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smb814So, I had a nice long post nearly typed up yesterday afternoon dealing with overarching themes/premises in fiction that I'm a sucker for and an analysis of my favorite shows/games/books/movies/etc. to see how they measured up on that "theme scale." Then, shortly before I could finish it, I got a call from my mom, who'd just arrived home from work.
Our house was broken into sometime yesterday while we were all at work.
Needless to say, I dropped everything and went home...and the situation we found was rather bizarre, to put it lightly.
The thief broke in through a basement window along a sheltered (i.e. lots of trees along it so no one else could see him/her/them) side of the house. They broke through the bar over the window, and the glass itself went flying, oh, a good 15, 20 feet away from the window itself. They stepped down onto a refrigerator and went upstairs into my parents' bedroom. They rifled through some stuff on my mom's dresser, then went to my dad's dresser. They took all the change he had sitting out (which was a lot), all the rolls of pennies he had lying out, and about $1,000 worth of cash he had lying toward the top of his top drawer (money I had paid them for rent in the house and for the trip to Nashville, along with grocery money and other money my grandmother had given my dad not long ago). We're not sure if they took one of our credit cards, too, because they messed up the top drawer so much -- we thought they had taken two (both of which we immediately canceled, not that there was anything charged on them), but we found the MasterCard, so we're not sure yet if the Visa will turn up. They must have then left through the same window they crawled in through.
Which all sounds normal, right? Well, the window itself that they broke in through is tiny -- seriously. Not even 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide. There's a pit in front of the window that makes it very hard to maneuver into the window itself -- everyone who looked at it couldn't believe ANYONE had gotten in through there unless they were an acrobat or contortionist. The policeman found a footprint on top of the refrigerator that they said looked pretty small (I didn't see it before my parents cleaned up the basement, so I can't corroborate, but I'll trust a policeman when it comes to judgment on those kinds of things), leading them to think it was a small kid. Other than that, we found no trace evidence -- no blood, no fingerprints, no dirt/footprints, nada. We had a (loud) radio on in the living room (which we leave on all the time to deter thefts, and yes, you can hear it from anywhere inside the house), too, but that obviously didn't stop them.
But here's the kicker. They rifled through the bottom drawer in my dad's dresser, but missed all our trip money (several hundred dollars' worth...I'd say at least $500). They also missed all my mom's cash from my grandmother (another several hundred dollars' worth) which wouldn't have been hard to find on her dresser. They didn't touch any of our electronic stuff; no one touched our VCRs, TV, CD player, CDs, DVD player, nothing. My dad had at least $300 worth of scanners sitting right below the dresser that weren't touched. And, heck, whoever it was never even went upstairs to my room, where I had $140 worth of cash sitting out on a shelf right by the door, somewhere you'd have to be blind to miss. They didn't touch my Game Boy, Playstation, video games, DVDs, or CDs. They didn't even touch my digital camera, which was sitting right by the door -- there's no way they could have gone upstairs and missed any of that. And other than the basement window, they didn't damage anything.
It had to be a kid who did it (Joy's guessing it was something along the lines of a kid daring another kid to do it), but the sheer distance the glass flew in the basement was just...weird. No kid could have had the strength to make it go halfway across the basement, and even if he had a baseball bat, there's no swinging room in that pit by the window to get any oomph behind it! The fact that they missed so much easy-to-find stuff, too, was bizarre. Were they afraid, because the radio was on, that someone was home somewhere in the house, so when they found a good chunk of money, they took that and bolted? Was it a kid who was being told by a teen/adult what to do who didn't know any better? Anyone who got into the basement HAD to have heard the radio. No other windows were touched (even the normal-sized window directly above the window they broke in through, which would have been far easier to get into and out of), and both the front door and the main door we use were still dead-bolted.
