The way she tells it, she had just turned in for the night when her bedroom window was forced open and she heard someone trying to climb through, so she threw the light switch and scared them off. She then called the police, who took her statement and provisionally mended her window; after which she went back to bed and "slept like a baby".
Mum lives in a ground floor flat in a rejuvenated part of an inner city neighbourhood. I've never been entirely comfortable with her choosing to move there, even if I have to agree with her that her flat is really nice, all light and spacious, with a little garden at the back - but it doesn't change the fact that the neighbourhood just isn't a good one. And, as it turns out, not a safe one, either.