In that case, I’m glad there was literally nothing worth stealing in that 5th floor apartment (maybe a week’s worth of clothes and maybe a bag of chips. I guess they could have made off with my half empty shampoo or my stock pile of TP. I never keep more than 2000 NT out of the bank at one time unless I’m on my way to buy something expensive kudos to robberies and worthless po-po’s in year 1 for me).
But seriously, if there are ninjas scaling up to the 5th floor windows of shitty 公寓s and breaking open the bars, Taiwanese society has already collapsed.
If a skilled burglar really wants to break into the average apartment here, they can and will. That’s why they refer to anti-theft measures in Chinese as 防君子. They only stop the gentleman thief.
First thing you should always do when moving in is change the locks. You never know who has a key and personally I would never want a landlord to have access to my apartment while I’m renting.
Wanglong, the area around Taida by Technology building and Shida, all student areas, were ripe with burglars many years ago when I lived around there. Most thefts were from other foreigners with sticky fingers, facilitated by the open door policies in those rent a room with common kitchen and living room area arrangements. So everyone knew who dunno it but no one did anything about it.
After a serious incident I moved on my own. No more roommates, no more trouble.
When I moved into my 2nd floor apartment ten years ago, someone actually broke in and managed to make it into the kitchen before being spooked and buggering off. I only knew this because I was woken up by the sound of clattering pans in the kitchen at 4:00 am, and went to see the balcony door wide open and the door in the balcony bars open with a cut lock on the ground below. I quickly bought stronger locks and chained that doorway in the bars shut. A few days later there was a local bulletin posted about some gang of thieves that had been working the neighborhood, complete with photos from security cameras, and our Lizhang soon had security lights installed around the neighborhood. Haven’t had an incident since.
Confrontational crimes are rare here in Taiwan. Burglaries, however, are quite common, hence the ubiquitous bars. Everyone has them because unbarred apartments are more likely to be targeted.
Make sure you get the landlord’s ok if you are going to do this. In the US doing so will get you evicted because landlord does have the right to access the property for repairs or whatever. I imagine Taiwan has similar laws.
Yes correct, they go to the 5th floor roof and come through that way. Often top floors also do not have bars. This is often why the fire exits are padlocked up as they don’t want them walking down the stairs. Which of course.is a fire hazard to.lock it up. There were some nasty home invasions in the last few years. Taiwanese elderly people still believe in tangible wealth, cash, gold , jewelry…As is clear in your example and what Brian said about cat burglars being very active in the Chinese New Year period. Small yapping dogs are a good detergent, pitbulls can be inconvenient in the elevator (kidding about pitbulls)so I’m talking about Jack Russell’s, Sausage dogs etc. Yap yap
What are the laws if you catch someone in your place red handed and you beat them to within an inch of their existence?
I assume you would be seen as the criminal here.
Would it be better to kick them out and not report it then?
