A GLEN HILLS resident was tied up and locked away in a spare room as armed men tried to ransack her house in an attempted break-in on Harrison Drive on Tuesday morning (14 January). John Brown said his 57-year-old wife was left traumatised by the incident. The suspects wearing balaclavas and armed with handguns jumped over the front wall and ordered his wife to lie on the floor.

“My wife was talking to a friend on the phone when she heard footsteps up the staircase leading to our front door. She normally closes the security gate but on this occassion, she didn’t close it. The men burst in and started screaming ‘where’s the laptops, jewellery and cash, where’s the keys?’ They made her lie on the ground and bound her wrists together with cable ties. They locked her in the spare room as they ransacked the house,” he said.

The suspects removed the plasma TV off the wall, ransacked the main bedroom and even took Brown’s pillow cases to help carry the items easier.

“My neighbour spotted a blue Toyota Run-X parked outside the house and thought we had visitors over. But when he looked again he noticed our gate had been de-railed. He screamed at the men and they left all the stolen items and drove off. Unfortunately they took my wife’s wedding ring,” he said.

Brown added he suspected the men had de-railed the gate because they could not get the stolen items over the high wall. This is not the first time the Glen Hills resident has been targeted, in November last year, thieves broke into his wendy hut and stole all the meat from his freezer. The men also broke into his car and stole his safety boots.

“I’m going to have to upgrade security at the house but if these guys want to get they’ll get in,” he said.

Blue Security managing director, Darryn le Grange, also warned residents to be on high alert after several armed robberies and housebreaking incidents over the past week in Durban North.

Residents in Lindsay Drive in Glen Ashley were also targeted by armed robbers who cut the electric fence and held them up at gun-point at around 8pm on Friday (10 January) last week. “Three armed men mheld up the family before fleeing with cash, jewellery, a hi-fi system and remotes for the alarm system,” Le Grange said.