Burglary
On Monday I left the house to take a friend to lunch on her birthday. When I returned home four hours later, the dogs were frantic. I went into the office to check email...and the computer wasn't there. The monitor was, and the external drive and other peripheries...but not the computer. Nor was the laptop where I'd left it in the living room. I started to hyperventilate. I called 911. The dispatcher was really nasty ("you're being stupid, calm down damnit"), but eventually (!) agreed to send someone to the house. I called a friend to come sit with me because I was panicking, and I called insurance to start the claim process. I posted a brief, desperate update to facebook via the blackberry. It seemed like time grew elastic and thirty years or fifteen minutes later Officer Serena arrived. He was wonderful. Claimed his calmness was for the dogs, but it was clearly as much for me. He showed me where the hooligans had kicked in the side door, itemized what was gone (cash, jewelry, computers, and weird stuff, like a hard boiled egg from the fridge and two birthday cards and four granny squares from the afghan I'm currently making). He found a set of prints on the door and took a couple of other things outside to dust them. He made sure there was nothing I'd missed. Talked to me about the summer rush of burglaries. He said he's going on 4 or 5 calls like mine every day, and he's seeing at least one dead dog every day (they're poisoning big dogs).
My friend Larissa came over. Officer Serena made his farewells. I'm so grateful to him for his calmness, and for not doing any victim blaming. He didn't say I shouldn't have left the house or I ought to have bigger dogs or it's dangerous to have an airconditioner in the window. Instead he said "you did everything right" and he kept saying it and reinforcing it. I'm so glad he's the officer who came out to take the report.
Farmers insurance called back. I wasn't my most lucid, but they correctly interpreted my hysterical ramblings to mean that the door having been kicked in could not now be closed at all, and certainly not locked. This meant I neither felt safe staying home, nor did I feel I could leave the house standing open. They arranged for a contractor to come over and board up the door.
I started periodically wandering around the house trying to set things to rights. Put things back in the jewelry box which had been emptied on the bed, and put the jewelry box back on the dresser. Stripped the sheets off the bed and put them in the washing machine. Couldn't bear the thought of trying to sleep in burglar cooties. Picked the old journal off the floor - the bedside table had been emptied. Clothes from my emptied dresser had been thrown around the room. More laundry. No way was I going to wear underwear with burglar cooties either.
I'd have these 3 or 4 minutes of cleaning frenzy, then lapse back into lassitude, barely able to hold myself upright. Shock made exhaustion and paranoid hypomania war for control of my body.
Around 8pm the contractor came over and boarded up the door with a massive piece of plywood. Not pretty, and it smells bad too. Serious outgassing.
Rissa let me ramble as needed, wasn't demanding, made sure I drank water. Talked me into choosing some mental comfort food (Leverage and Avengers) to watch on the Roku (not stolen! yay!). She never made me feel like I was taking her away from her life. Eventually she put me on the outside of a piece of pizza and some icecream, and her husband joined us for a while, too. They left after 11pm. Riss would have stayed, but I felt, and feel, that I need to learn to be in my house again. I can't rely on the crutch of someone else being here, and the longer I wait to start making the house my home again, the harder it will be.
The dogs were very distressed. On Tuesday afternoon I finally called the vet. I hadn't found any physical hurt, but Emma, especially, was really showing changed behavior. When I took them in the vet examined them and found several bruised ribs and signs of concussion from Emma. From which we conclude that the burglars probably kicked her across the room. Vet gave her some sedative, which has helped some, but it'll take time for her to regain equilibrium. The first couple of days Emma was patrolling the house: about every 30 minutes she'd get up and go check every room to make sure things were right and proper, before returning to curl herself around me again. Cici sat and growled at the boarded up door for most of Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Tuesday I had to go to the post office and take the car for servicing. It was so hot that I couldn't take the dogs with me. I had a panic attack at the post office; the guy at the counter was helpless but sweet. I eventually stopped sobbing and began to breathe. I had another panic attack at Manly Honda, and actually passed out because I couldn't draw breath. No-one there said a word. No-one asked if I was okay, or if I needed a doctor, or if I wanted a cup of water. Not impressed. But I got home, and the dogs were still alive and the house was still there.
