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Important Safety info for homeschoolers – Re: Breakins
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Dear friends – I think this advice is especially relevant to us, as many of us are at home with our children during the day. We received the email below from a sheriff’s officer in our neighborhood. Above that is a link to an article where this seems to have played out in real life. Never open your door to a stranger, but DO let them know you’re home. Most burglars are probably looking for an easy target of an empty home – don’t let them think that YOUR home is empty.
Blessings,
Rebekahhttp://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/mother-of-two-surprises-burglar-with-five-gunshots/nTnGR/
Dear Neighbors,
On Tuesday evening, a male party went to the front door of a home located in Castle Creek (just south of us), and when the couple didn’t answer, the party attempted to kick the door. He partially broke the door jamb and only bailed when the homeowner responded by hitting the other side of the door and yelling for the guy to get lost. The suspect ran to a waiting car. DSCO canvassed the area, but the guys got away. The suspect was described as male, Hispanic, 6 feet tall. No license plate or vehicle description to go on.This is something I’ve been talking to my wife about for years. She’s a business owner (OmahaPromos.com),but works from home. One of most prevalent MO’s of residential burglars is to knock at the front door first, and if they don’t get an answer, kick the front door or go to a side or rear door or window to make entry there.
Please know, I’m not casting aspersions about the victims here. They did what most people do: they didn’t recognize the person at the front door and didn’t answer the bell, assuming (as would be natural to do in a perfect world) the guy would go about his way. It was smart not to answer the door, but I believe there is one thing they could have done to better protect themselves.
It’s my position you increase your risk of having an intruder attempt to break in by not making yourself seen inside the house. Most burglars don’t want to encounter homeowners… too many things could go wrong, e.g. they could get shot, they could get bitten by a dog, they could be caught by the cops when residents call 911, etc.
My wife and I worked out a protocol years ago. If someone she doesn’t know rings or knocks, she makes an appearance in the narrow window on the side of the door. Important: she never, ever opens the door for a stranger. Instead, she waves them off and says, “No thank you” or something to that effect. If they persist, she tells the person (through a closed front door, not the false security of a storm door) she’s going to call 911.
I will also tell you my spouse is well versed with her handgun. I’m not advocating you run out and purchase a pistol (though if anyone has that inclination, I will happily provide free consultation). What I do advocate to my family and closest friends, however, is make sure the stranger on the front porch knows you’re inside. Show your face, point for him to go down the street, turn on a porch light and let him stand there in the light, etc. Do something, just don’t open the door to your home to him.
Kid selling items for school? Maybe a different story, but that’s about the only exception. Door to door salesman with a bottle of Miracle Cleaner in his hand? Nope. Person saying he’s run out of gas down the street? Nope. Construction worker guy asking if he can use water from the spigot on the side of the house? He can have all the water he wants, but my wife has that conversation with him through the closed door. You get the idea.
In closing, I hope these emails aren’t a nuisance or intrusion. I’ve received quite a lot of affirmation and positive feedback on these notes, but if you desire that I pull your name out of my group e-mail list, just let me know and I’ll kindly comply.
Stay vigilant. And stay safe.
Merry Christmas.
JeffVery proud of the mom who shot the burglar. She kept a level head, grabbing her children, gun and phone then aimed well. Any thieves who pay attention to this story know which house to avoid in the future.
Not to mention her being here in my state of GA.; it will recognize her right to defend herself.
All well and good for those homes with glass in or near their front door. Not so good for those of us with no windows at all near the front door (I have a wall on both sides, & the house makes an L shape next to the front door with no windows along that whole side). And it’s also not easy to hear through our front door, either. :-/ Luckily I’m in a small town, in town, & more than 1 neighbor is home all day long.
Another option would be to set off your car alarm – most newer cars have that honking panic button – whenever someone comes to the door that you don’t know. Sure, your FED-EX man will think you’re crazy, but the burglar will know someone is home and likely not want to stay.
BTW – the neighborhood mentioned in the email is an upperclass neighborhood on the “good” side of town. So it’s not just houses in the country or houses on the wrong side of the tracks.
What if you only have 1 vehicle, & it’s gone at work with hubby? Not trying to be difficult, but to be honest, sometimes these stories get passed around to just scare people. There is such a thing as going overboard on “self-protection.” Yes, err on the side of caution, but don’t go nuts trying to stay safe. In this world there will be troubles, & we can’t prevent everything.
Just my $.02 – or however much I’ve put in now. 🙂
I agree with Rebekahy and Rachel! It pays to be prepared. I don’t answer the door, but do let people know I’m home. I’m also well versed in how to use a gun.
My other advice is that dogs can be a deterrent, too.
Personal story – When ds3 was an infant, I sat on the couch in our living room nursing him and reading to the older 3 at about 10 am when there was a knock at the front door. The door was in my line of site and is a full glass double front door. The guy standing there was not anyone I knew. I instructed the kids to ignore the knock and not get up. The guy looked through the glass straight at me and pounded on the door much harder. Just as I was about to make some decisions about our safety, my dog, part lab and part German Shepherd went to the door and made the most ferocious noise I have ever heard. The man hightailed it off my porch and property fast! The dog is super friendly, but a SUPREME judge of character! I was telling a neighbor who’s a police officer about it and he asked that I make an official report. Turns out a guy matching that description had broken into another neighbor’s home that day.
