The Invasion

Jake and I got home from the wedding in London, Ontario at about ten o’clock last night. I carried our two leftover blueberry muffins into the kitchen and sat them down next to an empty container of Trader Joe’s Mango Lemonade. I think I puzzled over this subconsciously because I had last seen the container in the fridge and I didn’t thing either of us had drank the last bit of it. 

Then I turned around to see glass on the floor. And the kitchen curtains twitching a bit…and a broken window. I don’t remember what I said but I said something and I think Jake came into the kitchen, too. We checked the living room and the television was still there but his Wii and a handful of games that were on top of the TV were gone.

He raced upstairs and I heard him call out a few seconds later, “They got my computer!” He had slid hid laptop under the bed before we left – something he’s only started doing very recently. I joined him upstairs. Everything from the bedside tables was scattered across the bed. The capris I had left on the chair were on the floor – I’m sure they were tossed aside after the pockets were searched. I didn’t check to see if the turquoise necklace that I had left on the table was still there but I expect that it was slipped in a jacket pocket and taken as well.

He called 911 and we went out the front door to check the damage outside the kitchen window. That’s when we discovered they’d tried to get in the front French doors. Oddly enough, on the way in, I’d noticed a plant was tipped over but not that the wooden framed screen was ajar. The officer showed up at about that time and we went around back to discover that a brick Jake, my concerned animal lover boyfriend, had warmed in the oven, wrapped in a towel and put outside for a stray cat one night, was used to bust the window.  

The officer, who was terribly nice, took the report and called for the CSI team but warned us that it could be three or four in the morning before they showed up as lovely Dayton, Ohio had already had a couple of shootings. 

After he left, we discovered a couple of other odd things. I went to the bathroom, sat down without thinking…and nearly fell in. Jake never leaves the seat up. So our burglar, who had searched the bathroom closet and left it ajar, had also stopped to relieve himself (if nothing else, we now know the burglar was a male) and actually flush the toilet but he forgot to put the lid back down. He also left the socks he wore on his hands stuffed in a coffee cup on the kitchen counter. I left before the CSI “team” of one officer showed up around one-thirty but he actually found blood on the gloves. He also said there was a chance it was someone stealing for “stuff” rather than to sell because he only stole the games that were for the Wii – not We Love Katamari which was for the PlayStation Jake had traded to a friend some time ago even though that game was also on top of the television.  

This morning Jake also discovered that the burglar hadn’t tried to get in through the front French doors but had left by them. And he’d also stolen the change from a jar in the spare bedroom.  Jake called at nine this morning to tell me this and what the CSI officer had said and actually apologized for going on and on about it. He didn’t want to be tedious. My god. I don’t even live there and I can’t stop thinking about it. I had my car broken into (well, actually I left it unlocked but it was rolled into a ditch across the street and emptied out) when I was in college and I can remember that sense of violation and betrayal. And that was just my car. Jake says he’d like to burn the place to the ground. This is something he often fantasizes about but it’s always been because it’s such an old house that needs too much work – he’d love to start over. When he mentioned burning it this morning I added that he would still be rebuilding in th same neighborhood so he now wants to burn it and build a park in its place.

It’s a beautiful neighborhood with gorgeous houses and lawns full of flowers…but it’s also a very unsafe neighborhood. Strangers and panhandlers are always walking by. He can’t keep lawn furniture on the patio because the homeless will sleep on them. When we were putting up a new wrought iron railing on his tenant’s porch several weeks ago a man stopped and asked for six dollars so that he could make his rent. After the man explained that he had just gotten out of prison and was trying to change his life, Jake actually went inside and scraped up some cash to give him. He offered to help with the railing or mow the lawn but Jake sent him on his way saying, “Pass it on.”

You want to think people are inherently good but that man came back several days later, scratched and bruised, claiming he’d been beaten up by some people in his group home and they’d stolen his money. He wanted more. Jake turned him away. In reality, he was most likely casing the house. This Michael, whom Jake had helped out, could have been the one that broke in his kitchen window, drank his Mango Orange juice (there were no prints so he must have still had the socks on – but at least he received a small nasty surprise in the form of the juice…it had gone bad weeks ago), stolen his Wii, ransacked his bedroom, stolen his laptop and used his bathroom before fleeing out the front French doors. 

The whole situation is creepy and, with a $1,000 deductible, Jake thinks it’s going to cost him an arm and a leg which is probably true. The insurance company also has to take photos before he can have the glass replaced and they can’t send anyone out for two or three days…but the house needs to be secured. But, since insurance companies are so helpful, they’re going to recommend someone to board the windows and door up! Lucky Jake! Ridiculous.

Anyway, it was a very shitty way to end and otherwise okay weekend. I’m sure they’ll never catch the guy and even if they did, they wouldn’t recover the Wii or the laptop. I just don’t understand people sometimes.  I mean, what kind of person thinks it’s okay to break into someone else’s home and take things?  It never fails to astound me….

Comments

[Bertha]

Jesus Emily, I am so sorry. Poor Jake, ugh.

[Delly Bean]

That's freak-tastic. I hope you two can feel less invaded soon. At least your police were nice about things (I have a friend who had a break-in and the police were ambivalent).