Okay, in spite of my recent grouse to the effect that I’m not sending any more posts to carnivals, this week I selected one, and only one, post to submit, just to see what would happen. The post was Springtime, the Only Pretty Burglar Time. I sent it to several carnivals. And here are the results:
That’s it. Haven’t heard a thing from any of the other carnivals, and in fact, with the exception of Carnival of Personal Finance, I haven’t seen any sign that they’ve gone online.
Check out Best of Money. It only runs ten posts each week, it being a highly competitive affair. So all of the posts you’ll see there are pretty darned good. Even mine. 😉
LOL! We know the wolf’s at my door about half the time. Now we can add another critter to the menagerie: Coyote.
The other day Cassie and I went out, as usual, to pick up the newspaper. Opened the front gate and she went bounding out. Luckily I was right behind her, because she bounded straight into the face of a coyote that was skulking around the driveway.
Grabbed her by the mane of hair around her neck and dragged her back inside the courtyard. In the process, I made such a commotion, hollering at her to get back inside, that the coyote spooked and took off like a hungry greyhound.
Here’s a fellow who says a coyote can sprint at 65 kilometers an hour. That’s about 40 mph. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hit that speed in four strides. Before she got past the edge of the wall she was a streak, and when I walked down to the corner to see if I could spot her, she was long gone.
If I’d dawdled inside the courtyard after opening the gate, Cassie would’ve been breakfast!
Okay, so I swing my leg over a Harley, and what happens? I go completely off the deep end. Actually, it’s not my fault. I blame my friends. It’s all their doing. I swear. I’m not getting wilder and wilder. Seriously.
Not 12 hours after the motorcycle fugue, I was sitting down to breakfast with those rowdy members of the Scottsdale Bidness Assocation. Each time we meet, we all throw a buck into a pot, from which each person takes a ticket. If your number is called, you win that week’s staggering ten bucks or so.
It’s enough to infect a man’s mind (or a woman’s, I’m afraid). As the basket is going around, George the Younger posits a question:
“What do you think I could do with $13 million?”
The group being out of control at that moment (as it was most of the morning), he recasts the question: “What would you do with $13 million?”
This gets some attention. Thirteen million bucks…what to do?
“Not this, that’s for sure!”
“I’d quit my job tomorrow!”
“Jerry (travel agent) would set up a meeting for us in Tahiti!”
“I’d just keep on doing what I’m doing.”
“Wh-a-a-a-a-t????”
So it was that we decided that the 13 bucks, all told, we put into the pool would be used this week to buy our group 13 MegaMillions tickets.
No. Really. I do not play the lottery. I subscribe to the theory that says, “You can’t lose if you don’t play.” And I do know you have a better chance of being struck by lightning a half-dozen times than you do of winning the MegaMillion lottery. Yes. Seriously.
It was peer pressure. How could I not throw in a buck? I haven’t won the pool in over a year. So throwing away a buck…what difference does it make?
Forthwith our intrepid president went out and bought 13 lottery numbers, PDFs of which he forwarded to the merry group.
Thirteen tickets. How can we lose?
The payoff is up to $640 million now. Think of that.
If When we win it, if we take the $462 million in cash that represents, we’ll each collect $35,538,461.54. And who could be more deserving?
What are you planning to do with your MegaMillions winnings?
What a boot! A couple who sings in choir–real mainstays with wonderful voices–have a secret wild side. He has always wanted a Harley, and some months ago he finally realized his dream. It’s big and black and gorgeous. As we were walking out, they were getting ready to charge off and I said, jokingly, “I wanna ride it!”
So to my amazement, they offered me a ride. Great fun!
That was my ride on the wild side for this year.
Right now am whipped: up at 3 a.m.; read real estate textbook; tried to get back to sleep, unsuccessfully. Out of the sack at six, running on three and a half hours’ sleep. And we do mean run: this is Thursday from Hell. Seven ‘o clock meeting in Scottsdale; back into town; fill in take-home real estate quiz; wrestle with pool; water plants; wrestle with dogs; feed dog; out the door; spend four hours in the classroom; make min-Costco run; trudge home over surface streets; fix and bolt dinner; feed dogs; out the door; real estate class; trudge home again. Third? fourth? fifth insomniac night in a row? I’ve lost count.
