Just Venting

[sury]

My apologies for the inappropriate posting but this where I hang around a lot.
Last Saturday we came home from San Diego to find that a burglary was in
progress at our home. I think they were not expecting us to come home when
we did and by the time police arrived they took off from back of the house, but
not before "cleaning" up the master bedroom. More than the value, there have been
some sentimental value items we lost.
My wife and daughter were quite scared and so was I. Since I had to put a brave face
for them, I needed to let my steam out. This sort of thing never happened in our area
in the last 20 years we have been living here and in the last 6-8 weeks there has been
a break-in spree. It is a good thing we decided to go through the garage whence we discovered
the door to home from garage is broken in. If we had gone through the front door, we most certainly
would have walked into the robbers. I do not want to speculate what would have happened
in that case.
Anyway, thank you for your patience and once again my sincere apologies for misappropriating
the forum and thread.

With best regards,
Sury

[bakubo]

That's terrible! I am glad that there was no confrontation which might have resulted in catastrophe. I am very sorry to hear of the losses. Yes, some things can be replaced, but some can never be. I suppose insurance will pay for part of it, but it is hard to feel comfortable in your own home again for a long time.

[bakubo]

By the way, I hope the burglars didn't steal anything that might make identity theft a possibility or something that would allow them to continue stealing from you later such as drivers licenses, bank statements, credit cards, social security info, etc. I am sure you will have a few sleepless nights for awhile, but hang tough.

[aster]

So sorry about the scare you and the family suffered, Sury.

I'm glad you all are fine apart from the scare and the pain of losing some belongings that meant a lot to you all. Maybe the robbers will be caught and the items will then be returned to you...I hope all loses can be fully recovered or compensated for.

Hang in there!

Yildiz

[Birma]

That is dreadful Sury. I am very glad that you and your family are safe. It is such a frustrating thing to happen. It makes you feel uncomfortable in your own home, and you are powerless to make it right. At least you're all there to support one another.

Hang tough buddy.

[david antony]

Very sorry to hear about the robbery Sury. It’s a terrible experience having your home invaded. Thank goodness your family and yourself avoided confrontation. Just hope they catch up with these thieves.

[mvanrheenen]

I know what you are going through sury and it is indeed a very difficult situation to deal with.

My neighbours are an older couple. He's 80, she's 87 I believe. Most modern or renovated houses here have plastic door and window frames. Older houses, like ours, have wooden frames. The people we bought it from had already replaces the frames with platic, but my neigbours didn't. The thievesguild made use of this resulting in 3 burgelaries in their home, one of which was on the second floor while they were on the first. Eventually local law enforcement had arrested the thieves. they confessed to all 3 burglaries and commented that "the last didn't yield much for us as we robbed all the precious jewelery the first 2 times"...

During all of this, I came home from a birding trip one afternoon and saw one of our screen doors being bent and twisted. I called the police and they told me this was clearly a sign of attempted burglary. Since then, I don't sleep that well anymore and I still have nightmares about burglaries.

It's sad how people, even in a "rich" country like ours, feel the need to take other peoples posessions because they are greedy. The oldest burglar was 17 years of age...

Good luck buddy.

Mark

[Dr. Harout]

I do know how that feels. Even years after, you'll get some kind of frustration every time remembering it.
But the most important is that nothing happened to you and your family, thank God.

[KevinBarrett]

I'm very sorry, Sury. I hope the clean-up and recovery goes swiftly without any extra hassles--heaven knows you've been robbed once, I hope your insurer is on your side.

[Rhtubbs]

Sury, I also have suffered this. I know I am not familiar to you. But I think there is no shame in your venting to your friends in this forum. It is something that friends provide to you: support in times of distress. It is good you have friends that do this.

I hope your distress is soon relieved.

Good Luck!

[Greg Beetham]

Bad luck there Sury, it’s a sign of the times I think, my place has had things go missing from upstairs and down on at least three occasions, (fishing tackle and guns were the most notable items, while I was at work) but now the alarms are in place downstairs (since 1995) there hasn’t been a robbery since, they are a pain though, false alarms from possums and cats at night, but there was one occasion of a human (drunk) being under there and set off the alarms, and who was shown where the front gate was.
The key indicator is, as you say, a sudden upsurge in crime and burglaries in your area, a sign that the feral vermin has decided your area is ripe for plucking.
Often though the increase for your area is not immediately noticed in the normal news channels, then there is only the word of mouth or maybe the crimewatch or crimestoppers websites, if you have such a thing where you live that is.
I think sometimes they would have a lookout who observes who leaves a particular place, some or all, if the lights or the TV are/is off etc.
Actually some thieves like the TV being on when people are home because then they can usually steal lots of stuff, keys, wallets (and car) etc. while people are watching TV and the back door hasn’t been locked yet, I know this from talking to neighbors, with them saying ‘it happened while we were home.’
I hope you bounce back from this invasion and put it down to experience, it does take some adjustment to realize there are vermin in existence that do this as a way of life, maybe to finance a drug habit or they are just no-hopers, whatever, I don’t care personally what their problem is, I still say the only gun control we need is a keen eye and a steady hand.
Greg

[sury]

I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for the succor you have provided me.
Your empathy, and support has been very therapeutic. We are getting back to normalcy and
last night was the first night I had a few hours of fitful sleep. Once again, my deepest appreciation
for your sentiments and gratitude for the support you have given me. Your unconditional outpouring
has given me emotional strength to move on is not an exaggeration. One silver lining is that the
robbers were not anticipating our arrival and thought they had enough time to go through each room
methodologically. Because of such interruption, my lens collection and the A700 that I told Dusty, he
can have when I acquire a new body, are all intact. Now to photography and its curative powers.

With best regards,
Sury

[Dusty]

It takes a while for things to return to normal after event such as these.

I don't know how you feel about animals, but a dog is the best defense against burglars there ever was. There was once a veteran Chicago detective who said that in 17 years of investigating burglaries, (this was in the old days when they did more than tell you to contact the insurance company), only 2 had been at homes with dogs. If not a dog, how about an alarm?

I'm glad everyone is safe, as the scariest kind of burglaries is when walking in on one. A friend lost his mother in law like that.

Dusty

[sury]

Dusty,
My wife is NOT a fan of pets in general and dogs in particular. I grew up with dogs.
On our Cul-de-Sac we are the only ones without a dog. I agree that often a dog's
growl at an intruder often serves as a deterrent.

Sury