Have You Ever Had a Break-In?
 

Yippee, my first poll. I hope I do it right.

I was reading some cautionary-tale type stuff about burglaries and such tonight, and just wondered how prevalent it really is.

I've lived in terrible neighborhoods and now live in a very good one, but they happen everywhere and you can't be too complacent. Which reminds me, I've got to go out and lock our camper. I'm so bad about keeping cars and such locked up. We used to have an alarm system; got it in our first house (sort of inner-city) and moved it to the second one (white-bread suburban) and then canceled service and then totally forgot we had it till the batteries ran down and it beeped all the time. Best part about it was the chime on the doors so I'd know if one of the kids went out.

Anyway, have you?

Wanna talk about it? Did they get in through the window or door? What did they take? Was anyone home at the time? You know, I'd like more info, but didn't want to make the poll completely crazy! :)

The second I post that I've never been robbed/home invaded/burgled/drive-by shot at is the moment it happens. I can't let the terrorists win :D

That is why it says "knock on wood." LOL

You forgot (or neglected) to ask if any of us had ever done a B&E

I did. It was purely mathematical

Well silly me, I had forgotten to assume that Cellarites could be criminals as well as victims.

Which sets me to thinking . . . have I ever done such a thing myself? I have never broken in. I did however steal the neighbor kid's Yoda figurine when I was about twelve. Got caught, too.

When I was a kid, some teenager in the neighborhood broke into our house. Punched out the window in the back door. Got some cash, which was in a drawer. Cops knew it was him and went to go pick him up, but didn't have any evidence.

Couple weeks later he broke in again, rummaged around in the same drawer, but there was no cash in it this time. Got nothing. Never came back.

Also had two different cars broken into twice when I was growing up. This was all in small town Maine.

Now, in the DC area, we've never been a victim of crime. I'm convinced that per capita, cities are safer. At least this one.

My grandfather lived in a very rural area. Closest neighbor was a mile away. He was away for the weekend, and someone pulled a truck up to his house and emptied it of all the valuables including lots of antique furniture. They took their time and really picked over his stuff.

Our house is ugly. We don't look wealthy from the outside. And if anyone was to break in, they would see that we've got nothing of value that is small and easy to carry off. My wife isn't into jewelry very much and we keep little cash on hand.

A crack head might be able to get $100 worth of misc stuff and cash from us.

My apartment was broken into a little over three years ago and over $2000 of musical equipment, from a total of four people, was taken. It was a bad neighborhood.

My laptop also disappeared about four months ago and I have no other explanation for it going missing.

Not since I lived in Brooklyn, about 20 years ago.

I have not personally had it happen to me, but I am completely paranoid about it (as well as rapists/serial killers breaking into the house.)

I had a borrowed folder of CDs stolen out of a friend's vehicle, out at a construction site he was engineering on. Another friend's car has been broken into three times in their driveway, during a chain of other car break-ins overnight in their obviously wealthy neighborhood. Stole a digital camera twice, and the GPS unit once. When my father was in college, he had packed all his belongings into boxes for the summer and went on a short vacation before coming back to officially move... and someone had cleaned it out, every single box. Neighbors reported that it was two guys in broad daylight with a moving van, so everyone had assumed they were legit. A friend's car was broken into downtown and a piece of *very* expensive audio equipment was taken along with CDs and other junk... he looked on craigslist, found it, and bought it back for $50 because the guy was a crackhead and had no clue what it was.

In our previous house, the neighbor came home unexpectedly at lunchtime one day to find a guy in the house. The guy ran, but the cops caught him a few blocks away, and determined that in fact, he was some old coworker of the wife's (who had never really noticed him,) and he'd been coming in through an unlocked window and stealing her underwear on a regular basis for months.

I forgot about the CDs. I had a couple of CDs stolen from my dorm room over winter break once. I talked to some friends about it, and they reported the same thing. Somebody with a key went around and stole just a couple of CDs from a lot of people's rooms. I'm almost certain they stole my umbrella then too, but I have to admit there's a small chance that I left it somewhere. Completely unlike me. I never leave stuff somewhere, so I'm pretty sure it was stolen.

I didn't feel violated, just pissed. I hid my CDs under some dirty clothes in my closet after that for Spring Break.

MAybe they used the umbrella to carry all the CD's they stole...
Usually they use a pillowcase stolen from the first place they hit.

No break in's fortunately for them, otherwise they would be dead.

The last car I had I parked in the backyard when I could no longer afford to drive it. Good shape, just parked, keys in the ignition. When it got cool out, I would sometimes slip out to the old Buick to toke on a number and dig on the radio. Then I got to noticing my station would change, and my doors weren't completely closed sometimes. I watched and waited, and was rewarded to see two neighborhood kids sneak into my car one night. There was nothing to take, and they didn't tear anything up, they were just hanging out in my car at 2 or 3 in the morning, listening to the radio. I hid out in the apple tree about half a dozen times till I caught them. I jumped outta the tree and landed on the trunk of my car, screaming and yelling and beating on the car. I'm almost sure one of them shit his pants, and they're both probably still running. Never saw them good enough to see which hooligans they were, and I haven't seen them since.

Here's the car and apple tree...

hahaha That's a good one gravdigr. :)

They'll be telling that story to their grandchildren.

Several times for both when we lived in a flat in Birmingham, UK. The British Equivalent of Detroit.