The Break In

On Christmas Eve, I was at my grandma's house with family doing our family Christmas thing like we do every year, when I got a call from my roommate Amanda. She actually called twice, and I missed them because my phone was on silent, but I knew when I saw them that something was wrong. She wouldn't be calling me on Christmas Eve if nothing was wrong. So I send her a text message, not wanting to be rude to my family, asking what was up. The text I got back said "House got broken into". Shit.

We got broken into last year down in Eugene, so immediately I thought, "not again". Before I could text her back or call her, I got another text saying something like "The police said it was totally ransacked. I guess it's bad". Double shit.

So I call her, and she and Bryan are on their way down to see what's up. I ask them to call me and let me know when they get down there and see the place. Until then, I'm trying to think of what I left in my room and what could be gone, and trying to call Hayley at the same time to let her know.

When Amanda calls me, she gives me the bad news. It's totally trashed and a LOT of our stuff is gone. It sounds like they got in and had a lot of time to go through our stuff, load it up into their car or truck, even come back a few times. They took Bryan's 42" HDTV, my 23" HDTV, Bryan and Amanda's iMacs, my stereo speakers, my electric guitar, a bunch of my CDs, Bryan and Ryan's stereo receivers, Ryan's surround sound system, Ryan Hayley, and Bryan's spare car keys, lots of Amanda and Hayley's clothes, even their underwear, a bunch of our shoes, everything. They even went as far as taking Ryan's heavy bag from the backyard. That was a 200 lb. punching bag that they took. Ryan was just impressed that they took it. That would take some effort, and for what? You can't sell that. It's like they went Christmas shopping in our house, and it's 100 times more frustrating thinking they have our stuff in their house than if it would have been to sell to fuel their raging meth addictions.

It looks like they got in by taking a crowbar or something to the deadbolt on the back door and just working it until it broke. Once they were in, they really had run of the place, and just started going at it. Not sure how long they were there, but our neighbor eventually noticed that our back door was hanging wide open and called the police. They got in touch with the landlord, and then Amanda.

Needless to say, it was a bittersweet Christmas this year. But spending time with family and having things to take my mind off it really helped.

I've made an itemized list of all my stuff, both for police and for my Dad's home insurance. The list comes to over $3,000 of stolen stuff, so that was not a fun realization. I think I'm covered under my Dad's home insurance though, so hopefully I can get at least $1,000 of it back. At this point, something is better than nothing.

I've learned that now, after 2 house break ins, 2 car break ins, a car theft, all in a matter of 3 and a half years, I want to own a nice car with a huge alarm on it and live on the 17th floor of a high rise building with a doorman so that people can't climb in through the windows or bust through the door.

On Christmas Day, a repair guy cam over and replaced the deadbolt, then a few days later, he came back and put 2 extra locks on the door and a metal sleeve on the deadbolt for reinforcement. Last I heard, he was going to come back and reinforce the front door too. Then, when we get back, we're probably going to pick up some motion-sensor flood lights and put them by the doors. It really doesn't matter how much our neighbors complain about the light now, I don't want this shit to happen again.

Anyway, it sucks, but we're all getting through it together. Below are a few pictures Bryan took on Christmas Eve when he and Amanda got down there.