"Bloody disgusting. I felt like giving it away - it was the fourth time," said Ralph Sawyer. "I've never seen anything like it."
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Wingham Nursery and Florist staff arrived at work on Saturday, May 18, to find intruders had broken into and trashed the premises, breaking a window to get in, all to take away a torch and a tin on the counter holding donations to a charity.
"There could be something else gone that we don't know about yet; they just made such a mess it was incredible," Ralph said.
"The cops think it was kids."
It is the fourth time in four years the nursery has been broken into, with the time before this being in November 2018, and the one previous 12 months before.
"It gets you a bit disheartened," Ralph said.
Our main product is plants - and most sales are nearly always Eftpos. We seriously have nothing to steal or worth taking your time looking for.
- Tanya Sawyer
That is, until a customer came in that morning and offered to help clean up the mess.
"That lifts you up a bit, like there's light at the end of the tunnel," Ralph said.
Ralph's daughter-in-law, Tanya, posted the photos on Facebook and put a call out for anyone who knows anything to contact police.
"Please report it or at the very least let these people know that we're getting sick of the broken glass, wrecked tools, thrown chemicals and the whole contents of the shop being strewn all over the place," Tanya said.
"As a small business we pride ourselves on what we do. We live and love it - employing local staff and just simply enjoying being part of our beautiful local community. But every time this happens the disheartenment grows. It's taken the whole weekend to clean up and we are still going. The amount of time spent picking up the aftermath is getting ridiculous."
Security has been tightened at the nursery as a result of the last break in, with further security options being investigated.