Someone Tried To Break Into My House Lastnight

[willy4pres]

I had been on the computer finishing my homework; it was around 1:00 AM. I thought I heard someone outside the window (it's a condo, the window is right next to the door) but our German Shepard didn't get up to check it out so I figured it was nothing. About a minute later I heard someone trying to turn the door knob and pushing on the door.

This is my first time with something like this. I was wide awake in my living room with the TV on and some asshole had the balls to walk up to my door and tried to get in (with my wife and baby sleeping upstairs). All of that went through my head in a split second and I can not explain to you how angry it made me.

As soon as I heard the knob move I jumped up without thinking and charged the door yelling the entire way. I kicked the door and told them I was getting my gun. We have a window in our door and I could see someone run off to my left (his right). I ran upstairs and grabbed my shotgun and ran back downstairs and outside. I have never wanted to hurt someone so much in my life.

You all know how you mentally plan out something like this just in case it actually happens. I thought I would be calmer and less angry if it happened to me, it's a fact of life these days. I can't believe I charged the door like that, I didn't think. Plus I turned my back on the door when I went upstairs to get my gun, big mistake. I should have called up to my wife and had her get it. Calling the police didn't even occur to me (and my wife is pissed at me because of this).

After thirty minutes I let her call the police (they showed up several hours later) but for some reason I didn't want her to. I think I took this the wrong way; I was angry because someone was so stupid that they walked up to MY door and pulled this shit. I took it as a personal insult or something. The only thing I was thinking was that I wanted to inflict pain on whoever was screwing with my door and I didn't want the police scaring them away (as if they were still around). It could have been a kid for all I know.

Anyway, that's what happened last night. We have a locksmith that me and my wife know coming over today to change out the locks (we have been saying we need to do this for over a year). I'm sleeping down stairs for the next week or so. If this happens again I won’t left myself get so angry, I just made more mistakes because of it.

[Viking]

I can feel for you. It's hard to think rationally when you are angry.

When that creepazoid tried to break into our house here a few months back, the worst part about it for me was that I wasn't there. I don't know what I would have done, but for some reason it scared the hell out of me that this guy was so close to getting into the house with only my fiancee and her mom there.

Thank God for the dog.

[Kevy5150]

I've been a victim of theft countless times, and I can't say that I or anyone else wouldn't have reacted the same way you did.

As for the cops, I'm sure there is very little they can do about the matter considering the intruder is long gone (hopefully). Nevertheless, you did what you should have done, so nice job.

[FORD]

Maybe it was DooDoo Head?

[vhrocker]

I would of done the same thing-shot first and ask questions later. Good thing that you and your family wasn't hurt.

[Apocalypso]

Two significant incidents of this sort of thing happened with me.

The first time was when I was about 16. My parents had just divorced and I and my younger brother and sister where living with our mom in a single story condo in a fairly decent neighborhood. I worked nights after school as a dockworker at a trucking business to help support us so I'd usually get home around 11pm when everyone was already asleep and I'd be up watching tv for a few hours to settle down to sleep.

This one night, around 1am, my brother and I are in my room watching tv and I hear the front door open and close. I go out in the pitch black living room to check and everything seems fine. Our mom and sister are both fast asleep in their rooms. A little while later, my brother goes to get something to eat in the kitchen and he comes back in all ashen faced saying "there's someone asleep on the couch in the living room." Sure enough, I had somehow earlier missed this guy who looked like a gas station attendant conked out snoring on the couch. I go get a baseball bat and stand over the guy ready to hit a home run if he so much as moved while my brother quietly woke up mom and sis and they hole up in one of the bedrooms and call the cops. The cops were there in maybe 3 minutes and had a real hard time waking the guy up. It turned out the guy was stone drunk and thought he was in his own house - I had left the door unlocked when I came home that night from work.

The second time was Christmas night, 1987. I was living in a huge 2 story townhouse with a room mate buddy who was spending that night at his parents for Christmas. I was down and out with a nasty stomach flu and had slept through most of the day and night after puking my guts out. Since I didn't do my family get-together, all their presents were still under the tree in the living room. Plus, I had left my wallet loaded with about $700+ in cash from my holiday check sitting on the bar table in plain view.

