. Your right to bear arms was from the days when you didn't have a standing army, so the general population had to do the defending. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It wasn't to deter burglars. You might have lower burglary rates in some places, but you have hugely more murders than UK, mainly with guns.
I have never seen crowd violence at a cricket match, which is a better comparator to baseball. You might have lived in a safe, respectable part of the US, but I've been in some I'd worry about - Philadelphia, Detroit, Queens, LA, Chicago South side to name a few.

When I was a child, in many parts of UK people would leave their doors open, and in some places they still do. I never would. I now live in PB, and feel no more vulnerable than I did in Salisbury, a "nice" town. My in laws live in Nottingham, and I think I'd even chain up my recycling bin there.

"Your right to bear arms was from the days when you didn't have a standing army, so the general population had to do the defending. "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It wasn't to deter burglars. You might have lower burglary rates in some places, but you have hugely more murders than UK, mainly with guns."

First of all, every state sets their own gun laws. A militia is now called "The National Guard". Every state has their own. Even so, most states allow private ownership of guns by those who qualify after background checks. This is for a number of reasons, including self-defense. In Georgia, if an intruder breaks into your home (or car), providing they are actually inside your home (or car), with clear intent to do bodily harm, then the use of deadly force is allowed. Many states have similar laws.

Yes, there are more murders in the USA than the UK, as the USA has more than five times the population of the UK. However, as I stated before, statistics bear out that most legal gunowners in the USA do not commit crimes with them. Every big city in the world has parts of the city that are best avoided.

Alcohol is not allowed on public transportation in the USA. I was shocked to see open beer cans taken onto trains in London. Maybe this is what causes a lot of the anti-social behavior.

The law in UK is becoming clearer in that you can use any reasonable level of defence in your own home - any weapon must be licensed. Whatever the present state gun laws, the reason that the US has always had such laws is the Second Amendment. As a generality, I would feel more secure in a smallish UK town than its US equivalent - and I have spent enough time in the US to know that. I realise the US is much more populous than the UK, I meant crime pro rata. Checking the statistics, the latest figures I could find were for 2008, where the murder rate in Georgia was 7.1 per 100,000. The total in the UK - population around 60 million was 648 ie roughly 5 times less than Georgia pro rata. The burglary rates were roughly equal.

I see no connection between having alcohol on public transport (by which I assume you mean buses) in UK, much as I deplore it, and burglary. By the way, see here http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/200 ... trak_N.htm for an Amtrak promotion to win an extra $100 worth of liquor for your journey.

Getting back to the original point about burglary in PDC, your implication seems to be that it is Brits doing the burglary. I suggest that, from past reports, that is unlikely, although possible.

PB, where I live is not immune, especially opportunist burglaries of unoccupied holiday homes, or of holiday rental properties.

I find it so amusing that while many people in the UK are so quick to be critical of the USA for allowing people to privately own guns, that they according to articles in UK newspapers: (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... urope.html and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... a-U-S.html) have a higher level of violent crime than both the USA and South Africa, as well as the rest of Europe!! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!! There was also an article in The Daily Telegraph that stated that you are two to three times more likely to be assaulted in the UK than anywhere else in Europe, the USA and Canada. They cannot accept that you cannot fight 21st century crime using Victorian police methods. While they are so critical of the USA, they are among the very few European countries where police do not routinely carry guns. And peaceful Switzerland, with it's low crime rate has the third highest level of private gun ownership per capita in the world. But the UK is paying the price for disarming it's decent, law-abiding citizens with an ever increasing number of home invasions being met with knives. They then arrest the home owners and later release them. It certainly proves one thing very clearly: "If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns". The ridding Mr. and Mrs. Public in the UK of guns has not stopped or slowed violent crimes, it has simply left them at the mercy of criminals and thugs. And by the way, it is a statistically proven fact that most gun crimes in the USA are committed not by people who buy them legally, go through background checks and waiting periods and register their guns, but by those who steal guns or buy them illegally. At least people in the USA have the option of not spending their lives cowering in fear behind home burglar and car alarms and steel shutters over their businesses windows and doors when closed. These things are far more common even in the smallest UK towns and villages than in comparable size places in the USA. And people do not normally get arrested and taken to jail for defending their family and home from invasion.

Mike,

"I find it so amusing that while many people in the UK are so quick to be critical of the USA" You started this, not me. I quoted official statistics, you've quoted opinion pieces from newspapers whose role is to sensationalise things to sell copy. In UK they aren't as bad as the National Inquirer, but not far off. You really are talking out of your trousers (sorry, pants), and it has taken you a month to string that together. The USA in general is a more violent place to live. Read the facts not the newspapers.