Thanks so much for sharing this. It is good to be prepared. i do not like to live in fear, and prefer not to think about this kind of thing, but the fact remains that all is well in that home b/c that woman was prepared. And possibly a lot of trouble could have been saved if she had been prepared with this info too. I’ll be using it. In the past I have not made it known that we are home, but now I think I will.
And maybe i’ll change my mind about dogs in the house too 😉 We’ve always had large dogs outside, but since moving to town – no dogs. It does make me feel good to have a good, big dog when someone I don’t know pulls up.
I’m certainly NOT trying to pass around this story to scare people… I’m passing it around because apparently it’s VERY common for burglars to knock and if noone answers they try to breakin. MANY people I know tell their children NOT to answer the door if the kids are home alone, in light of this new-to-me information, I think that is a VERY BAD protocol for children and homeschool families that ARE indeed home.
This is NOT some annecdotal story. I FIRST hand received the email posted above from a police officer in MY neighborhood as a note of caution about a recent burglary attempt in the neighborhood right next to ours. The police officer in my own neighborhood was kind enough to share his knowledge of this attempted breakin along with his years of experience to let his own neighbors know that it IS common for them to knock and then break-in.
SO, because I care about the many homeschool families that I know – that may not know about this common practice, I shared it on this forum AND on facebook AND on our local homeschool e-tree. I recieved BACK an email from our OWN piano teacher that this same type of incident happen to HER neighbor. I recieved back ANOTHER email from a friend on facebook that this EXACT incident happened to her (they homeschool). NONE of the people in the incident including the article I posted knew that they should somehow acknowledge a knock at their door.
So that’s four incidents that I’ve recently heard about. It’s probably not going to happen to you, but I guarantee it’s NOT going to happen to me, because I’m going to let anyone that knocks at the door know I’m home. Even if it’s just by flashing the porch light on and off, but I suppose those people that don’t have windows, car alarms or voices loud enough to be heard through a door most likely don’t have porch lights either.
I hope that noone needs this information, but I do hope that you’ll share this common burglary practice with your homeschool friends – feel free to just use the link to the story in the newspaper -as it’s obviously not some madeup email you have to check out on snopes.
And Christie, I appreciate your story – scary that he was bold enough to look at you through the door and keep pounding – glad you had your dog!
ETA: should be sight, not site.
Another burglary practice is to follow someone home late at night and come in when they open their garage door. This happened to my sister in law’s neighbor (2 doors down) and they were held at gunpoint and robbed. In a very nice neighborhood. They have since moved being unable to live in the home where this happened.
When we lived in Texas my husband was out of town and a guy came to our door and knocked. I had a wierd feeling (he was pacing and acting erratically)and didn’t know what to do so I hesitated to answer the door…He walked up and jiggled the knob!! I shouted and the dog went crazy and off the guy went. So this can happen, and I agree that it is better to let them know that you are home somehow than to pretend you aren’t there.
By the way, I called my husbands’ good friend who lived around the corner to let him know what had happened. He was a county judge (and fellow homeschooler). His words to me were that, in Texas, as soon as he tried to enter my home I had a legal right to shoot him! At the time we didn’t even own a gun, and I don’t know if I could go that far over someone just trying my door, but it definitely got my attention :).
I realize that as Christians we shouldn’t live in fear or aggression, but we live in a very evil world and have to be prepared and protect our families, if necessary.
I have to admit, I missed my window of going to sleep and so now I’m amusing myself with different ways you can let someone know you’re home. They knock, you knock back…. perhaps in morse code (gotta get some school credits for that!). Reverse your doorbell, so they HAVE to knock and then you ring the doorbell from the inside and it chimes on the outside. Leave the listening side of a baby monitor on your front porch – I know for SURE that anyone who heard me chasing down my wild two year old would NEVER be bold enough to attempt to enter. Get an NRA lawn sign, along with a “retired Navy seal” doormat.
I have a dry sense of humor, but at least I think I’m funny! OK, seriously need to get to bed.I didn’t mean to not warn people. The way the original post was worded sounded like you were just passing along an email you got, regardless of who it came from. And yes, obviously, these incidents do happen. Yes, it’s great to be prepared, but my point is, we can’t prepare for *everything.* And we shouldn’t even try to.
In our neighborhood, I have neighborhood kids knock on my door often. I can’t just ignore the door because it might be a kid. I have a peephole that I do use sometimes, but honestly, anyone looks scary through those things. 😛 I don’t have a dog, & we don’t have a gun, & I don’t even have a pocket to carry my phone with me around the house. I do have a porch light, but guess what? It’s on an automatic switch based on amount of daylight. So during the day, nope, can’t do that, either. For nighttime, each door has a motion-detector light. I figure it’s easy enough for someone to realize I’m home since our drapes are open & nearly always one of us is walking around in front of a window. Especially someone who is looking to break in, they will be especially observant. They don’t know if I have a gun or not, & in small-town America, it is more likely you do than you don’t.
Oh, and my logical side tells me, a salesman would knock again, too, if he saw you looking at him & didn’t come to the door or at least acknowledge him/wave him off/whatever. We even did that with trick-or-treating this past Oct. We rang again, & still no answer. Then we left thinking, “How rude!”
Just a thought, not to disagree with the above info, but sometimes people aren’t at your house to break in and steal things. Unfortunately there are others with worse motives, who would actually be pleased to see that you are at home. So my husband isn’t a big fan of me showing myself, especially before I’m ready and prepared with things that would help keep our family safe if necessary.
I have a dry sense of humor, but at least I think I’m funny! OK, seriously need to get to bed.
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