Lean Christmas for Halifax couple whose car was stolen

Luckily, Gus Linfield is only two years old so he won’t notice there are no Christmas presents this year.

The little boy’s parents, Peter Linfield and Meghan Patterson, who also have a seven-week-old baby girl, had their car stolen from outside their Fairview home last week. That happened a few months after they reduced their insurance coverage in order to save some money.

“We had gone out to buy groceries and do some errands and had come home, and she was sick and screaming and really upset. He had Gus, so I had a bag of groceries, and she was crying and stupidly enough I left the key in the car,” Patterson said in the couple’s small kitchen on Sunday morning. “I feel a little stupid, but in that moment, I wasn’t thinking. In the morning, we woke up and he looked out the window and said, ‘where’s our car?’ I ran to my jacket pocket and looked for my keys and they weren’t there, and we knew it was gone.”

Missing the family vehicle, plus two car seats and a stroller, Patterson called her dad first, and the police right after that.

“We normally have a camera set up, but we don’t right now because an electrician has to put in a new outdoor outlet,” she said. “I told the cops I didn’t have insurance, because a few months before I canceled my comprehensive coverage because I was paying so much and I wanted to pay as little as possible, but still know we wouldn’t be liable, should we hit someone.”

Other people in the neighbourhood have working surveillance cameras, and reported footage of a solitary man trying to break into cars that night.

“But it was so grainy they didn’t get a good image. He must have felt like he hit the jackpot when he found our car,” said Patterson, who also realized in the morning she had left her debit card in the car, so she was able to go online and see activity on the card. “Whoever stole it went down to the gas station and used the debit, and we thought that would be a lead on locating the vehicle.

“So, when the cops went down to check the footage, they saw buddy with his hood up, but they couldn’t recognize a face at all, but they did see the car itself and he had already taken the plates off.”

The couple laughs while telling the story, at the same time seemingly on the verge of crying.

“It’s devastating,” Patterson said.

The stolen car is a 2020 Hyundai Santa Fe that wasn’t financed because the couple purchased it with the proceeds from selling their previous car, plus a “once in a lifetime” bonus from his job.

After speaking with police, they are not optimistic of seeing their vehicle again.

“They said a lot of times they’ll use it for petty crimes and then torch it,” Linfield said.

Linfield works in supply chain management and Patterson is a support worker and a justice of the peace. They are temporarily using a car borrowed from an aunt.

“We need to sit down and re-budget. It’s so discouraging. We worked so … hard to have that car, and know we’re going have to work even harder to pay off whatever we get,” said Patterson said. “We’re trying to figure out how we’re going to cut, and from where.”

With both of their kids sick this week, it’s been a rough few days for the family.

Christmas plans? With the couple needing to come up with some mode of transportation, and thinking of ways to spend less on food, there won’t be anything left for Christmas presents or a tree.

“I don’t know yet,” Patterson said. “I don’t think we’re going to do anything.”