If nothing good comes from this, I want to share what I think I've learned with others, and some things for people to think about. Maybe it will help someone else out. Note I'm certainly no authority, and any home robbery would be different from another. But here's my two cents.
I'd always thought of houses getting broken into at night when people were home, sleeping. Everything I thought was turned upside down. My house was broken into during the day, when I was at work. But my neighbor saw the whole thing happen.
Thief strategy: knock on the front door, see if anyone is home, if not then break in through the back.
There's several things that could have happened, and I don't know what I would have done if they had happened. I still don't know. It still bothers me that I don't know what I would do. (not in a obsessive "what-if" or "I would've/should've/could've" way, but in a "I should learn from and be more prepared in the future" way.) So I think people, including myself, should think about and consider these things:
I consider myself fairly friendly within my group of friends. But for some reason I have a hard time meeting my neighbors. We live within a close proximity. Yet many times I never get around to introducing myself to neighbors. I think there's many reasons/excuses for this.
- I feel awkward and don't know what to say. I don't want to bother them if they're doing yard work.
- I already have enough friends. I hope that doesn't make me a snob. But I'm very comfortable with my current circle of friends and not sure I want to change the dynamic or have to juggle my schedule between disjointed groups of friends.
- I think maybe we don't have anything in common (many of my neighbors are married with children).
- I don't want them to know me out of fear they'll judge me for anything they see me do around my house. (Not that they couldn't judge me anyway, but if we never speak, then they can't tell me about it.)
Think about this: how helpless would you feel if you were home, watching your neighbor's house getting broken into, they weren't home, and you had no idea how to contact them? You would call the police first. But then what?
I'm lucky because my neighbor was able to call me and let me know what was going on. Worse would be him not being able to call me, and my coming home from work, by myself, to find broken patio door and glass everywhere, and by then my house would have been very cold from the door missing for hours on a cold December day. And God help my furnace motor for probably running all day by that point and never able to keep up.
Lesson learned: Get to know your neighbors. You really can watch out for each other.
2. What would you do if someone was banging on your front door?
In this day and age, where everyone I know has cell phones, I don't answer the door when someone knocks or rings the doorbell. Nobody I know arrives at my house without calling first. Nobody I know arrives at my house unexpectedly. I like it that way, actually. Based on that, I assume anyone knocking on my door is probably a solicitor of some sort, so I don't have to answer.
I thought maybe it was just me who avoided answering the door like this. But the more people I talk to lately, I find that many people have a similar philosophy, particularly among people in my demographic.
Think about this: I have no problem ignoring a normal knock on my door. But my neighbor observed louder than normal knocking, and eventually an attempt to kick in my front door. What would I have done if I was home when that happened? More importantly, what would I do in the future if I was home and someone was loudly knocking on or kicking my door? What should I do? What would you do? It bothers me that I still don't have a good answer to this question. And I wonder how many thieves are unpleasantly surprised by people who also don't answer their doors.
I'm lucky because I was not home and didn't have to decide what to do. But I know that ever since this event, I have basically a panic attack any time anyone rings my doorbell or knocks on my door, even knocking in a reasonable way.
Lesson learned: Well I'm still trying to figure this one out. :(
3. Secluded does not mean secure. I always liked the location of my house. In the back of a neighborhood with windey streets. With a privacy wall at the edge of the neighborhood, and a privacy fence of my own, too. It was appealing to me when I was looking for houses. As were houses on a cul-de-sac for the same reason of being more secluded and separated from traffic, and others in general. In fact most ads for homes seem to list such features as plusses.
Think about this: That level of seclusion means fewer eyes watching, which probably usually means fewer people around to potentially observe a crime.
I'm lucky because my neighbor's house is close to mine, and he happened to be home.
Lesson Learned always live in a populated area. The more populated, the more eyes and ears, the better. These things listed as plusses the next time I go to buy a house, will be negatives in my mind.
4. It's not personal. It's not, and I can't let my mind go there. They went through my underwear drawers! But it's not personal. They were looking for valuables. Sometimes people hide valuables in their underwear drawers. It's not personal.
I checked the police reports, and mine was the only house broken into that day. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. I feel better that nobody else in my neighborhood had to go through this. But it definitely makes me wonder, why me? But I have to keep telling myself, it's not personal.
Think about this: Maybe mine was the first in what would have been a break-in spree in my neighborhood. But because my neighbor was so quick to call the police, as soon as the police were anywhere close by, the thieves left the vicinity completely.
I'm lucky because, well, I'm not. But maybe someone else is.
Lesson Learned: Everything happens for a reason. And I may never know what that reason is.
5. Be Prepared. I can be lazy, I can procrastinate. I don't keep a lot of documentation about my property, whether it's photos, serial numbers, or whatever. I know I should. But I don't. It's an overwhelming, daunting task. I've come up with some ideas that I think are easy enough and have started to use to help me be prepared. Maybe someone else will find these ideas helpful.
Think about this: Some things I've read say burglers will be in and out of your home in 8 minutes. Some have said 5 minutes. Some even say 3 minutes. Therefore they're going to come in looking for very specific things and get out. Laptops, jewelry, money, drugs, etc. Small things, easy to grab, valuable.
I'm lucky because I had my laptop repaired a couple years ago, and the repair shop had the exact make, model and serial number on file. I didn't have it.
Lesson Learned: take inventory. Just do it. Make time. I've heard that it's good to take video and/or pictures of all the contents in your whole house, and keep a complete list of all items with makes, models and serial numbers. I find this hard to do, harder to maintain, and hard to find when needed. And it's a lot to do. But we still should try to do this.
At the very least, pick 3-5 of your most valuable or sentimental things and take pictures of them. Just 3-5 things. Take a photo of the serial number too, if it has one, then you don't have to write it down! Create an account on Evernote.com, email those pictures to your Evernote account (very easy if you have a picture phone with email capability). That way everything is in one place, and it's very easy to search for and find things later (Evernote will even allow you to search via text-recognition on the photos you've taken!)
What I particularly would have photographically documented ahead of time if I could go back:
1. Taken a picture of the serial number of my laptop when I bought it. Take also a picture that shows the make and model if it's on the computer, or even on the box, so I have it later.
2. Use another camera to take a pic of the make/model/serial of my digital camera.
3. Taken a photo of all my jewelry. Better if I laid it all out on a table and took a few picures. But even if it was still in the jewelry box when I snapped a quick photo of the contents, that would have been ok too and virtually effortless. I don't think my jewelry would be recovered anyway, but this pictures would be more for my own memories of the things I had. Some things I never wore much, but I enjoyed looking at every so often, and just having them. At least photos would preserve the memories of those very personal items (like neclaces from deceased grandmothers) a little better than what's in my head.
Other good reading:
http://www.urbachletter.com/Archive/Safety_0211_BurglaryPrevention.htm
http://www.securitysystemsreview.com/info/system/break_in.php
1 comment:
Good blog entry.
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