A woman was dismayed to wake up to find someone had poured a tin of gloss paint over her car in a quiet village.
Sue Skyba believes the act of vandalism, which has caused hundreds of pounds worth of damage to her yellow Volkswagen Beetle convertible, was carried out by someone who mistakenly thought her family were holidaymakers visting during the lockdown.
Sue, 63, who was staying in the house in Duporth, near St Austell, Cornwall said: “I can only assume people thought it was someone on holiday.
"My son has an auto-immune disease and my neighbour has kindly let him move into his holiday home as we have to self-isolate due to returning from abroad.”
Her son Philip, 40, had been living in her home after splitting from his wife while they visited their other son in Australia.
However, he was forced to move out after they travelled home via Singapore as the pandemic took hold.
Sue added: “We got home and had to self-isolate and, of course, were a possible risk to Philip's health as he’s on immuno-suppressant drugs, so our neighbour kindly let him move into the holiday home his family often stay in.
“Signs have appeared in the village saying ‘visitors stop spreading the virus’ so I think someone thinks that there are visitors in the holiday home.”
Sue says it will take hundreds of pounds to repair but her car but it is more likely to be declared a write-off.
“I’m really angry because I have two jobs, neither of which I can do – I help look after holiday homes, which are obviously closed, and I work in Asda, but can’t at the moment because I’m isolating. So I can’t work to pay for the repairs on my car.”
She added: “As well as people dying, there’s an awful of hardship and someone adds to it by doing this.”
The incident has been reported to the police and anyone with information can call police on 101.
