Stay the F*&% Out Of My House!

Everyone seems to have a storey - as I’ve been telling people about our house being burglarized I’ve been amazed how many people have had the experience of coming home to find out there had been a stranger in their home – a couple of people either came home to find their house broken into or walked in while it was occurring - one actually woke up with an intruder standing over he and his husbands bed!

Having someone break into your home is more disturbing than being a victim of theft outside the home. As an adult, I’ve never had anyone break into my home but it’s not like I’ve never had something stolen from me. Kent and I have lived in our home for 11 years and in that time we have had two other incidents of theft – both outside. We had our car stolen once and another time we had our truck broken into. For a short period of time we had three cars and because we have a two car garage we had one vehicle outside. We quickly downsized to two cars so we could keep them both secure in the garage. On another occasion last summer while vacationing at Lake Chelan we had both our bikes taken – now that I think about it we have had a string of bad luck!

Yesterday when I got home the first thing I noticed was that our dog Toby was not right there at the garage door scurrying out before the door was open more than a few inches. I figured he must have been sleeping and I caught him off guard – unusual but not impossible. Once the door was almost completely open he came running out. The next thing I noticed was the door that we close to keep Toby in a secure area of the house was open. My first thought was Kent must have left the door open and it explained why Toby had not been at the garage door - he had obviously been sleeping on the bed upstairs – again unusual but not entirely impossible.

My ability to continue to rationalize the two events that were “unusual” came to a screeching halt as I turned the corner from the laundry room into the library and saw that our TV was gone. It’s pretty big and so it became immediately obvious that our house had been burglarized.

First thought is - are they still in the house? What’s the right thing to do? There’s so many things simultaneously occurring - Toby is running around more worked up than usual, I notice the refrigerator door open, I see dirty boot prints on the carpet, drawers are ajar and rifled through – what’s my meat cleaver doing in the family room – theirs no noise – the dog is not acting like there is anyone in the house – get to the phone and call 911.

“911 what’s your emergency?” the Operator says,

“I’ve just arrived home to find out my home has been burglarized”

“Is the intruder still in the house?”
“I don’t know for sure but I don’t think so” I reply,

“Are there any firearms in the home or ones that may have been stolen?”

“No”

“Ok – don’t’ touch anything and I’ll get an officer out as soon and I can”.

Time to call Kent – he heads right home –next text to my friend Jennifer “Just got home and somebody broke into our house today” - followed by an immediate text back – “What? Is Toby okay? What’s the damage? Call me!!!!”

It’s time to walk around the entire house and see what’s gone. TV was obvious – they had attempted to take the TV in the living room but it’s secured by a wall bracket and was too difficult to take. I continue upstairs – Office, the desktop computer is fine. Bedroom, dresser drawers are open and had been rummaged through. Guest bedroom, closet doors are open, the safe is gone! Crap – passports, birth certificates, social security cards, credit cards, etc….. more dirty footprints.

No one is in the house –time to call my friend Jennifer – I continue to walk around the house while talking to her looking for more items and seeing if I can identify exactly how they got into the house. Kent arrives home, he notices that the laptop that usually sits on the dining room table is gone from –he walks around outside and sees that the lock to the back gate has been broken – tool shed has been broken into – nothing is apparently missing but a big pry bar is on the back deck and had been used to pry open the metal french doors.

Call the bank – block accounts, cancel credit cards, add new security measures to accounts, submit notices to the credit score companies to prevent identity theft. What about the passports – were going to Europe next month, birth certificates? What a nightmare this is never going to end.

Police arrive 3 ½ hours later! Damn county budget! Cop is very nice – takes finger prints, neighbor comes over to report his house had been burglarized earlier in the day – may have caught something on video.

Making dinner - go to measure food, scale is gone – crap how long is this going to happen that I go to use something only to discover it’s been stolen? Who was in our house – why us? Are they going to come back – time for popcorn – WTF.

Restless night – It’s all going to be alright – security system on the way!

Be safe –

Jim