Burglary rate in Bulgaria

I've had a couple of things taken from my garden when we first bought the house in 2017 but nothing of any value. We have great neighbour s who keep an eye on things for us if we have to leave for a while.

Even the best of neighbours won't be looking out for your property 24/7. Especially in villages, the local tea-leaves are known, but people who've lived there all their lives know that grassing them up isn't the healthiest of occupations.  My village house was burgled and several thousand pounds worth of stuff was stolen.  Amazingly, the local cops did manage to recover some of it but, short of catching the thieves red-handed, they need serious proof to satisfy the court (not that the courts here are fit for purpose at the best of times anyway).  Even in the best case scenario, the accused are free to carry on stealing until the case comes to court, usually several years later.

In my case, the insurance coughed up for everything - and even reminded me that I could claim extra for incidental damage etc; definitely well worth the expense!

As for the "burglary rate" here, anyone who isn't insured doesn't even bother reporting it - as a rule the cops are just as useless as they are in the UK and the chance of recovering anything is minimal to none.

Some people on the forum may exaggerate the extent of the problem based on their own experience or rumors. In addition, the degree of security in different areas or cities in Bulgaria can vary significantly, and some places may be more prone to crime than others. It is important to evaluate safety information based on various sources and your own experience, and to take precautions to protect yourself and your property, regardless of the statistics.

    Some people on the forum may exaggerate the extent of the problem based on their own experience or rumors. In addition, the degree of security in different areas or cities in Bulgaria can vary significantly, and some places may be more prone to crime than others. It is important to evaluate safety information based on various sources and your own experience, and to take precautions to protect yourself and your property, regardless of the statistics.
   

   

@NicholasTerry

While others read the newspapers and watch local TV, and belong to social media groups where people share information, and surveillance video footage, of things that have happened to them. The statistics - and video evidence - tell you that burglars, here and elsewhere, don't shrink from entering a property while the occupants are asleep, so you need to ensure that your property is secure. I know from personal experience that one needs to realise that "inaccessible" isn't an absolute condition; a trawl through YouTube searching for "parkour" will give plenty of food for thought about where even a fairly unskilled person can gain ingress to Chez Nous.

In a poor country, even poor people are viewed as targets for thieves; supposedly rich foreigners are considerably more tempting marks. An unsecured, or simply under-secured, and unoccupied property doesn't go unnoticed for long; a house being renovated is a source of free building materials, and tools/machinery. And once the presumed plutocrats have moved in, there's bound to be riches galore, just for the taking.

There's no point getting paranoid but you don't know when, or indeed even if, your turn will come, so it's wise to make your home as secure as possible, and to back that up with adequate insurance.  And don't assume that thieves (and other criminals) here aren't ever Brits, or other foreign nationals - the newspaper reports will soon disabuse you of that notion...

    Reading this forum you'd think Bulgaria is plagued with domestic property burglaries.


    -@European360

Where do you see that?

But in every country, you will have burglaries. Touch wood, I've never been robbed but I do have a 8 foot metal entrance, and at the rear I have a stream with high banks. My back door is never locked in fact my front door is hardly locked. I also have very good lighting that would wake up the end if there was a graveyard next door.

My dad's house in Wales has a flood light which comes on when you walk up the drive and gravelled so you hear when someone comes.  Plus next door has a couple of dogs that bark. At the rear, he has a field and has stinging nettles so no one will get past that.

As long as you take measures, everyone should be fine.

Only once happened when gypsies (police identified them from Yambol villages) pulled a knife to my dad and asked for 3000 lev, they were lucky I was in UK. They entered home and then pulled a knife, that was back in 2017. Since then my gate is open everyday and nothing has happened, it's safe here around Shumen villages

    Only once happened when gypsies (police identified them from Yambol villages) pulled a knife to my dad and asked for 3000 lev, they were lucky I was in UK. They entered home and then pulled a knife, that was back in 2017. Since then my gate is open everyday and nothing has happened, it's safe here around Shumen villages
   

    -@gottik

EVERYWHERE is safe - until one day it isn't, and I doubt that every village in the Shumen area is crime-free. My village house was "safe" too, for years, until the night that some toe-rags decided that it was worth robbing; none of the neighbours heard or saw a thing and these guys stole a lot of stuff, some of it very heavy.

They couldn't get in or out through the barred windows or steel doors so, according to the local cops - who eventually nicked one of them and got some of our property back - they parked a truck outside the front, close to the house wall, climbed onto the roof of the truck and got onto one of the first floor balconies and thence through the balcony door. The gear they stole went out the same way.

We were "lucky" - the village has been "safe" again for a while.....

That's a horrible experience for your dad, gottik!

I'm told my village is "safe" too, and so far, nothing has been stolen, even tools like ladders left out in plain view by the builders. But there's also been very little of value in the house. Until the most recent work on the bathroom and kitchen, everything inside was the old stuff the previous owner used, mostly now broken or too old and poor to be of interest to even the most desperate of burglars.

But now I have a shiny new bathroom, with space and plumbing for a washing machine, I'm hesitating about buying one. Even in a "safe" village with great neighbours, will being seen to have items of value delivered make the house a target? I just don't know.