On Wednesday I went to the South Bay, avec les chiens. Had to pull over in Petaluma for about 10 minutes because I had another panic attack, but it passed and the rest of the drive was uneventful. Parents were solicitous of me and of dogs. Dad loaned me his laptop, and we went shopping for a desktop. Yay! No more dependence on the blackberry, though by then I'd had over 100 FB comments offering love, comfort, help and vengeance.
On Thursday I took the new computer and the external hard drive to a friend who had offered to help restore from back ups. It took over five hours, but eventually a full back up from May 17 was on the new box. I want to say here, how much I hate Microsoft. It fought me trying to install Microsoft Office, because it couldn't find a prior version (because the prior version was on the stolen computer...duh). The greatest hiccough with the backup was that the program which did incremental back ups (I'd only have lost two days' data) didn't recognize Windows 7 and wouldn't install to the new box. Everything was just so much harder than it needed to be; insult piled on insult piled on insult piled on the initial injury.
So life is as much restored as it can be, I think. And, of course, I have some observations.
Those messages of support? Really do help. Take the time to toss off that "I'm so sorry" message. They're what kept me from disintegrating into a gibbering heap. They keep cynicism at bay. Two or three hooligans kicked in my door and hurt my dog and stole my stuff, but fifty times that many people offered support.
Keep computer backups. I'm mourning that lost six weeks, but I'd be catatonic with despair if the rest of my archive was also lost. Music, pictures, work - there is too much at stake, and it is too easily lost. I'm now comparison shopping off-site back up options, as it was just blind luck that the hooligans left my external drive.
Kitchen cabinets and bedroom dressers are apparently common places for people to hide valuables. If you have something that really matters to you, find somewhere else for it. I hang my best necklaces on pegs in the bedroom, so that I can see them when I'm not wearing them - none of them were taken. The second-rate (but still good) stuff was in jewelry boxes and is now gone. The $100 cash hidden in the kitchen is gone. The dresser was emptied, but they didn't find the heirloom silver on the bookshelves.
Know what you have. Keep an inventory. It's incredibly hard to see what isn't there, and making up the list for the insurance claim was difficult both emotionally and pragmatically. I suspect I'll be appending things to that List of the Missing for a long time.
I'm so grateful for all that was left behind. They took the computer, but left the heirloom diamond ring that was on my desk. They kicked Emma, but they didn't kill her. They took a lot of jewelry, but they left a lot, too. It's really true: if they were rocket scientists, they'd be working for NASA, not kicking in my door.
My friend Larissa came over. Officer Serena made his farewells. I'm so grateful to him for his calmness, and for not doing any victim blaming. He didn't say I shouldn't have left the house or I ought to have bigger dogs or it's dangerous to have an airconditioner in the window. Instead he said "you did everything right" and he kept saying it and reinforcing it. I'm so glad he's the officer who came out to take the report.
Farmers insurance called back. I wasn't my most lucid, but they correctly interpreted my hysterical ramblings to mean that the door having been kicked in could not now be closed at all, and certainly not locked. This meant I neither felt safe staying home, nor did I feel I could leave the house standing open. They arranged for a contractor to come over and board up the door.
I started periodically wandering around the house trying to set things to rights. Put things back in the jewelry box which had been emptied on the bed, and put the jewelry box back on the dresser. Stripped the sheets off the bed and put them in the washing machine. Couldn't bear the thought of trying to sleep in burglar cooties. Picked the old journal off the floor - the bedside table had been emptied. Clothes from my emptied dresser had been thrown around the room. More laundry. No way was I going to wear underwear with burglar cooties either.
I'd have these 3 or 4 minutes of cleaning frenzy, then lapse back into lassitude, barely able to hold myself upright. Shock made exhaustion and paranoid hypomania war for control of my body.
Around 8pm the contractor came over and boarded up the door with a massive piece of plywood. Not pretty, and it smells bad too. Serious outgassing.
