the break-in

You never think you’re going to be the one… Yesterday around 1PM Joe gets a call on his cell from our home phone. It’s the police. Someone has broken into our home.

The two of us race home to find four police cars parked out front and the warning to not touch anything since they are still trying to get prints. This is one of them trying to get prints off of the TV that was mounted to the wall. Looks like they stood on the table and pulled to no avail.

Here is a peak behind the wall mount. At minimum we will have to have the dry wall repaired. Hopefully that stud is intact.

Our front door was in shambles when we came home. Apparently it is pretty easy to kick in most doors. The deadbolt just tore right through the frame.

 

Here are some remnants of our door.

 

So we could actually leave the house to, well, look for a new door Joe was able to rig us up some new framing so the door would actually close and lock for the time being. Not bad! You have to love wood flooring re-purposed as part of a door.

From what we can tell it looks like we got off pretty easy. Our neighbor came home for lunch and it looks like it may have spooked them into leaving in a hurry. They got away with a flat screen TV, Wii plus games, Playstation 3, and a few other small items but they left some other things by the door and there was a lot more that could have been taken. Our neighbor didn’t realize what was going on until he left his house later and saw our front door wide open, that’s when he called the police and reported it. I’m just thankful they left quickly and that we came home to the police and not an emptied out house, or random people. You just have to look at the upside to these things.

 

Here’s a few of the officers checking out another TV that they were hoping would have prints… looks like they may have been smart enough to wear gloves.

 

This is what I had to drink after everyone left the house.

 

Oddly, I don’t feel violated so much as pissed off that someone thinks it’s OK to just help themselves to things that we have worked hard for. It’s just hard to fathom the mindset of someone who thinks that breaking in an stealing someone’s things is perfectly acceptable behavior. I really don’t get it.

Today the Brinks guy came by and now we have an activated (and yes, it’s on right now) alarm system. That makes me feel better about the rigged up front door. Still waiting for the door guys to call and come by so we can get an estimate on having a new more secure door installed.

As odd as it seems, I feel like we were lucky and that this is a lesson learned. Never thought I would say it, but Hooray for the new alarm system! I feel better already. Well, at least a little.