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Today was exciting. House got robbed. And this is my attempt to write up a coherent version of what happened, so that I can reference it later as needed.
So. At about 1:30 I was walking home along 45th Street, having gotten off the RR bus a little early; heading from the direction of Red River towards Airport. I saw my neighbor Jana (two doors down) waving and calling from her house, so I came over; she was holding her younger kid. She said that she'd seen two people--a black man and a white woman, the latter with a long blond ponytail--cross the street from the area of the bus stop on the other side and head straight for my house. She thought it was suspicious, especially when they were looking at the two bikes chained up at the porch outside: "like they were checking to see if they were locked up."
I don't recall exactly what my response was, though I wasn't particularly worried. (Cheap bikes, visibly still there, locked up.) I looked over towards my house, and the front door opened, and a man stuck his head out. (Black man, possibly shaved head, white tank top, carrying some sort of bag. My immediate thought: how cliche. My second thought: wait, did the plumber come early? He didn't call, and I'm sure I locked the front door.) He then ducked back inside the house immediately; I think he was looking towards us.
Jana insisted we head inside her house immediately and call 911; I did so. There was someone in my house, which was wrong, and she was pretty damn worried about the whole situation. It seemed odd and unreal, and I realized I was on an adrenaline high, which was making me almost chipper with jittery energy.
I stayed on the line with the lady at 911 until a cop ran past outside, which was very few minutes later. (I found out later that he'd been a few blocks away because of another call when ours came in.) Then the emergency services lady hung up on me. I went outside briefly to see if the cop was at the right house--he was at the house between Jana's and mine--and he waved me back inside urgently, so I went back inside. And we locked the door and waited, and I disinfected my hand's (neighbor has a kid with special medical needs) and had some water and waited.
Posted on twitter a lot. Rob called, and I said I'd call back when I had more news.
Eventually the cop came over, and had me come over with him to the house, explaining that they figured the back door was unlocked (the main door was, the outer screen door with the cat flap in it wasn't latched well enough) because there were no signs of forced entry. Then the neighbor two houses down in the opposite direction (don't recall her name, but she watches for feral cats) waved him over to describe a man she'd just seen cross the street and head towards Airport. So he went running off that way, and I stood in front of the house feeling awkward and unsettled.
He came back a few minutes later, and took me through the house. I was told not to touch various doorknobs and the like. Obviously missing: all the consoles--pretty much everything that was under the TV, including two tweeters from the cheap speakers and all the game controllers and such--and the Wii/PS2/360 games (plus one Gamecube game, probably by mistake, but none of the PSP or DS ones), along with my laptop that had been in the kitchen. Some doors had been opened, and the bathroom drawers rifled. (I have no jewelry of any value.) Rob's netbook was gone too, though I didn't realize that until he got home to confirm it.
One of the two swords from the guest room was lying on the couch, along with--of all things--a big empty box of teabags. A single tea packet lay in the center of the living room floor. They hadn't taken anything too big to carry easily, or any of the booze. They did take the bag we keep umbrellas in--presumably to carry things--and a bag full of other bags was also out in the living room.
That police officer left and came back a few times, explaining things for me. His partner came by and admired the Tardis plush. I listed for them generally what was missing, and then Rob came home. Made up a list of all the missing games and consoles, as I could remember, and took them to the local game store to watch out for.
When I got back from that the nice officer from the home crime unit was by, dusting for fingerprints and giving good advice. And that brings me up to now.
I have no idea how I'm going to get all my homework done today. I am not really focusing well at the moment. Not so much scared as annoyed. I liked that stuff! That's why I owned it! And I hate to lose the Mass Effect 3 save that took so much trouble to put together properly. I've changed my passwords for important things, but I hate losing my laptop with all that information on it. And, y'know. I like that laptop. Again: that's why I owned it.
The cats are all fine. George barfed on the couch out of nerves, near as we can tell, and I cannot blame her for it. Peejee is going to have to cope with restricted back yard access: that outer door is too flimsy to trust anything to.
I'm going to have a rum and coke and work on tracking down serial numbers for things, and compiling a list. It's like a whole new set of homework to do.