Beyond nonfunctional. And so, to bed…
Image. Adrian Pingstone. Harley Davidson Electra Glide “Ultra Classic,” at Aust Motorway Services, Bristol, England. Public domain.
The weather gets nice, and all sorts of flora and fauna emerge from hibernation. Among them: the burglars who live in the slums across the Conduit of Blight to the west of us.
News came in from the president of our neighborhood homeowner’s group, who relays a report from a neighbor:
******Burglary on 11th Ave and Erewhon*****************
We were badly burglarized last Monday. We live at 11th Ave. and Erewhon. They gained entry via the alley by breaking our gate then forcing entry into the back french doors. Our alarm was on, but it was not monitored (lesson learned!). They really took their time. We had a safe installed in my husband’s closet and they sawed it out. They emptied every drawer and got every item of value.
<<< Really sorry to hear this Becky but glad, as I know you are, that no one was hurt. It’s difficult to know how the burglars figure out when you’re not home. It’s a good time for everyone to remember that most times, they are watching our house, watching us leave, looking for signs that we’re not home. Remembering this may cause us to change some habits and lessen the chance that the bad guys get that opportunity.>>>
This is the second incident following that MO that I’ve heard of lately—the other was three houses down from La Maya and La Bethulia’s place. That means we’ve probably got a specific set of sh!theads targeting the neighborhood.
Think of that: they managed to remove a built-in safe. Doesn’t say whether it was bolted to the slab, but “installed in a closet” seems to imply that.
We’ve all been following the lynch-mob frenzy over the killing of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-0ld who tangled with a volunteer neighborhood watchman. No one deserves to die for burgling or for looking like he might burgle. But it’s mighty risky behavior. You can be sure if one of our local thieves gets into my house while I’m here, he’ll very likely get himself shot. Wandering around the street looking suspicious, though…not so much.
Still, you have to figure people are on edge. And we have a gun-loving culture that encourages citizens to imagine they can “defend” themselves if they can just carry heat wherever they go. If it’s true that the young man actually jumped the amateur security guard, then clearly lugging a gun around doesn’t prevent an attack on one’s person. But whether the incident came down that way or not, under the circumstances it’s not surprising someone was killed in such a confrontation. It was bound to happen sooner or later.
Single heads of household now outnumber couples, and last year unmarried women made 21% of the home purchases in this country. Men, though they may not want to admit it, are no less uncomfortable about the prospect of some criminal breaking into their homes than are women, and as many men as women must be living alone—since 2005, single people have comprised the majority of home buyers. Knowing there are shady characters roaming around your neighborhood watching you and planning how they can break into your house is guaranteed to give a solitary homeowner (or a renter) the jitters.
Anything we can do to make ourselves safer? Welp…waving a gun around is not one of the possibilities. Most people will not shoot a person unless they’ve been trained extensively to do so. Even under duress, one pauses, and that can give an aggressor just the edge he needs to grab your gun and turn it on you. Very stupid. There are easier and less problematic strategies:
Make it appear that your house is occupied, even when you’re not home.
Leave a radio or the television blatting away while you’re at work during the day. Yes, it runs up the electric bill. But between you and me, I’d rather pay three or four bucks more each month than come home and find all the valuables cleaned out. And the safe sawed off its bolts.
Use timers to turn lights on and off when you’re out at night.
These are very cheap. If you attach several to different lamps, you can create the illusion that occupants are moving from room to room: have a family room light (and maybe the TV) go on at dusk; these go off a couple of hours later, when another light goes on in a bedroom. You could set it up so lights go on and off in back rooms in a seemingly random way all evening.
Leave a light on in a room that has no windows or whose windows are well covered at night.
