Is my burglar mad?

So I was robbed. And he came back. So robbers do sometimes come back. Once.

But last night he came back again and tried to rob my neighbours. Oh yes.

The bugger is so bold, he didn't waste any sleep this time. At 22h00, my neighbour's wife walked into the bedroom and was confronted by the sight of a dread locked man standing in her garden. Of course she screamed. This either did not bother the burglar - or he froze before bolting.

I was in the shower when my phone rang. I am the body corporate trustee in charge of security. "Sorry to bother you so late IITQ, but would this be a convenient time to talk?"

My neighbour must be the most polite person on earth. "(L) spotted a guy in our garden and we've let the guards know and called the police. Should I be doing anything else?"

So I called our suburb's security and once again we had ex-soldiers (ex-recces, the SA equivalent of the SAS/Marines) with assault rifles running through the complex.

Naturally our gardening staff are a little concerned - they are after all having polygraph tests today. So post us having not found the terrorist again, one of the gardeners volunteered to take the security guys to the homeless vagrants up the road to quiz them. Shortly later I had two scared looking vagrants on my doorstep, one munching hungrily on some bread. Odd. But I didn't question that - other things were more odd and more pressing.

My gardener, "These guys know the guy who owns the bag we found with the torch from your house. He has dreadlocks and his name is Terence."

Alrighty. Turns out Terence is a Zimbabwean who smash and grabs from cars in Sandton, sells dagga to the builders in the area and has the nickname Rasta. It seems the man's talents are expanding.

Talents which, by the way, include getting over electric fences, past guards and up 2,5m walls.

By now, half the world's private security and the police are in my complex. I take the homeless to the police and they repeat the story. The police and the suburb security resolve to catch the man the next day. For his sake, I hope the police get him first. The security have offered to bring him to me.

Meanwhile, my home is becoming a massive worksite and interrogation room. The polygrapher is in my study quizzing the frightened gardeners. The alarm people are rewiring and adding everywhere. By coincidence the pond guy arrived to fix something. The carpenter arrived to fix my damaged door and lock. The complex security management are on their way. My client deliverables are way behind. And I write a maths exam next week. And I need sleep.

Oh, turns out one of the ex-recces bought the vagrant the bread as a tongue loosener. Apparently it worked.

WTF?

After sleeping through my Monday night robbery, I was awake for its reprise last night.

I'd worked until 03h00 and was settling in for my sleep when I heard a noise. Armed with a piece of steel rebar that has been beside my bed since Monday, I inched down the dark passage. Never turn the lights on they say - you become a better target for a bullet.

I rounded the corner to see the shape of a crouching burglar on my patio. My shout as I chased towards him was the weird roar, "You fucking bastard!"

The dark shape turned and ran. He slipped as he tried to cross my koi pond. In a flash he was up again. He raced across the garden an vaulted the garden wall into the complex gardens.

I raced back to my room, called the police, suburb security and armed response.

I spent the next hour scouring the complex with first the suburb security, ex-recces with assault rifles, then the police and then the armed response.

Nothing. Either this guy knows a good way over our boundary wall and electric fence or he's coming from the inside.

All I know is he's one brazen fucker.