Gold Coast retirement complex targeted by thieves in heartless robberies

The victim of a terrifying robbery on the Gold Coast has revealed how thieves entered her bedroom as she slept at a retirement complex that’s been hit twice in just over two weeks. FULL DETAILS

A retired teacher has spoken of her shock and distress after heartless thieves stole her car from a northern Gold Coast retirement complex.

Joy Schloss, 76, was horrified to find the intruders had snuck into her bedroom while she slept after midnight on the evening of April 19, walking past the end of her bed to reach her handbag and grab her keys.

CCTV footage later showed four offenders taking off in her 2016 Mitsubishi ASX.

“I had Covid a week or so before it happened. I was reading that it was better to leave windows and doors open to let fresh air circulate through the house,” Ms Schloss said.

“I’m normally religious about locking up, but that night I remember consciously thinking I’ll leave the glass door open so the fresh air could get through.

“I got up the next morning and I noticed the gate to my back patio was open. I thought that was strange, maybe the wind had done it.

“Then I noticed the screen door was half way across and a few cupboard doors were open.”

Ms Schloss, a former teacher at St Andrew’s Lutheran College in Tallebudgera, said it was then that she realised her car was gone and the enormity of what happened struck her.

“When they couldn’t find the car keys they came into my bedroom,” she said.

“They had to walk past the end of my bed.

“I didn’t wake up, for which I’m truly grateful. Who knows what it would have been like if I woke up.”

Ms Schloss rang police and then called her bank to cancel her card.

“I was talking to one of the ladies at the bank when the shock hit me,” Ms Schloss said.

“She said, ‘are you OK’, and I just broke down.”

Joy Schloss, whose car was stolen from the northern Gold Coast retirement community in which she lives.

Police told the Bulletin they located Ms Schloss’s vehicle at a Crestmead address on Tuesday May 2.

“(It) is currently being forensically examined,” a spokesperson said.

Ms Schloss said toll charges were placed for her car on the Logan Motorway on a number of occasions in the days following her robbery.

“My hairdresser near by was also broken into the same night. ‘Please don’t let it be my car’, I thought.”

“It wasn’t, but my car was used for a crime spree in Brisbane, which made me feel awful.”

The retirement complex where Ms Schloss lives – which the Bulletin has chosen not to name for fear of copycat break-ins – was again targeted by thieves last Friday, with another woman waking to find someone in her room, and several other attempted entries.

Complex managers and residents are now urgently examining potential security upgrades, while police said investigations into both incidents are ongoing.

Ms Schloss, who endured a stressful number of days attempting to rearrange payment for her mobile phone and other bills, said she later realised that some items of jewellery associated with her mother and late daughter had also been stolen from her home.

Miraculously, however, she got one of the items back.

“I had a phone call from a lady at Highway Church in Ormeau,” Ms Schloss said.

“She said, we found some belongings of yours in our bottom car park. … There’s the RACQ folder and a bracelet.

“So I got up there on Friday afternoon.

“When I saw the bracelet I said, that was the most precious thing you could have found, because it belonged to my daughter Jenni who died five years ago.

“They must have thrown it out.

“So I got Jenni’s bracelet back. It was one little miracle out of all of this trauma.”

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