A parrot might be the reason why two robbers left the scene of the crime in a hurry.
While a Strubenvale couple was ordered not to move while in their bed, two robbers nearly ran the security gate from its hinges to get out of the house the same way they had entered.
Last Thursday, Johan and Betsie Janse van Rensburg were fast asleep in their bedroom with the television still on when two robbers gained access to their house through a bathroom window.
Johan says they always leave the bathroom window slightly open.
It was after 1am, when Betsie woke up with her cell phone still in her hand, that she noticed someone standing in their doorway.
She triple checked if she was dreaming, but soon realised she wasn’t as it was indeed a burglar at the door.
The only thing she could think of asking was ‘yes?’
The robber’s immediate response was ‘don’t shout or move’.
She said he asked for laptops and took one that was in the bedroom.
“While we were lying still with our hands above the blankets as ordered, the robber searched our bedside tables,” says Johan,
And although the panic button was inches away from his hand, he was too scared to move.
Both their cell phones were taken as well as Betsie’s wedding rings.
Johan says he asked the robber if he could at least get his simcard.
He was about to take it out, when the other robber started communicating with him in an African language, which they couldn’t understand.
The next moment the robber asked them, ‘Do you know pronto?’, but Johan asked him, ‘who is pronto?’
One robber was going by the name of Ernest.
The thug in the bedroom soon joined his friend ‘Ernest’, who in the meantime opened the security gate in the passage to gain access to the rest of the house where Kandas, the African grey parrot was kept.
According to Johan, Kandas always says ‘Hey what are you doing?’ in Johan’s voice when someone walks past his cage.
“The parrot must have frightened them to death when he talked to them as it sounded as if they were trying to get through the window together,” he says.
This is the only explanation the Janse van Rensburgs have after they heard the robbers’ footsteps disappearing into the night.
It was only after they realised the robbers were gone, that he pressed the panic button.
They say the security company arrived in no time and the Springs police shortly after them.
He says it was only then, that we realised they had bent the burglar bars and piled up bricks on the outside to make it easier for them to climb through the window.
Whether it was the parrot that caused these two robbers to flee or not, the couple is happy they escaped the ordeal unharmed.
