She’s well known in the local glass merchants. “Oh you ain’t been done again, ’ave you?” they cry, as Fel Watkins walks in, because intruders have broken into her Clapham flat seven times in the space of 16 months.
她在当地的玻璃商人那很有名“哦,你是不是又被偷了?是么?”当费沃特斯金走过来时他们都哭泣,因为这已经是十六个月以来第七次有盗窃者光顾她在克拉彭的公寓了。
During this period, only one of the other 21 flats in her block has been burgled; and the previous occupant of her flat lived there for 40 years, without being burgled once.
在这段期间,她住的小区其他21家住户只有一家曾经被盗。
并且她住的房子之前的主人在这住了四十年从来没被偷过。
She has realised the place is everything the burglars love. It’s on the ground floor, set back from the road, with a good screen of trees and bushes, and plenty of easy exits over walls to common land and to the railway line.
她已经意识到她住的地方只要是盗贼都会惦记。
住在一楼,远离马路,被树和灌木遮挡着,翻过墙很容易到公共地方和铁路线。
She decided to treat the experience as a lesson. To get the crime prevention officer round and carry out the improvements to security which he suggested.
她决定将这些当做一次教训,请教预防犯罪官员并且按照他的建议进行改善。
“that was my biggest.” She said. “I had a girl-friend living here and between us we lost every bit of jewellery we had and three watches cameras and a cassette player.”
“那是我最大的一次损失”她说“当时我有个女性朋友也住在这边,我们俩丢了我们所有的珠宝三台相机和一个磁带播放器。
”
“There was a phone call at half past 11at night. It was my neighbour who said. There’s something funny going on in your flat and all the lights are on I was really upset this time. I felt so helpless I just burst into tears. That was the first time I’d cried about it all.”
又一次我的邻居在夜里十一点半打电话给我。
他和我说“有点奇怪,你家里的灯都开了。
这次我真的很伤心,我无助地哭了。
那是我第一次为这件事哭。
At this point she wrote to her MP, saying that she knew what she was doing trying to keep these people out of her home and that she’d like to know what he was doing. He wrote back, blaming unemployment, which Fel says she “sort of believes”.
她写信给国会议员说了这些发生在身上的偷盗事情,她写道她知道她已经尽了自己最大努力将这些盗贼赶走,她想知道议员为此干什么。
这位议员为他回信,将这些归结到失业上。
费说她只部分相信这些理由。
After the fourth break-in, the police at their own expense connected an alarm, which would ring at the police station but not in the flat.
在第四次失窃后,警察自己掏腰包在她家安装了报警系统,但是只在警察局里面响并不在家里。
The crime prevention officers had told Fel that there was no problem with the small window above the kitchen door as it was less than nine inches across. But three boys managed to squeeze through. The police saw them but they ran off down the railway line.
预防犯罪的官员告诉他厨房门上的小窗户没多大隐患,因为它还不到九英尺。
但是还是有三个男孩设法钻了过来。
警察看见他们了,但是他们从铁路上逃走了。
“Although nothing was taken, they turned the place upside down, which happened in each case except the sixth and seventh.” said Fel. The sixth time an attempt was made the police charged a man.
虽然没什么东西掉了,但是除了第六次和第七次盗贼们都是把房间翻得底朝天。
在第六次警察试图起诉一名男子。
Fel was asked by the police if anyone bore her a grudge. “I had the feeling that everyone that in Clapham was checking me out.”she said. “But the police said that it didn’t work that way. They said it wasn’t natural to suffer like this, so they thought it was a vendetta.”
警察问费是否得罪什么人了“我感觉住在克拉彭的每个人都在审查我的言行。
“但是警察说这是太不可思议了,他们说这样的遭遇不正常。
所所以他们认为这是报复。
She discovered she wasn’t the most burgled person locally: that was a magistrate living near Clapham Common who has been burgled 18 times in two years.
她发现自己并不是当地被偷得最多的人:住在克拉彭附近的一位法官被偷的最多,两年里18次。
After the first few incidents, Fel admits that she was in a terrible state of shock, that her heart would be pounding every time she got back from the office wondering what she’d find and that she slept very lightly.
在前几次遭遇这些盗窃后,费说她很震惊恐惧,每次她从办公室回家的时候心脏都在砰砰跳,她担心着再次遭盗,并且每天她的睡的很少。
Now she manages to sleep but is very jumpy about walking around the local streets.
“That would have been a real clean-up job. But the alarm went off as the burglars tried the sitting room. They had piled everything up outside the kitchen door including the hi-fi with all its wires cut.”
现在她可以睡得着了但是在街上走路的时候都会提心掉胆的。
通常我的家都会像被洗劫过一般。
当盗匪们溜进客厅警报就会响。
他们会把一切堆在厨房外面包括电线被撤掉的音响。
“As I was coming back from work, I was a collection of neighours outside my door and I instantly knew what had happened. There was silence as I approached. Then someone said. “You’ve been done again.”
当我下班回来,发现我家门外聚集了很多邻居,我就知道家里发生什么了。
但我走近的时候大家都安静了。
接着一个邻居就会说:你家又被盗了。