There have been some home invasions in our town again. We had a rash of burglaries over the summer and the perpetrator was caught at some point and charged for all of them. The problem is that we’re near the Charlotte border, and so we get ruffians from Charlotte who cross the border, do their crime, and then hightail it back to Charlotte. I remember soon after moving into our house in October 2006 we had a bunch of bank robberies about a mile or two from our house. And the grocery store where I go was robbed last year sometime. All of the crimes were done by Charlotte residents, not residents of my town (although the guy that did the home robberies was staying with his girlfriend in our town at the time he went on the spree).
It sounds like we live in a rough area – but we really don’t. It’s a nice bedroom community of Charlotte, that is unfortunately the target for break-ins during troubled times. Over the past year Denis and I have taken modest steps to increase the security of our house. We installed a garage door opener that requires a passcode – and programmed in a nice long code. We installed a deadbolt on the garage entry door to the house. We installed steel interior locks on the front and back doors. We installed thick storm doors that remain deadbolt-locked at all times now that we pretty much only use the garage for entries and departures from the house. We set our house alarm whenever we leave the house, and last night I even turned it on while Denis was out at a dinner and I was home with the kids.
As for the recent home invasions, both had the same M.O. The men travel in a group of two or three men. One bangs violently on the front door, and while you are cowering in fear over that, the other man/men break through the BACK door. Our back door is basically just a glass patio door – thus the reason for putting on a deadbolt lock storm door as one extra layer of protection for us and annoyance for would-be thieves. But last night I opted to also put protective covering on every single pane of glass in that door so that no one can see in. We keep our blinds shut on the back of the house almost all the time as it is, but the patio door was the one main vulnerability – anyone could be there at night watching us in the TV room and we’d never know. Well, now anyone who decides to prowl around back there can’t see a thing through that door. And yet the covering still allows plenty of daylight in, so we’re not losing that at all.
The last step now is to put shutters or a shade on the kitchen window. We’ve wanted to do that for a long time because the morning sun is a KILLER coming in that window – it’s blinding. The home invasions have raised that wishlist item to the top. I plan on hitting up Lowe’s tonight (I happen to have a giftcard for Lowe’s which will cover the cost – woo hoo!) and will install that tonight. Obviously that shade will remain open when the kids are out back playing so I can keep an eye on them, but when we’re not home, or when we’re inside watching TV, I won’t feel so vulnerable watching a Blu-Ray movie with surround sound on my big screen TV. Know what I mean?