“Did the bad people come back last night Daddy?”

That is the heart-breaking question Toowoomba father-of-four Aaron McMahon’s toddler asks him every morning since their house was broken into three weeks ago.

Brazen teenage car thieves spent two hours breaking into the Middle Ridge family’s home where they stole two cars and sentimental items such as a watch and handbag.

Mr McMahon and his wife felt sick to their stomachs when they woke the next morning to discover the thieves had used a Stanley knife to cut open the flyscreens on their children’s bedroom windows before eventually climbing through a narrow toilet window to gain entry to the house.

“It is terrible feeling to have your house broken into – the one place where you are meant to feel safe – and to have your sense of control taken away from you,” Mr McMahon said.

“My children are scared to sleep by themselves. My wife is very traumatised,” he said.

“Just the thought of three or four masked offenders walking around inside our home (possibly with a knife), past our children’s bedrooms…our minds are filled with horrible ‘what ifs’ as our children often wake up during the night.”

Member for Toowoomba South David Janetzki MP said the scourge of burglaries and car thefts had left behind a growing number of traumatised families.

“Offenders are now more brazen than ever, and they will not stop until they have found a way into homes – disturbing the peace of families and their children,” Mr Janetzki said.

“I’ve had a number of parents say that their children need counselling to overcome their fears of being broken into again,” he said.

CCTV footage at the family’s home showed the group of offenders initially arrived at 11pm on a recent Friday night and spent 20 minutes surveying the outdoor security cameras, checking the locked doors, and shining torches through the windows.

They returned later at 1.15am where they spent the next two hours meticulously trying to open every window and door until the skinniest of the teenagers squeezed through a toilet window and unlocked a side door to let his friends inside around 3.10am. They crept past the bedrooms where the children, aged 14, 8, 6 and 3, slept.

Once the group searched the house and found keys, wallets, handbags and a watch they opened the garage door manual release and stole the two cars. Mrs McMahon’s car was found in Warwick while Mr McMahon’s car was found abandoned after it crashed near Ipswich.

Mr McMahon said they believe the offenders had set their sights on his wife’s new car as she was followed home from the Range shopping centre by a strange car the week beforehand.

More than 700 cars have been stolen from Toowoomba in the past 12 months.