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Our home was broken into a few nights ago.
No one was hurt, and nothing was stolen.
The perpetrator damaged our front door. He kicked in a beveled decorative panel, the one nearest the doorknob, presumably hoping to reach in and unlock the dead bolt. Wooden pieces of our front door were scattered in our foyer.
But the alarm system went off, and the perp ran -- better to just flee and victimize another house than risk getting caught. The alarm system we just had installed saved us and paid for itself.
I received a call from the security system company shortly after it got dark. The man on the other end said that an alarm had been tripped at our house, and a deputy was being dispatched to check it out. I thought little of it, thinking it might just be an animal or a faulty sensor and asking myself what the odds are that we are being burglarized.
Less than an hour later, I got another call -- with a caller ID of our home land line. OMG. It was the deputy, calling from inside our house. He said he'd let himself in via the hole in our front door. He did a walk-through of the house and said that he didn't notice anything that was obviously missing, such as a TV, but that we should come home and not only check out the door but make sure ourselves that nothing was missing.
We dashed from work, my computer still running, half a coffee getting cold. It was a bad night to leave -- a person from each of our departments had called in sick, so both departments were barely getting by.
It had never taken so long for a light to change or for us to get home. Only when you are in a frantic hurry do you end up behind a city bus or catch every red light.
We pulled into the driveway, and we could see the hole in our front door. I thought for sure Kitty had fled out the hole long before we got there. She used to be a stray, so she's always looking for ways to get outside. I only hoped she'd come back to us someday. As for Amber, since she's deaf, she might not have heard a thing and may still have been sleeping peacefully in our bedroom. I wasn't as worried about her.
Two deputies greeted us before we went in. One was in uniform, the other was a plainclothes deputy with a badge hanging around his neck who said he lived in the area and stopped when he saw a deputy's car with its lights on in front of our driveway. "We looked around pretty thoroughly and don't think anything's missing," Uniformed Deputy said. "But your Garibaldi almost lost his head," said Plainclothes Deputy.
For anyone who's been to my house or old apartment, "Garibaldi" is Michael Garibaldi, chief of security of Babylon 5. I have a life-sized cutout of him in our computer room. (I also used to have a life-sized cutout of Deep Space 9 doctor Julian Bashir as well, but he had seen better days and would no longer stand up on his own. So I retired him.)
"I'm impressed you know who Garibaldi is," I said. "I really should prop him up in the window from now on so people think someone's home." It still manages to scare me every now and then.
Amber was perched near the front door. She must have come into the living room thinking we were home, but found two large, strange men switching on lights instead. She's completely unafraid of people, so she just made herself comfortable there to watch the activity.
We searched the house. I mentally noted that all the closet doors were open and a few of their contents pushed aside, presumably by the deputies.
Nothing had been taken. I breathed a big sigh of relief that the laptop I purchased days before was still sitting on the office desk.
There was Kitty! She hadn't left after all! I guess she got spooked and hid in the bedroom. She peeked her head around the corner and looked up at us. Whew. What a relief.
While Uniformed Deputy ran to his car to get a report for us to fill out, Plainclothes Deputy engaged me in nerd talk, telling me he used to watch Babylon 5 religiously (so did I, for a while) and that he recently had been watching Stargate. I don't follow that one, but my dad is a rabid fan. Getting back on topic, he said that there had been some small reports of criminal mischief in the area, but nothing really serious. He was aware of a group of young hoodlums who lived nearby -- we weren't too happy to hear that -- but he seemed to think they weren't dangerous and were more of the vandal variety. We all shook hands again and thanked him one last time for stopping by before he left.
Uniformed Deputy came back with a short report to fill out. We asked what we could do about the break-in attempt and if the perp would be caught. "No way, really," he said. "He didn't take anything and doesn't appear to have gotten in. The only thing we can do is file a report for criminal mischief and increase patrols in the area." What about fingerprints? "We only fingerprint when a felony has occurred." Stephen finished up the report and we thanked Uniform for his quick response to our house.
Now that the deputies were gone, the house was quiet again. It was just me, Stephen -- and a gaping hole in our front door big enough for a small person to slip through.
We needed a carpenter or handyman to come out and replace the door stat. But in the meantime, the only thing we could do was to patch the hole.
I raced to Lowe's and bought a sheet of plywood while the BF waited at home. We nailed it over the hole, which would have to do until the door was replaced. We couldn't both go back to work, though. There was no way we could leave the house unattended with the front door in that condition. I stayed, while the BF hurried back to work.
A couple of hours later, while I passed some time on a computer, I heard the security alarm chime, meaning a door or window was ajar. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. I tiptoed into the kitchen -- foolish, now that I think about it -- to see if I could see anything. My breathing was shallow. What could have caused the alarm to chime? Was this a false alarm? I wasn't taking any chances. I tiptoed back into the computer room and quietly called the BF. "I just heard the alarm chime," I whispered, shaking. "I'd feel better if you came home." The BF was home within 20 minutes, to his credit. He went around the house twice with a flashlight -- I feared for his safety -- but the search turned up nothing. I can only assume that that time was a false alarm...
Several days later now, and our old wooden front door has been replaced by a fiberglass one. At the same time, we had the door to the carport -- a very, very old, weak door, which would have been the better door to break into -- replaced as well by a thick wooden door.
But to our dismay, the fat lazyasses we hired to do the installation botched several things, and did an all-around shitty job. The doors are functional, and the new expensive, warrantied deadbolts are doing their job. But the molding around the front door has been cracked in several places; a painted baseboard on the inside is missing and presumed thrown away during their cleanup; the screen door that was in front of the front door could not be reinstalled, so they just tossed it aside; they cracked the new carport door near the top hinge; it is slightly crooked; instead of using new hinges we bought, which are stronger, they used the old hinges on the new carport door; and the doorknob latch is missing two screws. And those are just the obvious, major problems.
We're already out $800 with all the replacement parts and the installation, and now we're going to have to hire another -- more professional -- carpenter or handyman to come out and fix the fuckups the first handymen did. Their job was absolutely unacceptable.
Last week was not a good week. I don't have to go very far out on a limb to say it was one of my worst weeks ever.
Current mood: Exhausted
Replies: 1 shoutout
ugh, I'm so sorry. what a horrible ordeal. I'm glad the kitties are OK.
Posted by tiff @ 12/18/2003 01:28 AM EST