We were extremely lucky that no one was hurt and there was no major damage inside the house, but the pieces of it just don't add up or make sense. Why THAT window, not just smash through an easier one that was just as "sheltered" as the basement one? Why get that far into the house (touching nothing in the living room or kitchen, which they had to go through to get to the bedroom), only to leave so much easy-to-take stuff behind, including some not-difficult-to-find money? Why not even go upstairs to see what was easy to take from my room? I'm definitely not complaining that they didn't touch my stuff, but...either the person was merely scoping the place out for a future visit (which the policemen say is unlikely), they only needed a couple hundred dollars in cash and left when they found what they were looking for (how very nice and considerate of them ), they were interrupted or afraid someone was home and wanted to get out ASAP, or they were stupid and/or just following someone else's directions about what to do. If they knew we weren't home, why not take more? If they thought someone was home, why go upstairs in the first place?
I don't get it. It's just weird. And in one sense, it really is hilarious how much stuff they missed. In another, it's creepy and disturbing and worrying and I'm lucky I got ANY sleep last night after all the late-night excitement.
On the bright side, we now have police photos of our house in the event that someone ever REALLY breaks in and steals our stuff so we have proof we owned it. We also were reassured by the policemen that we were doing everything right to burglar-proof our house; it's not like we were broadcasting to everyone an invitation to come and break into our house. We'll probably get glass blocking put in place of the basement windows, which will be a heck of a lot harder to bust through.
And all this coming on a day that a number of us were discussing, at work, how this was the Week From Hell because it's the end of the semester, when things are about as crazy as they can get, and we were apologizing and forgiving each other in advance for any bitchiness or snippiness we happen to display during the rest of the week (amongst other bizarre occurrences that I've heard happened yesterday from others at work, like a tree falling through a person's deck and someone's cat deciding to throw up all over the place). Hopefully it was just a 'yesterday' thing and the rest of the week will be fine. Hopefully.
If anyone can explain any of this to me, I'm all ears. But in the meantime, I have a ton of work to do (course evaluations have started flying in fast and furiously), so I'm off to do that and ponder exactly what goes through people's minds when they decide to break into a house.
Our house was broken into sometime yesterday while we were all at work.
Needless to say, I dropped everything and went home...and the situation we found was rather bizarre, to put it lightly.
The thief broke in through a basement window along a sheltered (i.e. lots of trees along it so no one else could see him/her/them) side of the house. They broke through the bar over the window, and the glass itself went flying, oh, a good 15, 20 feet away from the window itself. They stepped down onto a refrigerator and went upstairs into my parents' bedroom. They rifled through some stuff on my mom's dresser, then went to my dad's dresser. They took all the change he had sitting out (which was a lot), all the rolls of pennies he had lying out, and about $1,000 worth of cash he had lying toward the top of his top drawer (money I had paid them for rent in the house and for the trip to Nashville, along with grocery money and other money my grandmother had given my dad not long ago). We're not sure if they took one of our credit cards, too, because they messed up the top drawer so much -- we thought they had taken two (both of which we immediately canceled, not that there was anything charged on them), but we found the MasterCard, so we're not sure yet if the Visa will turn up. They must have then left through the same window they crawled in through.
Which all sounds normal, right? Well, the window itself that they broke in through is tiny -- seriously. Not even 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide. There's a pit in front of the window that makes it very hard to maneuver into the window itself -- everyone who looked at it couldn't believe ANYONE had gotten in through there unless they were an acrobat or contortionist. The policeman found a footprint on top of the refrigerator that they said looked pretty small (I didn't see it before my parents cleaned up the basement, so I can't corroborate, but I'll trust a policeman when it comes to judgment on those kinds of things), leading them to think it was a small kid. Other than that, we found no trace evidence -- no blood, no fingerprints, no dirt/footprints, nada. We had a (loud) radio on in the living room (which we leave on all the time to deter thefts, and yes, you can hear it from anywhere inside the house), too, but that obviously didn't stop them.