If a prowler can see that a light is on somewhere in the house (because light is visible down a hallway) but can’t be sure whether someone is there or not, he’s going to be less likely to break in. I often leave the hall bathroom’s light on—you can’t see into the room from outside the house, and so it’s impossible to tell by looking into any of the windows where the light is coming from.
Install motion-sensitive lights around the outside of your home.
You can now get decorative motion-sensitive exterior lights inexpensively at the warehouse stores. I’ve installed them at the front and the back of the house and on either side of the garage door. They look just fine—no ugly glaring spotlights—and they come on if someone walks up to the door. Burglars don’t like that.
I also have a pair of spotlights in back that come on if anyone enters the back gate or walks across the expanse of yard behind the house. These do double duty, because they also light up the barbecue area and come on every time I go out there to throw a piece of meat on the grill. Very handy.
Secure the gates into your yard.
Our latest burglary report has the perps breaking down a gate. Hereabouts, most backyard gates opening onto the alleys are just nailed-together wooden things. Obviously, a lock on a flimsy gate can be circumvented with a few swift kicks.
For not very much money, you can get a metal-framed gate. Wood boards are bolted to the wrought-iron frame, creating an attractive appearance. Assuming you have a block wall (true, many of us do have wooden fences…), one of these gates can be securely installed onto metal uprights bolted to the wall. They don’t sag, and they’d be pretty hard to kick down.
Whatever kinds of gates you have, keep them locked. The burglars may still get into the house, but if they have to heft things over the wall, they at least may leave some of your stuff behind.
Grow man-eating plants around windows and along fences or walls.
What could be prettier (and ornier) than a rose, eh? How about a bougainvillea? They have claws like a well-fed wildcat’s. A Spanish sword agave lives up to its name: this is not something a burglar wants to climb over or land on as he’s jumping a wall or fence. Decorate with defensive plantings.
Want to raise chickens in your backyard? Get a goose.
They’re aggressive to strangers and they bite.
When you leave the house, look up and down the street to be sure no one is watching you.
Check cars parked along curbs for people sitting in them. Never leave your house when someone you don’t know can see you drive away. Better to be late for work than to come home and find your home cleaned out.
If you see someone you don’t recognize walking a dog, don’t leave your house until after they’re out of sight. Also from this week’s neighborhood report:
***********Suspicious Activity************
(Thanks Wayne and Darren for reporting this suspicious character to the police and letting us know. If others observe this activity in your neighborhood do not hesitate to call the police)
There has been a dirty grey Honda AZ license, with damage and black paint near the right rear fender well driven by a 20’s white male subject with a pit bull type of dog in the neighborhood for three days in a row apparently casing the neighborhood.
He parks and walks around back and forth with the dog with no apparent destination. This evening a 20’s Hispanic male with his baseball cap on backwards in a very dirty beat up white sedan (Honda??) bearing Colorado license was aimlessly cruising around and stopped off the end of my house to peer into the open garage door, when the driver observed me in the garage he punched it and took off he had made two passes in just about 2 minutes.
On Thursday February 23rd at about 3 p.m. I observed a car parked at the south side of my property on El Milagro east of 16th ave. He proceeded to get out of the car with a dog and he walked 1 block to the east, turned around and walked past his car and then 1 block to the west. He then got in his car and drove toward the park. I called crime stop and reported his description and plate #. On Friday at 11 a.m. he was back again and parked in the same spot and walked his dog again repeating the same actions as the day before.
I again called crime stop and relayed the same plate # and description. It does not make any sense to drive past the park if you intend to walk your dog. He is a white male, in his 30’s, 6ft tall, 190lbs wearing sunglasses and a baseball hat. The dog was tan & muscular like a pit bull. He drove a silver 4 door Toyota Camry (approx 2000 yr) w/hub caps and tinted windows. AZ ACF5337. The responding officer agreed the actions were suspicious and encouraged us to continue to report such activity.
Cancel newspapers and suspend mail delivery when you go on vacation.
We have one neighbor who goes off all the time and leaves newspapers piling up on the front sidewalk. They could save money on the newspaper subscription by simply putting up a sign that reads BURGLARS ENTER HERE.
