When we arrived in the parking lot at 9:30 to drive over there we discovered a horrible thing. The car was not there. We looked all over the lot, but with no luck. So we called our landlord and told him we would be late because we had to go to the police station to report this. It took us about 45 minutes to finally locate and get to the nearest police station. There, Danny spent about 75 minutes explaining what happened (parked the car at 2 pm Wednesday, it wasn't there at 9:30 am Thursday.)
Auto theft is very rare in Singapore so the officers were having a hard time believing that the car wasn't either taken by another family member or else repossessed by the financing company. It made things even more difficult when I explained that the car was not actually mine, but that I was borrowing it for six months while friends were in the states. Eventually they were able to complete the report and Betsy and I got on the bus to head to our old home and meet with the landlord.
This was the good part of the day. The landlord was very pleased with the apartment and wrote us a check for the full deposit. God is so good; the landlord could have waited as much as two weeks before he had to give us the money.
When we got to our new home I quickly wrote an email to the owner of the car to let him know what happened. He was very gracious, but of course asked us to continue following up on what was going on.
We didn't hear any more about the car until Saturday when I checked my email. Another family is staying in Rick's home (he owns the car). Apparently the traffic police had called to let them know that the car had been involved in an accident. They emailed Rick who emailed us this new information. So, I called the neighborhood police station to find out what was going on. They told me that if the traffic police had the car I needed to contact them (apparently they are different agencies that don't communicate very well.)
I called the officer in charge at the traffic police and found out that the car had been hit in the parking lot, and since they were unable to contact the owner, they towed the car! He said I could pick it up between 2 and 4 on Monday afternoon and asked me to come meet with him at about noon. I tried to get better information on what happened to the car, but he couldn't give me very much. He couldn't even tell me if it was drivable!
So, Monday was another adventure! I went the the police station hoping and praying I could pick up the car. Well, after about two hours of waiting and then filling out another report I was able to go to the impound lot and get the car. Thankfully the damage was minor; mostly superficial. The back bumper will need to be replaced, as well as one of the side panels, but at least I can drive it until all the details are worked out.
So here is the short story as best I can figure it:
At approximately 9:49 pm on July 25th one of my neighbors (don't know who) arrived home and attempted to park his car. He caused damage to two cars (from the damage on our car it looks like maybe he hit mine and knocked it into the one next to it, but I don't know for sure). He then proceeded to finish parking and go into his home. Fortunately someone saw all this and reported it to traffic police. They are still investigating what happened. Apparently the owner of the car claims that he was not driving the car but cannot give a good explanation as to who was driving the car. The police also think that there may have been alcohol involved. So we are left to wait until the investigation is complete before we are able to get money from him or from his insurance to pay for the repairs!
It has been crazy, but at the same time, it is kind of fun having this crazy story to tell!
We are so grateful that God is in control of all things and that no one was hurt!
Here are a couple of pictures:
No comments:
Post a Comment