This summer, my home was burgled. It does not make me unique: statistics show that roughly 420 burglaries take place every day across England and Wales. Although fairly common, it’s an awful experience for anyone. And, in moments of self-indulgence, it can seem particularly hard to stomach when – like everyone reading this – you are attached to your interiors.
I soon discovered I wasn’t the only person in the House & Garden office to experience the crime – which, it seems, those with a particular aesthetic bent can be susceptible to. To the disappointment of the police, I did not have (unattractive) security cameras, while Arabella Bowes, until recently this magazine’s Commerce Editor and my fellow burglee, says: ‘I was told that my wooden sash windows are easier to break than plastic ones.’ But the good news, for anyone sharing our situation, is that a passion for interiors can go a long way to aiding our emotional recovery.
First, the basics. Most break-ins in the UK are opportunistic rather than To Catch a Thief-style heists, a fact that rang true for both Arabella and me. In her case, a neighbour’s broken wall enabled easy access to her high-hedged garden when she was away; in mine, my teenage son’s inability to properly close the front door allowed the thieves to simply stroll in. (I tried very hard not to make him feel guilty. And internalised my fury when he did not seem to feel guilty at all.)
Our uninvited visitors rifled through the kitchen drawers, helping themselves to the medication contained within, and comprehensively sacked my desk, which is in the sitting room. We were relieved of the cash from the children’s birthday cards, some decorative objets, our passports, my handbag and its contents. And then there was another handbag, taken from my dressing room – which would have involved walking through my bedroom, where I was asleep.
There are the practical immediate first steps. An insurance claim requires a crime number, and we were told not to touch anything until fingerprints had been taken – which creates an uncomfortable state of limbo. (Though if, like me, you’re a long-term devotee of police procedurals, you can attempt to channel your focus towards the brief frisson of forensics-provided excitement.)
There were eBay alerts to set up, bank cards to cancel, and a list of things to re-order, including my driving licence and our travel documents. You also need to make sure that you have re-secured your house, which might involve a locksmith, a glazier – and for Arabella’s neighbour, a bricklayer.
In the days afterwards, while working through the above, I tried to feel grateful – and I did, in part. We were all fine, and I still had my collections of 17th century northern European crucifixes and 19th century spelter figurines. (Arguably, my aesthetics were on my side, in that my collector-hoarder tendencies made it impossible for the thieves to sort the wheat from the junk.) I even tried to find light in the situation: several of the pots labelled as ADHD medication contained sunflower seeds. The burglars left behind the children’s book tokens. And, recounts Arabella, who also had a handbag stolen, ‘They took mine out of its dust bag, so it’ll fetch less when they sell it on.’
But at the same time, I struggled. Conditioned to stiff-upper-lipping my way through life, and de-proportioning my own issues in light of what’s in the news, it took a therapist friend to tell me that it was okay to allow myself to mourn the Chanel wallet that I had bought myself aged 23 when, after months of interning and waitressing, I finally got the job of my then dreams in the international offices of Vogue. It was as a very lowly assistant, but it was a beginning – and over the decades since, the wallet had become a treasured talisman of my everyday travels.
The handbags had been presents and were beloved go-tos that bridged, in one case, my honeymoon of 2009 and my book launch this summer. And then there was the monogrammed diary that contained every upcoming appointment (I’m still entirely analogue) and the matching notebook filled with six months’ of thoughts, interview notes, and ideas for my next book.
Moreover, the sense of violation didn’t fade. I had not been methodical when establishing what had been taken, and I kept finding further hurts. Some were merely irritating: did they really need the battery bank for my phone? Others, I minded. And my belongings did not surface, as I had hoped they would, on eBay, Vinted, or Facebook Marketplace.
There is an advised order to re-acquisition. Functionality comes first, and thus – after the essentials already listed – my immediate priority was a Smythson shop. Psychologists suggest altering the aesthetics, for the exact same model can be a reminder of the crime – and I was able to find pleasure in picking new colours for the little leather-bound books that bring order to my weeks and my wandering mind.
Evenings spent on resale sites threw up a handbag of shape and colour to fulfil a particular need in my wardrobe – and I’m very pleased with it. But other things have proved a sticking point. Unable to commit to a replacement wallet – for there’s a gap between the loveliness of what I lost and what I’m prepared to spend at this stage of my life – I’m currently employing a sunglasses’ pouch. Though, again listening to psychologists, we’re not meant to rush when it comes to items of sentimental worth. It’s impossible to replicate their resonance, and going too fast risks imbuing a replacement with unhelpful associations.
Besides, shopping cannot expunge the lingering knowledge of pervaded space, which, for both Arabella and me, proved the hardest aspect of all. A thorough clean was instinctive and included stripping the sofa and washing the covers. Furniture rearranging is another suggested step – though we all know that Victorian terraces don’t present a wealth of options for where the sofa might go.
Instead, separately though unanimously, both Arabella and I determined to make our homes as charming as we could. Arabella, who’d only moved into her house a few months earlier, ‘hung curtains and pictures, which I’d been procrastinating on for weeks, bought some new cushions, and we decided to have our bedroom painted’.
I, having moved into my house five years ago, finally painted the floorboards in my dressing room, identified prettier handles for my desk drawers, ran up café curtains from a length of Volga Linen voile, and ordered a lilac-toned Susan Deliss fabric to re-upholster a chair whose seat was ripped. I’ve brought out a Chelsea Textiles tablecloth I’d been unnecessarily saving for best, opened a new sachet of Santa Maria Novella potpourri, and distributed Bridie Hall Intaglio Soaps between the bathrooms. All are the kind of tweaks that prevent an interior feeling tired (or tipping from shabby chic to just ‘shabby’) and inspire daily joy.
Which isn’t to say you need a burglary to effect such changes, in which vein we’ve each made some preventative modifications, too. Arabella has put in a Ring doorbell and an alarm system. I, besides repeatedly telling my children just how vital it is to shut the front door and adding a bolt lock as an extra layer, have allowed cameras to be fixed at both the front and back of the house – and discovered they’re so little as to be barely noticeable.
The police had further recommendations. Some – motion-sensitive security lights – I’m hesitant on (we have cats, and foxes). Others are more appealing: gravel paths, keeping street-side hedges sufficiently controlled to make discreet breaking and entering an impossibility, and ensuring that easily portable valuables aren’t left in view. A couple of months on, both Arabella and I recognise that our homes look better than they did before – and we love them more. Alongside, the bestowed attention has restored a vital sense of agency, and with it, our equilibrium.
