Mindless burglars threw a television on the floor, smashed a printer and sprayed cream over the walls after breaking into a house.

Danielle Edwards, who lives with her mumKaren in Southview Road, Rettendon, came home from work to discover the house had been turned upside down and belongings deliberately broken.

In what is believed to be a half-an-hour raid on Monday night at about 9pm, the thieves took £400 in cash, as well as a bracelet given to Miss Edwards from her dad, who died two years ago.

Miss Edwards, a former pupil at Beauchamps High School, Wickford, who is training to be a chef, said her neighbours called her after they spotted four youths inside her house and chased them away.

The 18-year-old said: “I finished work at a pub in Chelmsford at 9pm and my mum left the house at about 8.40pm.

“We had just sat down to have dinner at the pub I work at when we got a phone call at 9.05pm from my neighbours saying they had just chased four boys out of the house.

“When we got home, the whole house was trashed.

“It is as if everthing they had picked up, they had tipped all over the floor.

“It was just mindless vandalism.

“They pulled my mum’s chest of drawers down, which had a TV on top.

“They kicked my bedroom door down, so there’s now a big hole in the door.

“They squirted cream up the walls and over the bedsheets.

“A frying pan from the kitchen was upstairs. It just seems stupid.”

Miss Edwards said the four boys were aged about 18, wore Adidas tracksuits and drove away in a Mondeo car.

She is also urging people to look out for the stolen bracelet, which has diamonds round the edge, and alert police on 101.