Would a new machine machine be considered worthy of being burgled?

What if you turn up with your moving van and your houseful of stuff? Would you be an immediate burglar target?

I'm not sure what a "machine machine" is but the arrival of a van will certainly be noticed and remarked upon. What happens next is in the lap of the Gods; you need to make sure that the property is secure and that there's no easy entry through doors or windows. It's worth installing security cameras, even if they're fake or not working to begin with, but note that it's illegal here to have cameras pointing where they can see the street or neighbouring properties. Amazingly enough, someone will sooner or later complain to the Plodski and you'll get a visit from them.

Best to get insurance in place beforehand, imo.

Sorry, I meant washing machine, from the post above mine.

Does this all stand if you are living in the property full time or just more of a concern if you are away a lot?

We also have dogs so I'd hope they would be a deterrent too.

hi, I believe /according to statistics/ that crime rate in Bulgaria is much lower than in Western Europe

@JosieCrew I'm not in Bulgaria full time yet, I think it's likely to be less of an issue with a permanently occupied house. I'm sure we can take it for granted that deliveries would be noticed, as almost everything being noticed is part of village life.  Whether anyone would then target your property is impossible to say, IMO, though I feel it would increase the risk of being targeted. Though our house is in a low-crime village, I'm still hesitant about the washing machine. As I'm only here a week per month at most, I think it can wait. Once we're here full time I would definitely get one.  That's a few years off yet.

@janemulberry Ok thank you

@JosieCrew

Dogs, people, lights... all good. :-)

If it's a fancy place in a terrible area that's rarely occupied, expect trouble. :-) If it's a typical place in a decent area that you live in almost full-time, while being nice to your neighbours, I'd expect it to be fairly trouble-free.

Thats good to know.

I've seen a couple of houses for sale recently that have been renovated, or part renovated and they've been completely stripped. Windows and doors stolen, wiring ripped out, bathroom suites stolen. I feel for the owners, because they'll have lost money on the house, but it does make me suspicious about the villages they're in. It might be an unfair judgment on the villages, but when you don't know the areas, it is off putting.

    Sorry, I meant washing machine, from the post above mine.
Does this all stand if you are living in the property full time or just more of a concern if you are away a lot?

We also have dogs so I'd hope they would be a deterrent too.
   

    -@JosieCrew

I'd say that it's all in the lap of the Gods!  My village house was burgled when we were in the habit of only using it at weekends; my British friends who live in a village full-time, had their barn/workshop, which is attached to their house, burgled twice at night while they were asleep and their dogs were in the garden - the identity of the thieves is known by our friends and everyone else in the village, but nothing can be done as there's no proof and the property stolen is stashed away/sold on very quickly; the deaths of the British owners of another village house resulted in the property being burgled four times and totally stripped - it's on the main street of the village, which is busy most of the time ,and the entrance to the house is on the street rather than set back in the garden; the FB group of our Sofia suburb (4,000-plus members) has regular posts of security cam footage showing masked burglars looting houses while the owners are asleep/people searching gardens for tools left out at night/thieves removing parts from cars etc - many have dogs in the garden overnight, but everyone's used to the barking overnight and no attention is paid to them - some pets have also been stolen. If they're determined to rob you, the beggars are likely to poison your dogs, so make sure they're trained to only accept food from you - it may never happen to you but it's a real catastrophe if it does.  We've been here 10 years, and we're well out of the main part, so theoretically vulnerable but, touch wood, the only nocturnal visitors we've had so far are the forest cats and foxes that I feed in the garden. However, we do have bars or metal shutters on the lower two storeys' windows, plus a security system and cameras - and our cat, Ginger, is a bit of a bruiser.

As I said, you just never know when, or if, your turn will come - it's just a gamble, but don't stint on the insurance!

    I've seen a couple of houses for sale recently that have been renovated, or part renovated and they've been completely stripped. Windows and doors stolen, wiring ripped out, bathroom suites stolen. I feel for the owners, because they'll have lost money on the house, but it does make me suspicious about the villages they're in. It might be an unfair judgment on the villages, but when you don't know the areas, it is off putting.
   

    -@grumpyoldbird

It's well known who usually does that kind of thing, but you're not supposed to say it out loud...

I second what Gwyn says. Our friends have holiday homes in our village, never had a single problem and they have, shall we say, a lot of "stuff"!!! We periodically check on them, and the only unwanted trespassers have been of the rodent type, which we quickly put a stop to!

If I can I'll third what Gwyn says I've just returned from a week in the UK and not counting that the garden is overgrown everything is just how I left it.

But I'm glad that I don't live in the UK anymore it's really going down hill fast xx

Not going downhill, GONE downhill. I have been spending 6 to 8 months here every year since 2007, 2 months ago I sold everything in the UK, AND NOW LIVE HERE FULL-TIME, I have a ten-year residence permit, that should see me out, (I am 75 this month). I just got an email from the NHS wanting to know if I wanted another COVID jab? I think they want to  kill me off sooner before my permit expires so they can save on my pension  payments.