McLaren MP4-12C on Al reef

Al Reef Burglaries

Below is a story from The National today. This is where I live. Underneath are my comments.

Al Reef residents alarmed by burglaries

ABU DHABI // When ZA's pet birds started squawking in the middle of the night last week, she and her husband did not think anything of it.


It was not until the next morning that the Al Reef Villas resident noticed deep scratch marks on the outside of her back patio door and realised someone had tried to break in.

On ZA's street alone, several residents have reported attempted break-ins in the past several weeks. In the Mediterranean Village, where the Canadian lives with her husband and three children, the houses back on to an expanse of sand near Abu Dhabi International Airport.

"It's easy access," she said. "It is not being monitored, and there are no lights in the back. Our backyard is totally dark."

Residents at Al Reef, one of the capital's largest gated communities, estimate that they have been the victims of more than a dozen attempted break-ins in the last month alone. ZA has since barricaded her sliding door with a stick to keep it from being slid open from the outside.

Other residents have not been so lucky. One reported that a gold watch and US$1,000 (Dh3,673) was taken.

Last Thursday, JL, a resident in Arabian Village, woke up early. The mother of one had just poured herself a glass of water when she was startled by a noise downstairs. The burglar had made it into her house but was scared off when she turned on the light. Nothing was taken.

"I definitely don't feel comfortable," she said. "I've been leaving the garden lights on all night now, and I put a stick in the door."

The thieves always try to come in through the sliding patio back door. Police suspect a screwdriver was being used to prise open the door.

The incidents began in Mediterranean Village but have spread to Arabian Village.

Sometimes a thief will strike in the middle of the night; others say they have been targeted in the middle of the afternoon.

"What's really a mystery to me is why my house was targeted," said JL, a Briton. "Most of the previous homes were backing on to the airport, but I'm surrounded by houses, at least two on each side, and they are all occupied."

Manazel Real Estate, the community's developer, has increased patrols in "weak areas" and is working with the police and CID officers to provide additional security.

Saeed Al Jabri, the general manager of Manazel Specialists, said security cameras would be installed within 10 days, but only in public areas.

"We don't want to violate people's privacy," Mr Al Jabri said.

"This is a major priority for us, but we want to keep people safe and ensure they still have their privacy."

Mr Al Jabri also said the company was considering installing electronic checkpoints that would allow guards to use a key card to check in at specific sites, to ensure patrols were hitting the must-see areas.

Another resident, NR, said she planned to install a motion sensor in her backyard after she found scratch marks on her door about three weeks ago.

"I'm not sure how cameras would work, because the burglars are trying to get entry from the backside," the German woman said. "But maybe it would be enough to give them a fright and keep them away."

JL said that open alleyways and other points of entry should be blocked. ZA said more night-time patrols would make her feel safer.

Mr Al Jabri said fences would be installed, and Manazel has asked the airport to improve its security along the periphery. The community's 32 guards have also been given golf carts for patrolling.

Guards have told residents to put broomsticks in the runners or locks on their patio doors and to report attempted break-ins to the police. Residents are also encouraged to approach Manazel with their suggestions.

Mr Al Jabri said the police are investigating the attempted break-ins, but so far, no suspects have been caught.

OK, so here's my thoughts on this...

It seems a lot of people when they move here, from wherever they come from, think they can kind of outsource responsibility for many things to others; maids, drivers, nannies, cleaners and... security. We too have taken advantage of the low cost of some of these services out here. The problem lies in the attitude taken towards it. Everything seems to become someone else's fault if things go wrong. When children get hurt at home, it's the maid's fault. If a car gets a parking ticket, it's the driver's fault and if my house get burgled, it's Security's fault.

In a way, I understand, when you are paying for a service and in some way the provider is negligent, then some blame should be attached, but I can't stand the attitude some people have towards this. So, this brings me to Al Reef security. Some people seem to think that it is the responsibility of the Al Reef property development company to prevent them from being burgled. Many of the people with this belief come from places with crime rates way higher than here, yet I am sure if they tried to blame their council, or their housing association, they wouldn't get very far. Take some PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY and do something for yourself to protect your home.

