Hi!
How are you?
Me? Oh, I'm fine.
...
My wife got the call from ADT that our alarm had gone off. She ignored the call because it came from a number she didn't recognize. I do it too. Let's face it, for most of us if we get a call from an unfamiliar number it's most likely a.) wrong number if it's local, b.) political survey scam if it's not local, or c.) an 800 number that won't leave a message or wants to save my soul (those ASSHOLES).
So when she got the beep that she got a voice mail it was a bit of a surprise. She called them back and said, "CALL THE COPS! IT WASN'T ME THIS TIME!" And then she called every family member she could think of that might, just maybe, have broken into our home.
Then she got to the house and found a Sheriff's Deputy's car parked out front and him poking around inside.
I was 3-1/2 hours away with the girls at Gramma & Grampa's house. I was in my swimming trunks fixin' to jump in the pool.
One hysterical phone call later and we were packed and driving back to Houston. I called a friend of mine that worked not too far away from my neighborhood and had him go check on my wife. Ben was awesome. He left right away and stayed at the house while my wife finished with the deputy. He helped search for the now missing cat. They did not find the cat. Stephanie searched the neighborhood in her car for the cat. Yeah, no luck.
So I got home with the girls. I found the cat! And this:
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| Huh. How 'bout that. |
Then I had to figure a way to lock the door.
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| There. Fixed it. |
Using the education I received from reading The Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, and watching Murder She Wrote here's how I think things went down.
Our friendly neighborhood hoodlum, after casing the place for the week I was gone, came by at 11:30 am Monday. He rang the doorbell and knocked really loud. Getting no answer and completely unconcerned with the sign he had to walk right by that we have an alarm, he kicked the door in. Now, as people with alarms know, you have about 30 seconds from the time you open the door to enter your code to kill the alarm. I think this guy knew how long he had. Because once the alarm goes off here's what your alarm company does. They call the home. No answer? They call your second number, usually a cell. This is the call Stephanie didn't answer. Not getting an answer there, they call a secondary person that
does not live at your house. Ours is my best friend who, on that particular day, was in Oregon.
He texted me. "ADT just called - said your alarm went off at your house"
Me: "Our house was broken into. Would you mind going and checking on her? I'm coming home tonight, but not until at least 8 or 9."
Him: "I'm on my way back from Oregon. At the airport but won't be home for a little while."
Me: "Fuck"
For the record, this qualifies as an appropriate time and socially acceptable use of the word.
Our perp having kicked the door in now has 30 seconds to scan the living room and decide on his first target. The master bedroom. Not being his first breaking and entering, he knows where to search first and what to search for. First he headed to my side of the bed, the far side of the room, identifiably male by what was on the nightstand. Stacks of books and the remote controls. He searched the drawers and doors. Why? Guns. He was looking for a gun. Then he went to the wife's side, but didn't get a chance to search before the alarm went off. This thing is screaming throwing off his concentration. So he grabs the pillow and yanks the case off. He quickly grabs most of the jewelry boxes off my wife's shelf and leaves the room.
Left behind are two laptops, cash, her most precious and valuable jewelry, and the matching pillow case. He had already identified the office on his way in and quickly ran into this:
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| I call it the "convenience store" |
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| And this. |
Granted these are the after pictures. If I had a before pic there would be a firesafe visible somewhere. Well, Perp Eagle-eyes found the safe. So, with a pillow case full of jewelry boxes, he lifted the safe and managed to make it out the front door before setting the safe down. He discovered it was
unlocked! And full of file folders and documents. He abandoned it in the bushes and ran.
What he got away with:
A fat stack of empty jewelry boxes
Stephanie's high school class ring
A promise ring (I have no idea)
Some neat jewelry she was saving for the girls
A box of safety pins
A pillow case
So what have we learned? Three things.
1.) Having an alarm system can be useful.
2.) Clutter is useful! Keep that shit out! Shake it up!
3.) Make a goddamn display with those empty jewelry boxes and hide the good stuff.
And I won the "find the cat" contest. Took me like two minutes.
And this guy was arrested breaking into a house the very next day:
LINK!
I think I now know why he gave up on the safe, if this was the guy that robbed my house. 5' 9" and 113 lbs. Certainly no heavy weight.
My house was broken into on a Monday. There were two other houses broken into the next day, and this skinny shit was caught at one of them. That makes seven homes broken into over the past 3 weeks in my immediate neighborhood.
We made the news! That's exactly what our property values needed.
Well, the break-ins stopped immediately there-after. More arrests have been made since then, but further away. We're looking into a more secure door but I'm not sure our budget can handle it. Stephanie wants something that should another attempt be made to break down the door, the twit will not only break his foot in the attempt but somehow our burglar alarm will proceed to castrate him as well.
Talk about a crime deterrent.
"Dude! The sign says they have a burglar alarm!"
"So? Smash and grab, man. We'll be gone before the cops know we're here."
"What if they have the new castration system?"
"..."
"You know the one where it senses the door smashing in and it grabs your ankles yanking them apart and the blades..."
"Fuck it. Let's try the next house."
