How many times have you been burglarized in your home, successful or attempted and what did you do about it?
Include thefts from yard in the stories but keep the poll limited to your home only.
I've dealt with thieves trying to enter the home on 4 occasions while living in eastern Baltimore County.
My grandfather was staying at my childhood home while the parents were away and he stopped an intrusion with a shotgun. Caught a guy halfway through the window and nearly dropped him right there but instead decided to scare the young guy away.
We never left the house unoccupied after that.
In my teenage home I came home to a ransacked house that had been turned over like a hollywood movie. Drawers flipped, closets dumped, couches over turned, just a big mess. I missed the thieves by 5 minutes as my neighbor heard them but thought it was me coming home. I had stopped to play video games after school, a fateful decision that kept me from walking in on the thieves. I had grabbed a knife when I saw the mess but that could have ended badly had they still been there. The thieves stopped and had lunch while they were there helping themselves to the previous day's leftover birthday party supplies as well as walking off with many 'gifts'.
Brazen bastards.
We replaced our recently deceased German Shepherd with another GSD.
Living on my own in an apartment in Perry Hall my roommate and I had two attempts during the day. We lived in a ground floor apartment with windows at ground level. Someone tried to get through a window but was interrupted by neighbors. The next time someone tried to pry the door open with a bar, leaving gouge marks and dents around the deadbolt.
I started leaving my 12 ga visible through curtains open windows. We never had another problem.
Living with my wife in Dundalk we've had multiple yard thefts and one serious break in. Someone tried to enter the home through the backdoor while we were asleep upstairs. They broke through some previously cracked door window glass and opened the deadbolt but could not get to the sliding bolt lock I keep at the bottom of the door. The worst part of this was that it did not wake us!!! I found the broken glass the next morning after my wife had left for work. Our dog had died the year before so we had no early warning system.
I converted the deadbolts to double keyed, taught my wife to hold the 12 ga and she eventually bought her own handguns. Added cameras. We replaced the dog.
No house problems since then but the yard thefts and vandalism continued until the cameras went up.
I stopped a break in at the neighbors not long ago. He was away so the house was empty. Someone tried to get through his backdoor and I heard the racket. I walked outside at 2 am with a pistol nearby and the burglar thought better of the situation and left with nothing.
The main theme here is that dogs and guns have been central to stopping problems. I will not be without either ever again.
Include thefts from yard in the stories but keep the poll limited to your home only.
I've dealt with thieves trying to enter the home on 4 occasions while living in eastern Baltimore County.
My grandfather was staying at my childhood home while the parents were away and he stopped an intrusion with a shotgun. Caught a guy halfway through the window and nearly dropped him right there but instead decided to scare the young guy away.
We never left the house unoccupied after that.
In my teenage home I came home to a ransacked house that had been turned over like a hollywood movie. Drawers flipped, closets dumped, couches over turned, just a big mess. I missed the thieves by 5 minutes as my neighbor heard them but thought it was me coming home. I had stopped to play video games after school, a fateful decision that kept me from walking in on the thieves. I had grabbed a knife when I saw the mess but that could have ended badly had they still been there. The thieves stopped and had lunch while they were there helping themselves to the previous day's leftover birthday party supplies as well as walking off with many 'gifts'.
Brazen bastards. We replaced our recently deceased German Shepherd with another GSD.
Living on my own in an apartment in Perry Hall my roommate and I had two attempts during the day. We lived in a ground floor apartment with windows at ground level. Someone tried to get through a window but was interrupted by neighbors. The next time someone tried to pry the door open with a bar, leaving gouge marks and dents around the deadbolt.
I started leaving my 12 ga visible through curtains open windows. We never had another problem.
Living with my wife in Dundalk we've had multiple yard thefts and one serious break in. Someone tried to enter the home through the backdoor while we were asleep upstairs. They broke through some previously cracked door window glass and opened the deadbolt but could not get to the sliding bolt lock I keep at the bottom of the door. The worst part of this was that it did not wake us!!! I found the broken glass the next morning after my wife had left for work. Our dog had died the year before so we had no early warning system.
I converted the deadbolts to double keyed, taught my wife to hold the 12 ga and she eventually bought her own handguns. Added cameras. We replaced the dog.
No house problems since then but the yard thefts and vandalism continued until the cameras went up.
I stopped a break in at the neighbors not long ago. He was away so the house was empty. Someone tried to get through his backdoor and I heard the racket. I walked outside at 2 am with a pistol nearby and the burglar thought better of the situation and left with nothing.
The main theme here is that dogs and guns have been central to stopping problems. I will not be without either ever again.
