An unusual howling from his two pet dogs woke a 31-year-old Deakin man early on Wednesday morning. What he witnessed next was the flashing lights and screeching tyres of a car speeding down his driveway.
"Five minutes later, I stepped out of the house and my car was gone," said the resident, whose home was allegedly targeted by two masked thieves. The shaken victim spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The duo broke into the property, located near the Italian embassy in the inner south suburb of Canberra, at about 3.10am on Wednesday. While the resident slept on the ground floor, the intruders allegedly combed the house and took the keys to the man's white 2014 Volkswagen Golf before driving it away.
With his vehicle gone, the resident remembered a small camera he had placed on the kitchen table to monitor his dogs. The footage left him stunned.
"It was quite eerie and kind of gross to have thieves enter when there are people in the house. I guess I was lucky," he said, relieved that neither he nor his pets were harmed during the home invasion.
The victim believes the thieves were actually targeting his wife's black Mercedes-Benz, which was parked on the circular driveway next to his "average" car. His wife was travelling at the time of the burglary.
"They came for my wife's Merc but took my Golf," he said. "It's a nice black one parked outside next to my average car. There are definitely signs they came for that."
While the keys to the Golf were sitting in a bowl in the kitchen, the keys to the Mercedes were kept in a different part of the house.
"It was just random," the victim said, suspecting the intruders had rummaged through the home in a failed bid to locate the luxury car's keys.
"It's not an easy house to break into. They had to come through my neighbour's place. I don't know how they got in."
The home invasion and car theft have left the Deakin family deeply shaken, particularly with the man's wife due to return home soon.
As the situation unfolded, the victim received news from ACT Policing that his white Golf had been recovered, though it had sustained a "fair bit of damage".
He remains anxious about the condition of the vehicle following the theft and a suspected joyride by the offenders. He awaits word from the police to view his vehicle.
