An Auckland woman whose home has been made unlivable by the recent flooding says it feels like a “kick in the teeth” that thieves stole her valuables and tipped out her brother’s ashes.

Shackleton Rd homeowner Gayl Humphrey had scrambled to save what little she could as her house started to flood on Friday, carrying her mother’s jewellery, cameras and two family members’ ashes to a small upstairs area.

“I think with many houses all over Auckland that were impacted, you were able to save just the small things that were really important.

“You just think, floods done, time for the clean up, deep breath, it’s going to take a while.”

After moving what she could to higher ground she said she left the home and returned a few days later on Tuesday only to discover the break-in.

The garage door, she said, was wrenched “off its tracks” and her large kitchen window had been “crowbarred” off with its latches broken.

“I stood there for five minutes thinking, no, can’t be, truly can’t be. Maybe my son has got here, no he’s at school, you know how you think, it can’t be.”

Humphrey said other houses along the street had also been broken into.

 “The thing that rocked me was that they sort of just tossed this box that my mother’s ashes were in, [it was] sort of upside down and into a corner, and my brother had died a few more years before that and we had a beautiful rimu box made for his ashes and they’ve tipped his out and taken the box.”

While she said the box could have potentially been thrown elsewhere by the thieves, she was unable to find it and his ashes had been emptied from it.

Her belongings were ransacked. Photo / File

Humphrey told the Herald if the thieves had just opened the box before tipping it up they would have known it did not contain jewellery.

“That was it, that was the bit where I just thought, hasn’t this flood been enough? Did someone really have to come in and create such [a mess], for bugger all.”

The thieves, she said, stole her mother’s jewellery, cameras, her passport and foreign currency.

 “Life is tough for a lot of people, and just because we’ve got a house, doesn’t mean that we’ve got bottomless pits of resources.”

She warned others with flood-damaged houses should be aware of thieves.