Shop ruined after burglers cause deliberate flooding
The Oxfam charity shop on Greater George's Street in Waterford City has been "ruined" after a break-in over the weekend. Photo: Erin Gahan
A Waterford City charity shop has been "ruined" after a break-in over the weekend left the building flooded, out onto the street.
The building, on Greater George's Street in Waterford City, was broken into on Friday evening, according to the building owner Noel Conroy, who said he received a phone call on Sunday morning about water leaking through the Oxfam shop on the ground floor and onto the street.
Mr. Controy told the Waterford News & Star that the perpetrators, suspected to be a group of teenage boys, broke into the upstairs area of the building and "ransacked the inside of the building", turning on water taps and blocking the sinks.
The water, Mr. Conroy explained, effectively flooded the entire building, coming down through the ceiling of the second storey onto the first storey, and further still into the ground floor of the building where the Oxfam charity shop is located.
"They have also ruined everything in the shop," Mr. Conroy said. "All of their stock is ruined, and then, of course, I'm left footing the bill for the repairs to the shop, the repairs to the building above it; and not only that, but I have to pay for the water they used to flood the building as well."
"I'm just a regular Joe trying to get by in life,” he added.
“I have a family to feed and to look after, and I have to pay for this out of my own pocket. There's no insurance to cover it. So their, sort of joke or whatever, is going to cost me somewhere in the region of about €50,000, that’s my income for the year.”
It's not only repairs the shop will need, Mr. Conroy told the Waterford News & Star, but support from the community too.
The Oxfam charity shop on the ground floor of his building depends on community donations and engagement, and with their stock severely damaged from the incident, he's asking the community to help them out with donations when they reopen.
"I'm fuming, along with a lot of other things, that somebody would do this. It's a charity shop, you know, it's not as if it's, I don't know, an Elon Musk Tesla sales outlet or something. I'm just a bit surprised with that."
