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Burglary

For Christmas and New Years, we spent 11 days out of town visiting both of our families. We have never been away from the house for more than a week, so this was a long trip for us. We headed up to Seattle on Christmas day to visit my grandparents and then to British Columbia to visit Thomas' family.

We had a security system installed less than a year ago and have a security camera along the back of our house to keep an eye on our fence (tagging is a huge problem in our area). On December 29th, we got notification on our iPhones that our alarm was going off and the back door, kitchen door sensors had been triggered along with the living room motion detector. We assumed that it was my parents checking on the house (they have set the alarm off before...) So we disarmed it remotely. I texted my family, and eventually realized they were not the ones that set off the alarm. We immediately re-armed it and got a phone call from our alarm company and sent the police to check the premises. The back door had been kicked in and the thieves were gone before the police were able to get there.

It's not a great feeling being out of the country knowing that your house has been robbed and there is nothing you can do about it. However, we chose not to let it ruin our vacation and had my dad go over and board up the back door and check things out. We decided that the damage was done and going home would not take it away, so we spent another 5 days in Canada and dealt with things when we got home.

We will be getting both the front and back door replaced because there is evidence that they attempted to kick in the front door. We also have reported what was stolen and will be having insurance cover our loss. This is definitely not something I ever thought we would have to deal with... We installed a security system and made sure to put up stickers in almost every window and signs out in our yard. I assumed thieves would choose an easier target, but I guess I was wrong.

It is a horrible feeling knowing there were thieves in your home and that they took things that belonged to us. I still feel uneasy leaving the house even for work and worry about the pets that are home when we are not. Thankfully nothing irreplaceable was taken, but our 'safe haven' has been violated. We will be adding more security features to our home and will change the way we do things when we leave town.

This just shows that your home may not be as safe as you think...

Comments

  1. Gosh, that's awful. I'm glad to hear that you and the pets are safe, and that the irreplaceable possessions weren't touched.

    "This is definitely not something I ever thought we would have to deal with... We installed a security system and made sure to put up stickers in almost every window and signs out in our yard. I assumed thieves would choose an easier target, but I guess I was wrong."

    Agreed. Absolutely mind-boggling. My first thought was 'who would rob a bungalow?'

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  2. I don't know... I guess they were probably watching our house and knew we were gone for vacation. Insurance is such a pain... We are still waiting on approval of the quote we got to replace the door. I just want to be done with everything and have a functional back door already...

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  3. UGH...that is so scary...and so un-nerving. I would probably be the same, always leery of leaving again. Our neighbor across the street seems to ALWAYS have something bad happen whenever she goes on vacation, poor thing. She's paranoid to leave for more than a few days anymore :-(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's hard. We had to leave again for business this week and I was a nervous wreck that they would see we were gone again and try again. We had my mom come by to grab mail and a package that was delivered so it wasn't too obvious. Fortunately, everything was okay and hopefully with the new security measures we take... this shouldn't happen again.

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  4. I hope things have worked out on this. What a pain! Did you find a good door to replace the broken one?

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    Replies
    1. Yes. We have been very fortunate and have been able to replace everything that was lost.

      We chose to upgrade our doors and we purchased two Craftsman style Therma Tru fiberglass doors. They were delivered yesterday and we have started staining them. They are beautiful! They have the six panes of glass at the top along with a dentil shelf under the window.

      We couldn't be more excited to replace our old steel doors. Our new doors are beautiful and I will be posting pictures of them soon.

      We are also working on the arbor and gate out front to complete our picket fence. The arbor will be Craftsman style and the gate will match the rest of our fence.

      Delete

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