So. At about 1:30 I was walking home along 45th Street, having gotten off the RR bus a little early; heading from the direction of Red River towards Airport. I saw my neighbor Jana (two doors down) waving and calling from her house, so I came over; she was holding her younger kid. She said that she'd seen two people--a black man and a white woman, the latter with a long blond ponytail--cross the street from the area of the bus stop on the other side and head straight for my house. She thought it was suspicious, especially when they were looking at the two bikes chained up at the porch outside: "like they were checking to see if they were locked up."
I don't recall exactly what my response was, though I wasn't particularly worried. (Cheap bikes, visibly still there, locked up.) I looked over towards my house, and the front door opened, and a man stuck his head out. (Black man, possibly shaved head, white tank top, carrying some sort of bag. My immediate thought: how cliche. My second thought: wait, did the plumber come early? He didn't call, and I'm sure I locked the front door.) He then ducked back inside the house immediately; I think he was looking towards us.
Jana insisted we head inside her house immediately and call 911; I did so. There was someone in my house, which was wrong, and she was pretty damn worried about the whole situation. It seemed odd and unreal, and I realized I was on an adrenaline high, which was making me almost chipper with jittery energy.
I stayed on the line with the lady at 911 until a cop ran past outside, which was very few minutes later. (I found out later that he'd been a few blocks away because of another call when ours came in.) Then the emergency services lady hung up on me. I went outside briefly to see if the cop was at the right house--he was at the house between Jana's and mine--and he waved me back inside urgently, so I went back inside. And we locked the door and waited, and I disinfected my hand's (neighbor has a kid with special medical needs) and had some water and waited.
Posted on twitter a lot. Rob called, and I said I'd call back when I had more news.
Eventually the cop came over, and had me come over with him to the house, explaining that they figured the back door was unlocked (the main door was, the outer screen door with the cat flap in it wasn't latched well enough) because there were no signs of forced entry. Then the neighbor two houses down in the opposite direction (don't recall her name, but she watches for feral cats) waved him over to describe a man she'd just seen cross the street and head towards Airport. So he went running off that way, and I stood in front of the house feeling awkward and unsettled.
He came back a few minutes later, and took me through the house. I was told not to touch various doorknobs and the like. Obviously missing: all the consoles--pretty much everything that was under the TV, including two tweeters from the cheap speakers and all the game controllers and such--and the Wii/PS2/360 games (plus one Gamecube game, probably by mistake, but none of the PSP or DS ones), along with my laptop that had been in the kitchen. Some doors had been opened, and the bathroom drawers rifled. (I have no jewelry of any value.) Rob's netbook was gone too, though I didn't realize that until he got home to confirm it.
One of the two swords from the guest room was lying on the couch, along with--of all things--a big empty box of teabags. A single tea packet lay in the center of the living room floor. They hadn't taken anything too big to carry easily, or any of the booze. They did take the bag we keep umbrellas in--presumably to carry things--and a bag full of other bags was also out in the living room.
That police officer left and came back a few times, explaining things for me. His partner came by and admired the Tardis plush. I listed for them generally what was missing, and then Rob came home. Made up a list of all the missing games and consoles, as I could remember, and took them to the local game store to watch out for.
When I got back from that the nice officer from the home crime unit was by, dusting for fingerprints and giving good advice. And that brings me up to now.
I have no idea how I'm going to get all my homework done today. I am not really focusing well at the moment. Not so much scared as annoyed. I liked that stuff! That's why I owned it! And I hate to lose the Mass Effect 3 save that took so much trouble to put together properly. I've changed my passwords for important things, but I hate losing my laptop with all that information on it. And, y'know. I like that laptop. Again: that's why I owned it.
The cats are all fine. George barfed on the couch out of nerves, near as we can tell, and I cannot blame her for it. Peejee is going to have to cope with restricted back yard access: that outer door is too flimsy to trust anything to.
I'm going to have a rum and coke and work on tracking down serial numbers for things, and compiling a list. It's like a whole new set of homework to do.
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Then again, it's exactly the same approach as what happened to friends in Maryland who got hit last year, and those guys got caught. So it may just be the standard fast house burglary MO these days.
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