Years of Annabelle Barringer's photography work was stolen when burglars ransacked her Edgeware home.

For Annabelle Barringer, 2016 was meant to be the year she took her photography to the next level.

Instead, the 24-year-old's new computer and hard drives - with five years of personal photos and university projects - have been swiped in a daytime burglary.

She has no contents insurance.

Barringer's flatmate had left their Edgeware home for just over an hour when burglars broke in on Wednesday. She returned at 4pm to find the house a mess.

"There was just stuff everywhere. The whole bedroom had been tipped upside down."

The burglars got in through a bedroom window and left out the front door.

"The neighbours were home when it happened. They heard a bunch of crashing and banging, but they didn't realise it was us," Barringer said.

Between Barringer and her two flatmates, they estimated the cost of stolen goods to be almost $10,000.

Other items stolen were playstations, hard drives, jewellery, iPads, cell phones, shoes, chargers, birthday cards, clothes, handbags, medicine and Barringer's new HP computer.

By 1am on Thursday morning, the new computer and football boots were listed on a Christchurch Buy, Sell and Trade page on Facebook, as "unwanted Christmas presents".

Barringer said money could not bring back the "thousands and thousands of photos" she had stored on hard drives and her laptop, many taken for her photography studies at Massey University.

"It cuts me the most. Someone has taken it and completely erased all the countless hours of studying and writing and images that I had taken in the last five years. It pains me to think if they can't get anything for it, they'll just throw it away."

"It had my whole life on it."

"You enter the new year thinking, 'I'll make myself better'. Then it gets taken away."

The flatmates had lived in the Edgeware property for two months. Barringer said she started to arrange contents insurance before Christmas, but life got busy before she could finalise a policy.

Her friends had spotted other items from the burglary on different Facebook pages, but Barringer and her flatmates were yet to locate their possessions.

"You never think it's going to happen to you. It's not a good start to the year," she said.

A police spokesperson said they would pursue any lines of inquiry.