Cameron Rd, Box Hill North: Christmas lights stolen
A Grinch is on the loose in Box Hill North, ruining the festive spirit by stealing Christmas lights and decorations.
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A Grinch is loose in Box Hill North, ruining the festive spirit by stealing Christmas lights and decorations
Several grumpy neighbours reported their Christmas lights were stolen from their front gardens in Cameron Rd last week.
Phi Lam believes her lights were stolen on Friday morning.
She said a 50m string of lights was hanging between her and her neighbour’s houses when she took her granddaughter to dance class, but had disappeared when she returned a couple of hours later.
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“It makes me very angry,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”
The grandmother said she had hung the lights for passing children to enjoy, and the theft
completely went against the “spirit of Christmas”.
At least three other houses were stripped of their decorations overnight on Wednesday, December 5.
A woman living in the street, who did not want to be named, said she had woken on Thursday morning to find the lights taken from her fence, gate and tree.
“I was really upset by it,” she said. “I spent ages putting them up with my five-year-old.”
“It hurt me more than if they’d taken something else from my front yard.”
Her neighbour, who also did not want to be named, had lights stolen from her driveway and Santa ornaments taken from her garden.
The woman said she believed they were also taken overnight on Wednesday.
She said the incident was very disappointing.
“Karma will get them,” she said. “But if it was someone who couldn’t afford them then it’s a ‘so be it’ sort of thing.
“I took it as an opportunity to buy some more.”
The woman said she knew of at least one other house in the street which had also been robbed of its lights.
But the neighbours won’t let the crime dampen their Christmas cheer, all making the effort to replace the stolen decorations.
Box Hill police Senior Constable Leigh Moroney said he didn’t believe the theft of Christmas decorations was “a widespread offence”, not having previously encountered a report in his seven years as a police officer.
“But some people wouldn’t report it because of the value of the items,” he said,
He said police would investigate any thefts, but cameras or warrants would be needed to catch an offender who had not caught red-handed.
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