Around 3am, I woke in my bed after hearing something or someone rummaging around downstairs. At first I just figured my buddy had come home late instead of spending the night at his parents but it didn't really make sense and I was up and figured I'd talk with him a bit anyway. Si I got dressed and it took me about 5 minutes to drag my ass downstairs at which time I caught some fucker taking off out my front yard on my bike with a pillow case full of stuff. I didn't see which walkway he turned and had no chance to catch him. It turned out this assplug broke into our place through the sliding glass door in the yard with a screwdriver, grabbed a pillowcase off one of the pillows I was using when I was earlier sleeping on the couch and took not only all mine and my buddy's opened presents but the presents I didn't have a chance to give to my family *plus* my cash loaded wallet which also had about 20 ticket stubs and guitar picks from some great late 70's and early 80's concerts including most of my Roth era VH stubs dating back to 1978. The guy was trying to figure out how to disconnect out vrc (it was pulled out of the cabinet) when he must have heard me and bolted out on my bike.

About 6 months later when I moved from that place, I was up on the roof disconnecting the tv antenna and found my stolen wallet which was sun bleached and completely empty except for my fuckin' library card. As a ironic postscript, my roommate's old Corvair van was stolen that night (never recovered) when we came back after returning the U-Haul truck we used to move our shit.

T.B.

[Axxman300]

Honestly, I'd love to see a return to the "Old West" style of justice.

Theives would be hung right after their trial, right in the park.

Glad nobody was hurt. You are right about about not expecting to be as angry as you were when it happened, I'm always amazed at the things I do and the words that come out of my mouth when I'm threatened.

The nerve this assclown had to walk up to a door where someone was obviously still awake. That's ballsy.

[willy4pres]

Thanks for the stories guys, it was a long night after that.

We have a meth problem here in Yuma and our neighbors appear to be involved in stuff like that (not baking it but possibly dealing it). I'm not sure what to do really, I don't have any proof of anything but I do have a gut feeling that's what is going on.

Anyway, that's what I think happened last night. One of their tweeker buddies either had the wrong door, or he had the right door and was to high to figure out I was still awake. Not even five minutes before I heard someone messing with the door I had gotten up to use the bathroom, it's right in front of the door!

When I was running around last night trying to find someone to shoot one of the neighbors did walk outside (not sure why, I don't think he heard me out there). I asked him if anyone had touched my door, he told me no but would he tell me the truth if they did (I still had my shotgun in my hands)?

[jimmy812]

Willy, I'm sure your emotions get the best of you in that kind of situation, especially with a wife and baby in the house. Calling the cops would have been the right thing to do. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. In the moment like that, rational thoughts seem to vanish. You have to think that if you had shot the scumbag, you would be the one at fault.
I feel for you, bro. At least the prick didn't get in and you and your family are safe.

Apocalypso, your first story was kind of funny (with the drunk guy on the couch), thankfully it was a harmless fuck-up on his part.
But your second story actually pissed me off. On friggin' Christmas night?? What goes through people's minds when they do stupid, things like this?
Again, at least you weren't hurt.

[only letters and numbers]

I had a wino shoot up the outside of my house once with an uzi.

Sincerely,
Fred Durst

[Yesterdays]

I'm truly surprised that your initial reaction was anger. Some years ago, while I was still living in NY, I was walking down the stairs to the subway when a kid (he couldn't have been more than 16-years-old) approached me from behind, stuck an automatic pistol into my ribcage, and demanded my wallet.

For some reason, it could have been because I instantly started having an out-of-body experience, I became Monty Hall at this point. I took out my wallet and convinced him to take only the cash, asking him to leave me with two dollars so I could get on the train. I told him he didn't want my ring or watch ("oh it's just a cheap Timex, what could you get for it?") and even made him give back my dry cleaning receipts.

It was only until I got to the bottom of the stairs that the realization caught up with me and I started hollering. And I only became angry at this kid when, upon hearing the story, my parents insisted on repaying the stolen cash with their hard-earned money.

But, to be honest, I had never seen a real gun before, let alone had it pressed to my body. And I got off lucky. The kid jumped the uptown train and, as I later heard from the cops, at the next stop the girl refused to give up the gold cross her grandmother had given her. So he shot her.

[willy4pres]

I'm truly surprised that your initial reaction was anger. Some years ago, while I was still living in NY, I was walking down the stairs to the subway when a kid (he couldn't have been more than 16-years-old) approached me from behind, stuck an automatic pistol into my ribcage, and demanded my wallet.

For some reason, it could have been because I instantly started having an out-of-body experience, I became Monty Hall at this point. I took out my wallet and convinced him to take only the cash, asking him to leave me with two dollars so I could get on the train. I told him he didn't want my ring or watch ("oh it's just a cheap Timex, what could you get for it?") and even made him give back my dry cleaning receipts.

It was only until I got to the bottom of the stairs that the realization caught up with me and I started hollering. And I only became angry at this kid when, upon hearing the story, my parents insisted on repaying the stolen cash with their hard-earned money.