We rent our villa at Al Reef and as such I don't pay any service fees to the developers, I'm not sure if the owner does and if he does, I'm not sure what it provides in terms of security. What we do have are manned barriers at two entrances to our community and security guards who walk around day and night. Now, it has to be said that it would not be too difficult for anyone to enter (depending on what nationality you are - easier if you haver a white face - seriously), so frankly it doesn't serve much purpose. I think most of the problems at Al Reef have been around the edges of the development where the gardens back onto open waste ground. There it would be relatively easy for someone to jump over a wall and into someone's garden. This would be true of many other people's property at home I am sure - ours included.

Our villa backs onto a community area and as such I would say is less vulnerable, however we have taken some steps to provide an increased level of security. As one of the residents in the article described, we too have a pole which traps the sliding patio door to provide some extra protection....

I also have an IP Camera trained on the patio door at night recording any movement. We are pretty sure that if anyone did come in, Milo would sense this and he pretty much barks at anything! 

I think the whole thing has been blown up out of proportion honestly. I understand there have been about 20 attempts to gain entry, but only one has ever succeeded. There is a bit more Al Reef can do to provide some extra security and it seems they are taking steps to do that, which is good. But people, really, please do something for yourself and stop blaming everyone else! We do not live in some perfect utopia where bad things never happen, even here, so just take some sensible precautions.

Al Reef Swimming Pool

There was an article in The National yesterday highlighting the problem of community pools not being taken care of properly, leading to skin irritation and illness. One of the pools they discussed was our community pool at Al Reef Villas (see picture). You can read the article here. (picture by RAVINDRANATH K / THE NATIONAL )

Now, we are very fortunate to have our own, albeit small, private pool, so we have not been affected by the closure of the community pool. And despite what the management say, there were already lots of complaints from people in the community about illness etc. before the Municipality got involved, so there is no way that the pool was closed for "maintenance". If the Municipality say that they asked to close it, I see no reason to disbelieve them, although for various reasons, I may well disbelieve the management.

They do have a habit of making things up - like when they said that the pit which holds our water pumps outside our house was filling up with water because we were washing the drive down with water, causing the pumps to fail. Er, no - it's because of the crap design where the main contractor has placed the pumps at the bottom of the pit below the ground water level!

We too have had issues with our own pool. Firstly, the heater/chiller unit kept failing - we are now on our 4th unit, which seems to be holding up (he says looking for the nearest piece of wood to touch) . We have a pool maintenance contract, but we are constantly chasing them because the pool cleaning has not been done, or has been done badly. This week our pool turned into something that resembled pea soup. They have thrown so much chlorine at the problem that the levels are now off the scale (I have taken to doing my own water tests now), so on our day off tomorrow, we will probably not be able to go in our own pool.

In the scheme of things though, these are minor irritations and we do like living in Al Reef. So, anyone thinking of moving here should not be overly alarmed I would say. The general feel of the place is good and does have a nice community atmosphere. The maintenance teams are friendly and helpful, but unfortunately are not usually given the right tools for the job, but this is not the workers' fault. We had a plumbing issue and the guy came promptly enough, but only armed with a screwdriver!

Oh well - all part and parcel of the colourful life living in the Middle East....

Our visitor

We had this visitor to our garden this morning...

Our very own oasis

Now, I don't want this to sound like gloating (!), but having our own pool at home is heaven! Now that the temperatures have risen and it's easily over 40 degrees every day and mid-high 30's at night, having a chilled pool to jump into at the end of the day is lovely. A lot of the communal pools that people have access to are not heated/chilled, so in the summer it will just feel like entering a very big bath tub. We had major issues getting the heater/chiller to work (we are now on our 4th unit) and then we had issues with getting the temperature right (how did we ever cope I can here you thinking!), but now it's perfect. So, I reckon we should get good use out of it all year round.

