u/Background_Run_3965 — reddlx

We live in Maynooth in a corner house and we are not rich by any means, we drive a 15 year old Honda if that helps paint a picture. This incident is from from 2 days ago, I was working late at night (thankfully) when I heard some weird noises coming from the back garden I ignored thinking it could be fox or mouses but it wasn’t stopping, I was in living room which is attached to the garden, but the blinds were down for all windows and I had a lamp on (but you can see the light coming out if you see from outside/garden).

It was around 1 AM, when I heard some noise so I decided to go and check it out. When I turned the light on, it took me a while to get to the door, I don’t know why but I decided to just look through the curtains first. And I definitely saw climbing out cause I got the glimpse of their hood. I froze for second, then thought am I imagining things but then I decided to go the front door and I could see someone walking very fast at 1 am in the night away from the housing estate with their hood up! and my heart just dropped, I wanted to scream and wake everyone up in the house, but somehow I kept my calm, I don’t know why I just ran to my baby first, checked if they were okay. I checked if all the windows are doors are locked properly. I told my husband the next day, he is not even sure what to do, he is thinking growing privacy hedges the mature ones and adding cameras, It’s been 2 days and I have not been able to sleep properly, I haven’t reported anything to Garda, should I do that?

I was scared to go out that night to check (couldn’t sleep all night) but I was constantly checking the garden through curtains and any small noise was making me paranoid.

I have a new born, and I am sacred to shits right now for their safety. Any advice what can I do so they can’t climb over our walls.

Should look for something in the garden, how can I make sure they don’t come back again? - I checked the next day the side garden door was opened, there’s no lock on door there but there is a latch I don’t how they opened it, so I am going to buy one lock today (we have access from the side) and some reason brown bin was open too? Not sure why the person looking into that. They must have come through the door and jumped the wall when garden lights came on.

Should we buy mature privacy hedges? There are some old empty boxes in the garden shed, nothing valuable to be honest, no tools, no lawnmower, no bikes.

I haven’t been able to sleep properly since then. Honestly I don’t care about they took or not, all I care they don’t break in while we are in house or out of the house, I honestly just want to avoid them (it was a just a single person) in this case but what if they are more tomorrow and this time I am asleep.

This didn’t look planned at all, I think that one person was just trying their luck out, but thankfully they did not try the door for living room.

What scares me the most, is that they must be keeping a close eye on the house they want to target, not sure what do here any advice would be helpful! Thanks a mil!

Just to give you some more context - I am so scared that the thought moving houses also has crossed my mind (but no monies).