But here's the kicker. They rifled through the bottom drawer in my dad's dresser, but missed all our trip money (several hundred dollars' worth...I'd say at least $500). They also missed all my mom's cash from my grandmother (another several hundred dollars' worth) which wouldn't have been hard to find on her dresser. They didn't touch any of our electronic stuff; no one touched our VCRs, TV, CD player, CDs, DVD player, nothing. My dad had at least $300 worth of scanners sitting right below the dresser that weren't touched. And, heck, whoever it was never even went upstairs to my room, where I had $140 worth of cash sitting out on a shelf right by the door, somewhere you'd have to be blind to miss. They didn't touch my Game Boy, Playstation, video games, DVDs, or CDs. They didn't even touch my digital camera, which was sitting right by the door -- there's no way they could have gone upstairs and missed any of that. And other than the basement window, they didn't damage anything.
It had to be a kid who did it (Joy's guessing it was something along the lines of a kid daring another kid to do it), but the sheer distance the glass flew in the basement was just...weird. No kid could have had the strength to make it go halfway across the basement, and even if he had a baseball bat, there's no swinging room in that pit by the window to get any oomph behind it! The fact that they missed so much easy-to-find stuff, too, was bizarre. Were they afraid, because the radio was on, that someone was home somewhere in the house, so when they found a good chunk of money, they took that and bolted? Was it a kid who was being told by a teen/adult what to do who didn't know any better? Anyone who got into the basement HAD to have heard the radio. No other windows were touched (even the normal-sized window directly above the window they broke in through, which would have been far easier to get into and out of), and both the front door and the main door we use were still dead-bolted.
We were extremely lucky that no one was hurt and there was no major damage inside the house, but the pieces of it just don't add up or make sense. Why THAT window, not just smash through an easier one that was just as "sheltered" as the basement one? Why get that far into the house (touching nothing in the living room or kitchen, which they had to go through to get to the bedroom), only to leave so much easy-to-take stuff behind, including some not-difficult-to-find money? Why not even go upstairs to see what was easy to take from my room? I'm definitely not complaining that they didn't touch my stuff, but...either the person was merely scoping the place out for a future visit (which the policemen say is unlikely), they only needed a couple hundred dollars in cash and left when they found what they were looking for (how very nice and considerate of them ), they were interrupted or afraid someone was home and wanted to get out ASAP, or they were stupid and/or just following someone else's directions about what to do. If they knew we weren't home, why not take more? If they thought someone was home, why go upstairs in the first place?
I don't get it. It's just weird. And in one sense, it really is hilarious how much stuff they missed. In another, it's creepy and disturbing and worrying and I'm lucky I got ANY sleep last night after all the late-night excitement.
On the bright side, we now have police photos of our house in the event that someone ever REALLY breaks in and steals our stuff so we have proof we owned it. We also were reassured by the policemen that we were doing everything right to burglar-proof our house; it's not like we were broadcasting to everyone an invitation to come and break into our house. We'll probably get glass blocking put in place of the basement windows, which will be a heck of a lot harder to bust through.
And all this coming on a day that a number of us were discussing, at work, how this was the Week From Hell because it's the end of the semester, when things are about as crazy as they can get, and we were apologizing and forgiving each other in advance for any bitchiness or snippiness we happen to display during the rest of the week (amongst other bizarre occurrences that I've heard happened yesterday from others at work, like a tree falling through a person's deck and someone's cat deciding to throw up all over the place). Hopefully it was just a 'yesterday' thing and the rest of the week will be fine. Hopefully.
If anyone can explain any of this to me, I'm all ears. But in the meantime, I have a ton of work to do (course evaluations have started flying in fast and furiously), so I'm off to do that and ponder exactly what goes through people's minds when they decide to break into a house.
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 05:47 pm (UTC)Wouldn't surprise me if somebody sent a kid in to scout the place out or something, and it stole whatever money it found in the meantime. But yeah, it was probably a dare or something. And people have very creative ways of getting into windows these days. ;)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 07:09 pm (UTC)