Late night disturbances

[Surprise]

Hello everyone,

We've just moved into our lovely new house on Lordship Lane and everything has been great so far except...

a couple of nights ago we were disturbed at 1am by a man dressed in black and wearing a cap who came through the porch and started rattling and shaking the front door, before realising my housemates were watching from the hallway.

He disappeared and we reported it to the police with a description. We've heard nothing but wonderful things about East Dulwich, but we're now wondering if, living right on the main road, we should be expecting incidents like this on regular basis?

Any replies appreciated!

[Marmora Man]

In fours years here we've found one drunk sleeping it of in our front garden (I was persuaded to shoo him off by Mrs MM at 1.00am) and have experienced occasional late night party noise - but nothing unreasonable or regular.

[myrmidon]

Sounds pretty bad, but please don't think that's a genuine reflection on the area! East Dulwich is brilliant.

Good to get the feds onside straight away and hopefully it won't happen again. Maybe some kind of Home Alone style trap maybe in order -bucket of paint above the porch door?

Seriously though, don't be too rattled about it, even thought it must've been pretty scary at the time. Hopefully it won't happen again and you can all get down to enjoying everything that LL and ED has to offer

[candj]

Dear Surprise,

Sorry about your late night disturbance and hopefully it's only a one-off. If anything I would think living on a busy road such as LL would be better for crime prevention, but I'm sure this doesn't make you feel any better! You did the right thing by calling the police. ED is as safe as any part of London ie, random crimes of opportunity may or may not happen.

Touch wood, but in the 7 years we've lived in ED, the only late night disturbances we've had were gangs upon gangs of foxes tearing their way through a neighbour's rubbish, foxes or cats running amok on our cars, babies crying in the wee hours, the local cat population singing their Chinese opera and the occasional single canon blast sound of a firework.

Getting to know your neighbours and looking/listening out for eachother is probably one of the best things you can do. And always remember to deadbolt your door at night (just common sense really).

Hope this helps and welcome to ED!

-C