You think I’m kidding, don’t you, when I call Sunnyslope, the venerable slum to the north of us, “Crime Central”….
Heh. Well, no. A joke it ain’t.
The place is aswarm with thugs, thieves, swindlers, murderers, and wannabe-all-of-the-aboves. When they’re not sticking up pawn shops, peddling dope. smoking up, or stealing cars, they come down into the ‘Hood and nearby tracts of upper North Central for the purposes of burgling and an occasional rape.
One of the neighbors reported, on the local Facebook page, that some dude (or dudette?) broke into their home while they and their dogs were there:
They went through the back gate, broke through garage door, went in the house quietly (did not wake any of our multiple dogs) and took purse, wallets, AirPods and collector sports items. Within a few hours they used all debit and credit cards at places like QT, Circle K, Light rail, water filling station, 7-eleven, Taco Mich. High end criminals…
Yeah. You see what I mean by Crime Central. That was a very practiced burglar.
To circumvent him, you’d need to have alarms on every door and window in the house. And I’ll tellya, that is a nuisance!
I speak from experience. For awhile I had little squealers, yes, literally on every door and window. It means you can’t open a door — ever — without remembering to turn the thing off. It means you can’t open a window, either, without turning the damn thing off. THEN you have to remember to turn them all back on when you close the window or door. So you get to live with a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week nuisance on the chance that you might be burgled!
Well, I figured one of the dogs would fly into a high yap-fest if a burglar tried to come in a window or door. But as you can see from that neighbor’s report…NOT SO! Apparently their burglar managed to get in without disturbing the dogs.
My house has heavy-duty security screen doors with deadbolts on every entrance, including the side door to the garage. But…those deadbolts are just ordinary locks: if you know how to get past one, you know how to get through those security doors.
But dayum! I guess with a cat burglar like that around, I’d better buy a new set of squealers and put them on all the sliding doors and windows. Again.
Burglars would need to get past the bars, storm windows, screens, original windows, then all of the plants, candles, vases, decorative boxes, piggy banks, etc. etc. I have on the windowsills. Good luck with that! ;o)
There’s a locked gate with a code between our front doors and the street. I usually place a standing bath towel holder in front of the front door before I go to bed. Knock that over, especially when you’re not expecting it, and the clanging will stop your heart!
The backdoor has a couple large storage totes in front of it, and a small portable washer in the corner partially blocking it. You can open the door a few inches, but can’t come in.
I’m eternally grateful to Mom for her insistence that the doors be locked at all times. Even in broad daylight when she was home. I know/hear of too many people in the U.S. who don’t do this! Richard Ramirez, The Night Stalker, never forced his way into homes. He always came through unlocked windows and doors. (shudder)
Ohhhhh i LOVE the bath towel holder! What a brilliant idea!. You could put anything up against the door, as long as it would tip over with a good clatter.
Yes, my mother was the same way. I can’t even imagine going to bed without the doors and windows closed and locked. In theory, it would be possible to leave the front door and the kitchen door hanging open to the night air, because both of those have steel security doors as “screen doors.” So, for that matter, does the garage — the side door has one of those, so you could leave the door between the kitchen and the garage open.
That would allow for plenty of air circulation. But…uhm…y’know…so does a fan. And so far I haven’t heard of anyone sneaking in through a ceiling fan. 😀
My mom had an alarm system installed and every slider and door and window on the main floor had a chime/beep that would ring when you opened/closed it, if the system. Didn’t set the alarm off (if the system wasn’t armed), didn’t have to be reset, just alerted you to the fact that Something Was Up.
As teens, it meant that we couldn’t sneak in/out of the house without my mom being aware. I don’t think it would necessarily wake you up – but if you were in the house and awake and heard it – you would be made aware at least.
In our house growing up, the doors were left unlocked all day – until all the kids grew up and moved out and we no longer had constant traffic. Then my mom started locking the doors during the day – it just made sense.
From day one though, when I moved out of the house, I have always kept the doors locked even when I am home. I had some housemates who didn’t get that – and we had some heated discussions about it. But yeah, the door doesn’t need to be unlocked unless I am entering or leaving through it.
I think it depends on where you live. Smaller towns, though they’re not really little Edens, are often safer than big-city neighborhoods. But here? Ruby the Killer Watchdawg and I live behind locked security doors.
DXH and I had a whole-house alarm system installed. WHAT a gigantic PITA! If you forgot to shut it off and the kid or a parent wandered through a door or opened a window, it would blast you into the middle of next week….the noise it made was just unholy!
I’ve found the best alarm system is branded Canis lupis familiaris. As long as you have a weapon at hand (pace, anti-gun nuts!), all you really need from an alarm system is to ensure that you’re awake and you know something is up. O’course, that’s why the neighborhood Facebook report that this latest prowler got in without awaking their dog(!!) was pretty alarming. {heh!}
When we lived in Arabia — Ras Tanura was a company town modeled after military base housing — we had relatively little reason to feel paranoid and would often leave doors unlocked, at least during the daytime. But back in the States? Huh-UH! Exterior doors were locked tight at all times.
As for the rabid nut cases that shoot up shopping centers…well, I’m afraid the solution to that is to stay out of shopping centers. And out of stores, as best as one can. Hence, the Joy That Is Amazon.