But, to be honest, I had never seen a real gun before, let alone had it pressed to my body. And I got off lucky. The kid jumped the uptown train and, as I later heard from the cops, at the next stop the girl refused to give up the gold cross her grandmother had given her. So he shot her.

If I was out on the street I'm sure my reaction would have been different. It's my home and I have the ability to defend it, unless someone catches me sleeping and their quiet enough not to wake up the Shepard then that's about the only way they would get the drop on me.

I'm sleeping down stairs again tonight (me and the big dog). I can hear the neighbors walking in and out and it's pissing me off. I doubt they really know any of the people that come over for a "visit", who knows what their capable of. Since I basically pulled a gun on that kid last night hopefully he told the rest of his buddies that it's not a good idea to touch my door.

Your story is shocking, you made the right call and handled it perfectly.

[ZeoBandit]

That would be very unnerving. I'm glad everyone and everything ended up being OK.

[Apocalypso]

Willy, I'm sure your emotions get the best of you in that kind of situation, especially with a wife and baby in the house. Calling the cops would have been the right thing to do. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. In the moment like that, rational thoughts seem to vanish. You have to think that if you had shot the scumbag, you would be the one at fault.
I feel for you, bro. At least the prick didn't get in and you and your family are safe.

Apocalypso, your first story was kind of funny (with the drunk guy on the couch), thankfully it was a harmless fuck-up on his part.
But your second story actually pissed me off. On friggin' Christmas night?? What goes through people's minds when they do stupid, things like this?
Again, at least you weren't hurt.

Yeah, that was a pretty fucked up Christmas, I'll tell you what. It took the cops a long time to fingerprint everything when they finally arrived about 4am and the fingerprint powder actually wound up getting inside my VRC and fucking up the heads a few days later - icing on the cake.

One other somewhat freakish home invasion style incident I can relate.........

One night around late '91, my best friend (the room mate in the above story) with his girlfriend and me and my new girlfriend (who I later married) came home to my new place in Huntington Beach. As we were pulling up on the street to park after hanging out all night at a party, we all noticed some guy yelling and pounding on a door of one of the homes on the opposite side of the street. As we slowly get out to see what's up, the guy suddenly takes a running leap and dives right through the front window into their living room. This old lady comes running out they front door in her bathrobe and takes off down the street screaming. We hustle the girls into my house to call the cops and along with a few other neighbors who came out to see what was going on went over to the woman's house to see what this guy was up to.

At that moment, the psycho crashed out the back yard sliding glass door, hoped a wall into another neighbor's yard, crashed through *his* sliding glass door started tearing through that guys house. He came running out saying this nut had a gun. By now, there's about a dozen of us surrounding the house and suddenly, the psycho comes barreling through the front window onto the lawn screaming hysterically. He bolts towards a house next door to mine that we knew had a family with several young children inside. He starts smashing their front window and several of us rush him to keep him from getting through their window. The psycho is just out of his mind crazy and covered in blood from being cut up going through all that glass and slippery as hell. It was a pitch black moonless night so none of us could see what he had in his hand if anything while we were trying to corner him and wrestle him down. At one point he jabbed me with something, slipped away and goes hauling ass down the street where the cops finally show up complete with helicopter, corral him and literally have to dogpile on him to subdue him. Meanwhile I was thinking he stabbed me with something because I got blood all over my arm but it turned out the guy was wielding a ....... spatula! I was so amped up from the experience, I wasn't even thinking I could have possibly got AIDs from his blood getting all over me.

The short story was, the guy was tweaked out of his mind on some drug, had trashed the corner 7/11 in a paranoid rage and ran over to our street looking to "escape" his pursuers by hiding in someone's house (by breaking through windows - lol!).

I dealt with a *lot* of weird shit at that house. But no other home invasions or break ins.

T.B.

[Apocalypso]

But, to be honest, I had never seen a real gun before, let alone had it pressed to my body.

The only time I've ever had a gun pointed at me was by a fucking cop.

I was helping an ex-girlfriend move to her new place and while carrying a couple potted plants from the car to her place, I had a feeling someone was behind me and I stopped and *something* bumped into the back of my head. It was a cop's revolver. This cop was shadowing me with his gun drawn at my head and when I stopped suddenly in my tracks he banged into me. It was sheer luck the gun didn't go off. It turned out I matched the description of some wanted felon and along with about 10 other cops who suddenly popped out around the corner all with their guns drawn, I was cuffed and hustled in a police car with zero explanation. About 15 minutes later, it was realized that I wasn't whoever these guys were looking for and I was released with a lot of apologies.

Like you mention, it was an almost out of body experience. I was really calm during the whole thing but about an hour later I get really pissed and over the next couple of days, I spent some time on the phone to the Cerritos PD futilely venting about the incident.

T.B.