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Business & Money

Washing machine thieves hit student dorms

Published: 30 Dec 11 09:18 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/38232/20111230/

A suspected gang of washing machine thieves is believed to be behind a wave of appliance pilfering from student housing laundry rooms in in Luleå in northern Sweden.

A total of eight washing or drying machines have been taken from student living quarters in recent days, prompting the landlord to hire a private security company.

“We call the police, but no one comes,” Christer Lindgren of the Lindbäck Porsön property management company told the local Norbottens Kuriren newspaper.

The latest raid took place on Tuesday night, when theives lifted two washing machines and two dryers from a just-completed student housing complex on Klintvägen.

Over Christmas weekend, a washer and dryer also went missing from the same laundry room, which now stands empty.

In addition to taking appliances, the suspected gang of thieves also smashed up a number of postboxes and broken into tenants' personal storage rooms.

The offices of the landlord were also burgled, with 2,000 kronor ($290) being taken from a cash box.

“The means of entry seemed very professional,” said Lindgren.

Lindgren suspects the robberies are the work of an organized gang of criminals and remains frustrated at the lack of response from police.

Police claim that no squad cars were sent to the scene because the perpetrators left no trace, according to police records.

“That could be why the conclusion was drawn that there was no reason to go out,” police investigator Inge Barsk told the newspaper.

But Lindgen remains dissatisfied with the explanation.

“Of course there are traces; there was a break in,” he told Norbottens Kuriren.

TT/The Local/dl (news@thelocal.se)

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10:45 December 30, 2011 by byke
Where would you Launder such appliances?

Hopefully the thieves will come clean.
12:51 December 30, 2011 by beam_me_up
How do they know that no trace of the perpetrators were left if didn't go to the scene and investigate the crime?? Maybe the police were too busy filming naked female colleagues.
22:59 December 30, 2011 by dizzymoe33
We usually had to have a key to get into the community laundry rooms to help keep down the theft issues.
09:42 January 1, 2012 by SecondGen
We bought a new washing machine today and toted it home in my van (I'm too cheap to pay for delivery). Got my two sons to help me carry it up the front stairs into the house and got it out of the box.

Disconnected the old one in the basement and carried it up the stairs (getting soaked along the way from water dripping out the drain hose). Carried the new one down and hooked it up.

They are heavy, they are bulky, and even if they are off and disconnected, they are full of water at the base when you start tipping it to pick it up (leaving footprints if not fingerprints on doors holding them to get the thing out.
10:02 January 2, 2012 by johan rebel
Do Swedish students wash their clothes?
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