Yes, the week of the 16th turned out to be one hell of a week. I swear, I felt like a lightning rod in a thunder storm. I guess as spring has blossomed, so has peoples’… jerkosity?
Monday, April 16th
We had a break-in. Now, I don’t have anything in the house that’s really worth anything to anyone but me. A bunch of stuff that, by itself, is junk. Like the old laptops I have. They’re Pentium 100’s which I plan on installing Linux on and using as a dumb terminal or weather station, or some other thing - junk. Or like the other bits and bobs that really have no value of any kind. So what, you may be thinking, was taken? Well, my wife had (had) some jewelery (including her wedding ring), her digital camera and about 10 lbs of pocket change (maybe about 40 bucks). Not the TV, not the DVD player, not my wife’s laptop or anything else for that matter. For this little bit of stuff (almost not enough to even get past my deductible), my back door was broken in, bits of wood scattered everywhere, and everything we own is called into question - ew.
Where they casing the house? Yes, both to break in the first time, and to come back later to try and get more (read on). All the demographics I’ve looked at for this area say that we live in a pretty safe neighborhood. Plenty of college degrees, very high employment rates, even mix of race and ethnicity. None of this matters if you’re not low-profile enough. What I mean by low-profile is, you don’t look like a good target. You can do a lot to deter thieves just by putting lights on timers (for more and better tips see here via LifeHacker). Not that this would have helped us, this was a daylight robbery. Our neighborhood is mostly working stiffs - 9-to-5ers. Which means that between about 8:30 and 11:30 and 13:00 and 15:30 the streets are quite, deserted. Kids are at school, homemakers (both women and men) are out on errands still inside their houses doing chores or are out at lunch, etc. In other words no one’s around to see anyone or anything out of the ordinary. It also means that finding a good target is easy, just look for the houses without any vehicles around (like ours).
The thieves broke in through our side door on our car port, which is on a side of the house where we don’t have any neighbors to see someone suspicious. One of the first things we did when we moved in was to change not only the locks, but to replace the doors which were kind of old (one was a hollow-core, the other was wood, but had windows which where single-pain and easy to reach the door knob after breaking). We replaced the back door, but not the door jam. So there was only a forty-year-old piece of 1-inch wood holding the doorknob and deadbolt in place. Pretty easy to break.
They took a moment to get a snack from the refrigerator, then skipped our daughter’s bedroom, the living room and the bathroom (starting to see some good places to hid stuff?) and tossed our bed room. They looked under the corners of the bed, the dresser, the closet and that was about it. I’ve heard that it’s good to leave a bit of money (forty, sixty, maybe eighty dollars in cash) in a place that’s easy to find, but not too easy, so that the thieves don’t have to look to hard to find something worth while so they’ll leave more quickly. This may be a good idea, after all, during the day you don’t want to be seen carrying something too big or odd around, so you’re going to be looking for small things. But, I don’t think they’d stop with the money. If they think there’s a woman in the house, they’re going to look for jewelery. Which means it’s a good idea to hide you’re really good jewelery separately from you’re just so-so stuff (which you leave in a little easier place to find).
My wife was out at a bookstore before she went to pickup our daughter at school, so we have a good idea of when they broke-in. My wife called me at work to let me know, then called the police, we made a report, I called the insurance company, then fixed the door for the night. Then we cleaned the house. Then we listened to the news and I heard about the VT thing. When it rains it pours…
Tuesday, April 17th
My father came down from Virginia (he lives about an hour from us) and helped me put in a new door (complete with door jam this time). Lucky thing too, I would’ve been all day at just getting the old one out. We got everything back together, we added some extra metal straps to the door jam between the jam and the framing and when we put in the larger plate for the deadbolt, we put the screws in through it. We got the door jam installed and shimmed it up really well against the framing so that the jam couldn’t be deformed (like with a crowbar) to pop the door open that way. We replaced the screen door and I cleaned up.
Wednesday, April 18th
I was feeling pretty good, I had the door replaced, the house was cleaner now than it had been in a while (yes we’re still renovating) and I thought to myself that, since there wasn’t anything left to take of value, we where pretty safe again. Then I got home, that evening. The first thing I noticed where a few marks similar to the ones on the door I had replaced. Not as bad, but still there. I was pissed. I opened the door, no real damage, but fuck! There were the marks, and someone HAD tried to get in again (hehe, they couldn’t get the door to deform to pop it open - SUCCESS! kind of). I checked the back windows, did a walk around of the house looking for anything out of the ordinary, checked with my wife to see if she had seen the marks. Sure enough, they had tried to get in again that morning, when no one was around. I called the police and made another report - then I called ADT. Now I’m feeling like I’m trapped in my house, if no one’s around the house someone’s going to try and get in. I feel like everything I know is wrong (remember those statistics/demographics I was talking about?), my judgment is bad, etc., etc.
Thursday, April 19th
Fortunately, my boss is understanding (having been broken into a few years ago while he was out of town on business), he had given me the number of ADT, which our company has employee discount with. But they wouldn’t be able to install our new security system until the following Monday. I was able to go home and work from home when my wife left for work, so someone was home the whole day. Again, I was feeling trapped and stupidly paranoid.
Friday, April 20th
I reserved a 5×5 ft storage unit, so I could move a bunch of my crap out of the house on Saturday. I decided not to go home while the house was empty. Turns out, even crooks need a day off. That night we heard a bunch of the rowdy neighborhood kids (thugs?) walking through the streets (we live on a cut-through-type street that gets a lot of foot traffic).
Saturday, April 21st
I walked out to my truck to go over and do the paperwork for the storage unit and what do I see on my truck? Is that spit? No way anyone could have that much mucus. Is it vomit? No, its… an egg. Some ____ _______ _____ _____ (you fill in the blanks, I just don’t have the words for this type of thing crap, I’m at a loss) had egged my truck. Probably the same ass who tried to break in and couldn’t (oh yeah? try and protect your stuff from me will yah? *chuck*). **SIGH**. Take a deep breath. Wash it off. Keep going…
Conclusion??
Any way, I got a bunch of my stuff out of the house that doesn’t really need to be there, and now we have a security system installed (it’s more of a thing where we got stickers to put on the doors and a sign in the yard then any real security…). Having this stuff out of the way should allow me to concentrate on doing what I need to do for our remodel. So I guess we get the remodel done and get the hell out of Dodge. We planned on doing this anyway - renovating and selling - I guess this just lights a fire under my ass to do it quicker…
A lucky disaster if you will…
Lessons Learned (added 070507)
If you can afford a home security system, then it may give you piece of mind and may deter most thieves. Honestly though, if someone wants in badly enough, not much will/can stop them (at best, locks will only keep honest people honest, as in my case, they may have no effect due to other circumstances). If you’re going to hide things, don’t do it in the master bedroom or freezer, hide the stuff in either your children’s bedroom (in plastic furniture or the like, somewhere where you’re kids won’t really get to it either), or the bath room. Keep in mind that a safe or other *large* or *heavy* objects like TVs won’t be as attractive to someone as loose cash or jewelry, so hide accordingly. I was thinking that a hidden safe in the bathroom might be a good idea.