Rissa let me ramble as needed, wasn't demanding, made sure I drank water. Talked me into choosing some mental comfort food (Leverage and Avengers) to watch on the Roku (not stolen! yay!). She never made me feel like I was taking her away from her life. Eventually she put me on the outside of a piece of pizza and some icecream, and her husband joined us for a while, too. They left after 11pm. Riss would have stayed, but I felt, and feel, that I need to learn to be in my house again. I can't rely on the crutch of someone else being here, and the longer I wait to start making the house my home again, the harder it will be.
The dogs were very distressed. On Tuesday afternoon I finally called the vet. I hadn't found any physical hurt, but Emma, especially, was really showing changed behavior. When I took them in the vet examined them and found several bruised ribs and signs of concussion from Emma. From which we conclude that the burglars probably kicked her across the room. Vet gave her some sedative, which has helped some, but it'll take time for her to regain equilibrium. The first couple of days Emma was patrolling the house: about every 30 minutes she'd get up and go check every room to make sure things were right and proper, before returning to curl herself around me again. Cici sat and growled at the boarded up door for most of Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Tuesday I had to go to the post office and take the car for servicing. It was so hot that I couldn't take the dogs with me. I had a panic attack at the post office; the guy at the counter was helpless but sweet. I eventually stopped sobbing and began to breathe. I had another panic attack at Manly Honda, and actually passed out because I couldn't draw breath. No-one there said a word. No-one asked if I was okay, or if I needed a doctor, or if I wanted a cup of water. Not impressed. But I got home, and the dogs were still alive and the house was still there.
On Wednesday I went to the South Bay, avec les chiens. Had to pull over in Petaluma for about 10 minutes because I had another panic attack, but it passed and the rest of the drive was uneventful. Parents were solicitous of me and of dogs. Dad loaned me his laptop, and we went shopping for a desktop. Yay! No more dependence on the blackberry, though by then I'd had over 100 FB comments offering love, comfort, help and vengeance.
On Thursday I took the new computer and the external hard drive to a friend who had offered to help restore from back ups. It took over five hours, but eventually a full back up from May 17 was on the new box. I want to say here, how much I hate Microsoft. It fought me trying to install Microsoft Office, because it couldn't find a prior version (because the prior version was on the stolen computer...duh). The greatest hiccough with the backup was that the program which did incremental back ups (I'd only have lost two days' data) didn't recognize Windows 7 and wouldn't install to the new box. Everything was just so much harder than it needed to be; insult piled on insult piled on insult piled on the initial injury.
So life is as much restored as it can be, I think. And, of course, I have some observations.
Those messages of support? Really do help. Take the time to toss off that "I'm so sorry" message. They're what kept me from disintegrating into a gibbering heap. They keep cynicism at bay. Two or three hooligans kicked in my door and hurt my dog and stole my stuff, but fifty times that many people offered support.
Keep computer backups. I'm mourning that lost six weeks, but I'd be catatonic with despair if the rest of my archive was also lost. Music, pictures, work - there is too much at stake, and it is too easily lost. I'm now comparison shopping off-site back up options, as it was just blind luck that the hooligans left my external drive.
Kitchen cabinets and bedroom dressers are apparently common places for people to hide valuables. If you have something that really matters to you, find somewhere else for it. I hang my best necklaces on pegs in the bedroom, so that I can see them when I'm not wearing them - none of them were taken. The second-rate (but still good) stuff was in jewelry boxes and is now gone. The $100 cash hidden in the kitchen is gone. The dresser was emptied, but they didn't find the heirloom silver on the bookshelves.
Know what you have. Keep an inventory. It's incredibly hard to see what isn't there, and making up the list for the insurance claim was difficult both emotionally and pragmatically. I suspect I'll be appending things to that List of the Missing for a long time.
I'm so grateful for all that was left behind. They took the computer, but left the heirloom diamond ring that was on my desk. They kicked Emma, but they didn't kill her. They took a lot of jewelry, but they left a lot, too. It's really true: if they were rocket scientists, they'd be working for NASA, not kicking in my door.