Walking Into The Danger Zone

Last week after I came home from work I noticed that one of my sons friends was parked in the alley where I drive into my garage. I thought Jason must be home and they were visiting him. They had stayed at our house on New Years Eve so they wouldn't be driving impared. While they stayed they  left a few things from their car at my house so they could fit more people in as they went to a party. 

I thought they were there to pick up the items they left. When I opened the garage so that I could pull in, I noticed that they came in through the garage instead of the gate to get in the house. My garage is detached from the house - it is it's own building. 

A summer view of my garage. 

When I came out of the  garage door to come into the house, I noticed that a screen was off one of the windows, a baseball bat that was in the garage was by the back door and my sliding glass doors were open. I knew that they had broken into my house.

Not thinking of danger, I let myself into the back door and confronted Katie. She apologized for breaking into my house and said she was there to pick up her things and couldn't get a hold of Jason. 

I was pretty mad and called Jason with Katie there to find out where some of her things were put. Jason told me to call the police. 

Katie confessed that she had stolen a few more items from my house. She took and returned  4 DVDs that were on top of the TV in my bedroom (where the sliding glass door is) and an iPod / iPhone docking speaker station. 

I was mad, but I let her go - leave my house.

The thing that surprised me is that a sliding glass door can be lifted off the track like a closet door. 

My home is pretty secure, I call it Fort Knocks because my doors are ALWAYS locked and I never open the door at night. 

I have dowels in all the windows. That is why they didn't go through the window that they took the screen off of. 

My sliding glass doors had the shorter dowel in the track which gave them some lead way to lift the door off the track and enter my house.

I was physically shaking after I told her to just go. I ran to the store to pick up some things to make my house extra secure. Some padlocks and tension rods. 

I put padlocks on both the front gate and the back gate to my back yard. My garage door is also secure and the door to my garage is also locked with a padlock.

I added a tension rod to the top of the sliding glass door so that it could not be lifted off the track again. Also I secure the bottom with a new dowel with no extra room. (You can see it in the picture above - the tension rod is white and at the top of the door and a new longer dowel is on the bottom in the track). Now my sliding glass door is completely secure. 

As I was shopping I decided that I needed to report this to the police.

No. 1 reason is if they really only wanted their stuff, they could have come to the front door knocked and I would have let them in to pick up their stuff. 

No 2 reason is that they really had intentions of stealing more stuff from my house if I hadn't arrived home while they were there.

No. 3 reason, what were they going to do with the baseball bat? Beat me up?

No. 4 reason, would they have broke a window to enter the house if the couldn't get through the sliding glass door?

This is Cameron Hatch and Katie Cutts. They are the stupid people who broke into my house. They are theives! Beware of these people. Don't let them into your home!

I did report it to the police. They took a statement, pictures and evidence.

The next day they brought me a line up of photos for each of them and I had to pick them out.

Then they came back and took finger prints off the sliding glass door. 

It makes me so angry that Jason let bad people into my house. It makes me angry that they made me feel insecure in my own house.

I will have to testify against them when they are arrested, but I'm OK with that. 

They shouldn't have broke into my house!

So, what does a single woman do to feel secure in her own home again? She goes and purchases a 9MM hand gun. My first response will be to call 911, but if someone breaks into my house again, I will shoot them. Sorry, but I will. Don't break into my house!

I also have a shot gun my kids gave me in 2010. Yup, I'm a gun toting woman. 

Honestly, I have got to stop walking into danger zones. 

A few weeks before I walked into my customer's home whose door was broken into (entrance from the garage) to see if he was OK. Luckily for me it happened the night before from the firemen when he was in distress. 

I don't know why I am so brave, but I have seriously got to quit it! 

Don't walk into danger zones - Sondra!