A few more thoughts to share on the break-in.
1. The guy must not be from around here because our home actually makes a terrible target. While it is on the end of a street, many of our neighbors walk right by our house constantly. Any intruder is bound to be seen. On this particular day one of our neighbors had walked by just minutes before.
2. Our would-be intruder was seen, by at least two alert neighbors. Our neighbors look out for each other in a big way. We know who lives here and who is a stranger in our midst. Many neighborhoods in Raleigh can’t say that. I sleep well at night knowing the neighborhood’s got our backs.
3. Our would-be intruder was recorded on video. It pays to live in a geeky neighborhood.
4. Our home is also built with high-quality windows and doors. The guy worked hard as hell to get our window open. When prying it didn’t work he apparently slammed into with his body, according to the investigating officers. And, after all his work, our loser friend got rewarded with our alarm blaring. Our window is completely, securely sealed and the damage is so slight that you’d have to look closely to see it.
5. We’re not really concerned about the break-in. The guy didn’t get in, our alarm alerted us within 20 seconds, and our neighbors were paying attention. We stopped our paper and our mail. I even set up two of our inside lights on timers. We did everything we could do, as did our neighbors. And it all worked. Truth is, there might not have been any stopping this guy as anyone as desperate to break into a home in broad daylight is not in his right mind. Just to make sure it doesn’t happen again, though, I will be adding extra security to our windows. We’re also investigating adding security cameras of our own because they’re incredibly effective at watching the house (and, well, I’m a geek).
6. Almost anything this guy would’ve wanted to steal wasn’t in the house. Laptops, jewelry, guitar, cameras: all the stuff we would have a hard time replacing was with us on our vacation.
7. RPD did a great job in responding and securing our home while we were away. When they left, our alarm system was armed again and our window looked completely secure and untouched from the outside. Since the incident, officers have been patrolling our neighborhood more frequently and responding to clues neighbors have provided. The officers are really taking care of this neighborhood and it’s great to see.
So there you go. This incident provided some Thanksgiving holiday excitement but in the long run doesn’t concern us. I just hope the clues discovered in our case helps out out neighbors who did wind up having things taken. I’m pretty confident we’ll find out soon.
I had a home security camera way back in 2000 in Leesburg. Watching the camera feed was way more interesting than commercials on TV so we flipped over to the camera feed often. It was also useful when we were selling the house as we could watch the conversation the agents had with their clients in the driveway 🙂