Whenever you’re out of town, ask a neighbor to pick up advertising litter hung on your doorknob or thrown on your lawn, too.
Never leave a message on your voicemail saying you’re away from the house.
Ditto to notes left on the door, Tweets, and Facebook posts.
If you have a garage, clean it out and park your vehicles inside.
My neighbors across the street were burgled because they park their cars on the drive all the time. When no car is there, obviously no one is home. She works out of a home office. When she went out to a client’s office, the perps noticed she was gone and made themselves to home.
Leaving your cars on the driveway or yard is just another advertisement for burglars.
Don’t expect a dog, a deadbolt, or a security gate to keep burglars out. Dogs are easily poisoned, shot, clubbed, or simply tricked. A crowbar will snap a security gate open in a second. Deadbolts are simple to defeat.
To my mind, about the best you can hope for is to keep intruders out while you’re home. If they get in while you’re gone, who cares? But you sure don’t want to confront some meth-head inside your home, not at any time of day or night. I do have security gates and deadbolts, partly to keep the insurance company happy and partly so that a prowler will have to make enough noise to alert me before he can get in. For the same reason, I have squealers (small battery-operated stick-on alarms) on all the windows and doors. All I want is to be able to get into my safe room or out another door when some creep is coming in the back door or window.
Spent yesterday afternoon reading Chapter 16 in the real-estate textbook—”Title and Transferring Title”—and filling in four-page single-spaced study instrument on Chapter 15, “Contracts.” All this, by way of pursuing a new career in real estate.
Though it sounds dry as an empty Arizona housing tract, it’s surprisingly interesting. We tend not to think about where these customs, rules, and laws came from, nor, I think, do many of us understand their implications for us personally. Just in reading those two chapters, I came across a number of eye-openers and weirdnesses.
Did you realize, for example, that a person can take a piece of property away from you by openly occupying it for three years, by creating the illusion of owning the title, and/or by paying the property taxes on it? That if you make an offer on a house and then change your mind after the seller has accepted the offer, you may be liable not only to lose your earnest money deposit but also for a number of other hefty fees?
Between now and this evening, I’d like to read Chapter 14, “Environmental Issues and Arizona Water Law.” Exactly how a textbook is supposed to cover the water law of any Southwestern state in one chapter escapes me. There are attorneys who spend three years in law school followed by entire careers studying this subject. But whatEVER. The classmates had already been assigned this chapter at the end of the five-week RE 179 course—I and one other student walked in as the course morphed into the second semester, RE 180. So I’ll need to do a little catchup to come abreast of the other budding Realtors.
Unfortunately, between now and this evening I have to teach two sections of English 102 and drop by Costco on the way home.
One of the magazine-writing students reports that she recently started working in real estate sales, and that she has more work than she can cope with: “literally,” says she, “working from 7am until 2am.”
Welp, it’ll be interesting to find out if one gets paid for all those hours or if, like teaching, it’s just so much unpaid labor.
I figure sales of six $200,000 houses in a year would pay exactly what I’m earning at teaching adjunct, assuming one’s commission comes down to 1.5%. I have no idea whether that’s realistic.
Several online sites say real estate sales people end up with about 1.5% of sales, after the broker grabs half the commission. However, JS says his broker takes 40% of the 6% sales commission, not half (of which the sales rep nets about half). So that would mean he would get something more like two or three percent. Let’s assume he’s pocketing 2%: that would require me to sell 3.75 $200,000 houses in a year to supplement Social Security enough to support a lower-middle-class lifestyle. At 1.5%, I’d have to sell five such shacks.
More than that, actually: you have to cover a variety of expenses, depending on what brokerage you’re working for. And I’d certainly have to get a newer vehicle…can’t schlep prospects around in a 12-year-old dog chariot. So let’s add two houses to each of those: a very modest but for me acceptable income probably could be had by selling five to eight mid-range houses a year. Double that for low-end properties; halve it for upper-middle-class homes.
It’ll be interesting to see how (or if) this develops. I just can’t continue to do what I’m doing at the pay I’m earning.
