Not sure why we bother putting locks on doors...

Brent Dowell

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So, Here I was. I had this fun weekend planned out. Took Friday off. Was going to take the camper up to Glass Buttes Oregon. Was going to learn a little about "Flint Knapping" with my wife and a buddy of mine. You know, making stonage blades and arrow heads out of obsidian. I was planning on having all kinds of cool pictures and stories to tell. My wife even got up early and was ready before me for once!

But as luck would have it, that did not happen. We still have a house in California that we haven't put on the market yet. Been waiting for the market to take an uptick. Been working on it a little bit here and there to get it ready to go.

200 Miles into our trip we got a call from one of our neighbors that they some someone strange coming out of the house. Long story short, somebody broke into the house.

Apparently there have been a rash of burglaries in the area. A variety of reasons, some were houses undergoing renovations like ours. Unfortunately for the thief, there just wasn't that much in the house to steal. As far as I can tell, all he got was an old wifi router, the usb wifi connector for the Tivo, and some checks from one of our friends kids who was storing boxes in our house. I thought he had stolen a cordless drill and some airline sized bottles of scotch from the garage, but he had put those in a garbage bag and left it on the floor in the garage :huh:

The thing he did that ticked me off more than anything was that we have a whole house fan upstairs in the house. It has a pull chain you use to turn it on and off. I'm thinking he though it might have been a pull for an attic stair or something? I doubt thieves are all that bright. At least he didn't vandalize anything.

So anywho, we were 200 miles into our trip, Had to turn around drive another 200 miles back home, and then drive another 230 miles down to California.

So I bought a new prehung steel covered door to replace the one the guy shattered getting into the house and new locksets for the rest of the house.

Note: I did not shell out 50 bucks per set to get the 'good' locksets. I figure why bother, I had a good lockset and heavy duty solid core door on the one he broke into.

Why bother, All it takes is a long crow bar and he's in. Or I could put multiple deadbolts on the door? But Why bother? All he has to do is take one small to medium sized rock and break a window... :doh:

Well, The upside is I've got a new 4 foot long crow bar he left by my back door. And while I thought my cordless drill was gone, I went ahead and picked up a Porter Cable 18volt 4 tool pack of tools with 2 batteries, drill, circular saw, saber saw, and flashlight...

Could be much worse I reckon, and hopefully next year I'll be able to regale you with stories of Flint Knapping...

Like they say, Locks are only there to keep the honest people out...

Looks like he took a swing at the door knob with the crow bar.
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Ah that didn't work, so he must have just used the crow bar to pop open the door. Might have taken a kick at it too. All my neighbors were around at the time and didn't hear anything, so I'm guessing it was just the crow bar...
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Destroyed Door
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My "New" 4' crow bar...
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Well that bites on all sorts of levels. Sorry to hear it happened to you.

Too bad you can't get our Governor to help you out.

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I'm trying to take the good view of it.

1) I got a new crowbar! :thumb:
2) I got some new cordless tools ! :thumb:
3) I'm pretty sure the thief is more disappointed than I am! :thumb:
4) It's probably the motivation we needed to get the stupid house on the market and quit waiting for some nonexistent 'bump' in the market. Aint gonna happen soon..
 
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And left out I'm sitting here watching Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

Haven't seen it in years and it's cracking me up...
 
Brent I can fully relate to this. Sorry to hear the bad news, it sucks when they violate ones space.

Last guy that tried that with me nearly got his head blow clean off. Yeah if my missus had not been home and screaming at me from the window not to kill the guy I would probably be in jail.:(

Instead there is a huge hole in a tree down in Africa just above head height.:rofl:

It sucks even more when you are inside your house sleeping and they climb over 8 ft walls and have the guts to break through 10mm steel bars while you are sleeping. Oh and call the cops.....might as well go on holiday while you are waiting cause they either out of gas or "the car she is broken" :rofl::rofl::rofl:

Oh boy brings back memories seeing stories like this.

I am only too glad you were not living there and hey I like the positive thinking approach of getting some new tools and getting the project out the way.:thumb::)
 
Bummer for sure Brent. At least you are looking at it in a positive way and scored some new tools with it:thumb: Man they could have totally vandalized the place, great that they didn't.
 
I'm am sorry to hear about this. I've had a similar experience with much fuller house while I was at work. It is a very unnerving feeling of violation. My new house has a decent alarm system but of course it only gets tested when I test it. As soon as I decide it's not worth the monthly costs and shut it down, someone will steal it and leave everything else. :doh:

Glad top see that you can see the bright side. I always look for that in any bad situation as well. Sure beats agonizing over things, that just adds insult to injury. as for the housing market . . . . come on "bump"!
 
sorry to hear of your misfortune brent and i understand the logic of not needing high dollar locks if you loc k it they will break a window to get in..so you cant stop them unless you shoot first and ask questions later.. but you need to be ther enad know they are as well.. been there and its not fun to have that feeling and it transltes down to anyone you see from that time on ,,and the trust is hard to get back..strangers fro anything froma garge sale to asking if you want to sell this or that ..you just never know there true thoughts...yu become the orny neighbor fast...looking forward to your flint knapping stories next year its neat to watch and be able to do it..
 
Well, Put this sign up on the back doors of the house. Doubt it will do any good, but you can't say I didn't warn them...

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This company: http://www.x10.com/homepage.htm

has an amazing variety of wireless security equipment. And, it is very reasonably priced. I have purchased a few things and plan to get more. For not much money you can view your security cameras from almost anywhere on your computer.
For simple security, just motion or invisible detector sirens can discourage a lot of punks.
 
Last guy that tried that with me nearly got his head blow clean off. Yeah if my missus had not been home and screaming at me from the window not to kill the guy I would probably be in jail.:(

:rofl: I told my girlfriend once that if anyone broke into the house while we were home, we aren't calling the cops. The thief would end up burried in a hillside somewhere. Castle laws should be irrefutable, yet they aren't.:dunno:
 
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