...yep I can feel the vibes coming over the internet superhighway - I can tell you are really pleased for us...not! :-)

'aint no flies on us...

One of the downsides of living in a desert community, is the abundance of flies! We seem to go through phases when they are worse than at other times, but now they are bad! We have a flytrap which is pretty full right now - we need to get some more.

If you are squeamish look away now!

A great blogsphere moment!

Last week I received a comment on one of my postings about Al Reef villas...

Hey Neil, love the blog. I am in the process of moving to Abu Dhabi and have been recommended Al Reef as a place to live. So, would be great to have a chat sometime to get your thoughts.

Best wishes,

Simon Warr (!!!)

Now to me, this was absolutely amazing! The reason was that this Mr Simon Warr was a good friend of mine all through secondary school (high school) and I haven't actually seen him in about 25 years! When Simon went off to university I started my working career and somehow we never managed to stay in touch. 

Simon (Left) and me (right) - during our school years

...and today...(who's been eating all the pies?!)

We did swap a few emails about 3-4 years ago before we moved out here. He was living in Greenwich, not too far from where we were, but didn't get chance to hook up before he again moved to Oxfordshire. So to receive this communication was brilliant. We have spent the last week in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur (more on that to come), but having contacted Simon after his posting, I arranged to meet him today. It was so good to catch up with him and introduce him to Caz. He has taken up a post with one of the government companies and considering options for where to live - that is how he found my blog when he Googled "Al Reef". We were able to show him around and talk about life here in Abu Dhabi. Simon is pretty well travelled and has worked in a few other countries, so I am sure he will take it all in his stride. 

Wherever he and his family choose to live, it won't be far from us, so I am looking forward to re-establishing our friendship and not losing touch again. 

Al Reef kids

I was out walking Milo tonight and just thought how great it was to see kids playing in the street at 8.30pm when it is dark (except for street lighting of course). I would guess they were between say 7 & 10, running up and down the road, playing on their little bikes and one had a little dog on a lead. The builders had left a pile of sand and they were all jumping and digging in it. Brilliant!

Some moany old so-and-sos might say it is irresponsible to leave them out on their own, but I say good on 'em! It reminded me so much of my own childhood, when back in the 70s in the UK similar scenes would have been seen up and down the country. Not so any more and I for one think it is sad.

In my early years when I was really quite little (maybe 5 or 6) we lived in a neighbourhood that was still under construction (Grove Hill, Hemel Hempstead) and I can remember playing on building sites - and I mean climbing up onto scaffolding and climbing up 1 or 2 stories! They would deliver the triangular timber roof frames and pile them up on top of each other and we would have great fun climbing up and into them. And like the kids on Al Reef, we jumped and dug into piles on sand. Behind all the construction were corn fields. We would walk into the fields and walk for ages in corn that was taller than we were! - finding our way back by following our tracks.

I tried as much as possible to give freedom to my kids as they grew up; letting them walk to the shops, playing out front etc. , but society still kind out frowns on you in the UK (and in other places) if you give kids too much freedom.

I'm a big believer (and I think the facts back me up), that in the UK the crime rates on child abduction are pretty much constant when looked at over the last 30-40 years and too much scare mongering goes on because of high profile cases like Madeleine McCann. As sad as these cases are, it still remains a fact that these sort of cases are very, very rare (and course in the UAE the incidence is even lower), and should we make significant behavioral changes because of these very rare events?

Well I don't think so and so I say to the parents of kids on Al Reef - keep on letting your kids out to play, let them enjoy their childhood.

Our villa in Al Reef

I just took a few pictures of our back garden at Al Reef. I’ll do some of the inside next. We have got pretty much the smallest garden on the whole complex I reckon, but it will do for us.

The pool has had some use over the last couple of weeks while we had some family over and Caroline is now not working full time. It’s good weather now and nice to sit outside in the evenings in some cool air. Just need to keep to mosquitos at bay!