December 15, 2008

• Alarms in the Night

  Well, all those years of paying Brinks a monthly fee seem to have paid off tonight.  I’m sitting here (at 1:45am) waiting for the police forensics team to show up and see if they can get any fingerprints off my french door and patio door.  I was awakened to the sound of my alarm blaring about half an hour ago.  I armed myself and started turning on lights throughout the back of the house.  When I got out into the living room, I found my french doors bowed inward – enough to break the seal and sound the alarm, but not yet quite open.  I could see the deadbolt still linking both halves of the door, but it was a near thing.  The patio door was closed, but I couldn’t see the gate in the fence without going outside (which I wasn’t about to do).  Brinks called about then, and I told them what I was seeing.  They told me to call 911 immediately, and then they called as well.

  There have been a number of home invasion type burglaries in my neighborhood lately.  Most of them have been through doors left unlocked, and most of those have been in the wee hours, but closer to 4am than now.  Because of that, the cops were at my house within just a minute or two.  Six of them were here within the first five minutes after my call, and they’ve fanned out to cover the alleyway and the streets.  (The forensics team just showed up and are dusting the back doors.)  The first cop is upset because he said he and his partner have been patrolling the neighborhood for the past half hour, and he’s pissed that these guys are so brazen they’d try a break-in while the cops were only a couple of streets over.

  It’s 2:30 now, and the cops have just left.  They told me that they’ve been answering a lot of alarms that have gone off because the wind has blown doors open tonight.  However, it looks like mine was an actual attempted break-in: the door was dead-bolted and locked at the top and the door-knob as well; with my enclosed patio, there’s just no way for the wind to gust hard enough to blow open french doors that are dead-bolted shut, and; the gate in the backyard was open.  He asked what kind of car I own and said that my Prius is one of the type of cars these guys are going for.  They break in, grab keys and take off with the cars. 

  He said they’ll have constant patrols through here the rest of the night.  I don’t know when I’ll get back to sleep though.  I’m feeling shaky and pissed off and very wide awake.  Can I just say how glad I am that I’ve got an alarm system and that I’ve been using it?  And how much better I felt with a .380 in my hand than just sitting scared and alone in my bedroom?  OK, I’m starting to ramble now, so I’m going to sign off and go get a glass of wine.

  • 3:37 am
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