Missing/Damaged Items
Missing Items
The following list was supplied to QLD Police on 14th January, 2010:
Property Missing from Premises at XXXXX
- A set of solid silver fish knives and forks (value unknown, but substantial) that was a wedding present from my first marriage. They were in a dark velveteen case with a satin lining. They were in a drawer in the annex but are no longer there. We discovered them missing only after finding the silver cleaner out and rags which had obviously been used to clean silver in the laundry basket waiting to be washed. XXXXX, the house sitter, asked the police officer if she could wash them before leaving, but, fortunately, he refused. Interestingly, a number of other pieces of silverware had been partially cleaned, but the missing items were the only pieces without names and dates on them.
- Two mental health nursing textbooks (value: $200 plus). These were on a desk in the study when we left but are no longer there.
- A quantity of expensive female lingerie. These were in a bedside drawer when we left but the drawer was empty on our return.
- A case of vintage wine.
- A set of fitted bed sheets, 4 pillow slips & two towels
- One each of melamine plates, bowls, and coffee mugs.
- One each of stainless steel knife, fork and spoon.
- Two carving knives
- One wooden bread board
- Several items of small tools.
Since that advice we have discovered the following items missing:
- New sleeping bag purchased for school camp in 2009. The empty bag was in a corner of a wardrobe not in the same room as where the bag was stored previously. Ironically, a police officer inadvertently helped the sitter to load this into her caravan.
- A Wilson driver and a MaxFli putter missing from my golf bag.
- A box of Dunlop M3 golf balls missing from the shed.
- Several items of kitchen utensils and Tupperware.
- Three freezer blocks
- Half a bottle of Glen Livet 12 yr old single malt whisky (presumably consumed by the house sitter). This was unopened in a presentation box when we left.
- Approximately twenty packets of seeds. All the summer planting seeds.
We went up to BXXXX on Saturday, January 16 to look for our missing property. We went to Cash Converters, the Tender Centre, a second hand goods dealer on BXXXX Street, and a second hand book dealer on BXXXX Street. We also went to the SXXXX Markets on Sunday.
I thought I would be adding my wife's nurses fob watch to the list as well as it was missing from its case in the drawer in her office. However it turned up in the waste bin in her office.
So I looked in the waste paper bin in my office and found:
- One of my wife's uni study guides and some of her lecture notes;
- The empty box for a gift presented to my wife for her student mentoring last year (no great value);
- A fact sheet for the drug Seroquel, used for the treatment of schizophrenia.
This prompted me to go through all the bags of rubbish that the housesitter had left lying around the place in case the missing items were in there. Not a pleasant task and my nostrils are still recovering.
I didn’t find any of the missing items but did find:
- One red vinyl ladies handbag (giselle branded on the outside) cut up and the pieces spread across two garbage bags. This did not belong to my wife. From the location of the bag this was a relatively recent event.
- The charred remains of a dark blue vinyl bag. Unable to identify this further, but not ours. Probably burnt around 28th November, based on the house sitter's emails and where the garbage bag was located.
- Two new pairs of my leather work gloves, cut up and spread across two bags. Fairly recent.
- Three pairs of my wife's shoes and a pair of my thongs. Intact.
- One oven tray, two pairs of kitchen tongs & six oven mitts. Intact.
- Five pairs of our garden gloves. Intact.
- One pair of ladies (?) jeans with the legs cut off to be used as shorts. All the labels had been removed but my wife confirms that they weren’t hers.
- Part of an Alvey 650 C5 fishing reel (no great value, except sentimental as it was the first reel I ever bought).
- A large number of empty beer (mainly Heineken, XXXX Gold & James Boag - nice) and wine bottles and several empty wine casks.
I photographed all these items (except the bottles as they were in each of the twenty nine bags of rubbish).
Based on the above I suspect that the house sitter's motive was largely malice, not profit, and that most of the missing items have probably been destroyed, thrown away or hidden.