...shot gun opera lock and load/ cock it back and then watch it go...
So. A guy tried to break into our apartment last Sunday. Jim caught him red-handed and called the cops, but it's become the final straw, so to speak, and we're apartment-hunting now.
In case I haven't told you the story, here's what happened on Sunday:
I was on my way back from Austin at the time, on 290, just outside of Manor, I think - I remember I had about two hours' drive left before I'd be home. Jim was scheduled to go into work that day at noon, so it was about 11:30am when he was leaving home. He told me that as he stepped out of our apartment, backpack in hand, and as he was locking up a black guy about our age stumbled up to him - visibly drunk or high or something - and asked for a light. Jim told him no, he didn't have a lighter, sorry buddy, and then left. He had just put the trash in the dumpster and was on the way to his car when he heard a strange bang noise. (In case you don't know this about my hubby, he is a suspicious paranoid jerk, and I say this with full love and affection for him.) So, hearing this noise, Jim doubles back just to check on our apartment, and SURE ENOUGH, sees the same guy from before disappearing into our apartment and closing the door behind himself.
The noise was said guy kicking in the door to our apartment. Jim goes in behind the guy and tells him to GTFO, while calling the cops. The would-be-robber is stumbling over himself to apologise, saying he thought this was his friend's place, giving Jim his (fake) name, saying his aunt works in the complex (lies), and etc. Jim basically doesn't want to hear it and just tells him to leave. He calls the cops, files a police report for breaking and entering, gives them all the (fake) information that the would-be-robber told him, and then calls me. The cops came over to check the place out but apparently didn't catch the guy, since Jim saw him again an hour or so later in the parking lot, when he finally went to work. Our neighbor Eric came to house-sit until I got back from Austin, since the emergency maintenance guy did a half-assed job putting the door frame and locks back together.
We've kinda narrowed in on one place and we'll probably be signing a new lease sometime next week. I'm glad to be moving - I've wanted to for a while. But there are two downsides. The first is that this new place is pretty much gonna max out our monthly income. We were gonna wait to move until I found a full-time job, but that hasn't happened yet, and we're at the point where moving is no longer optional. So we're gonna be very tight on the purse-strings until I can find work. Sucky thing number two is that I haven't yet found a place that will accept exotic pets, which means I still can't have my corn snake actually living with me, dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. D:
I was going somewhere with this, I promise.
ETA: Oh, right! So we went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II in theatres last night. We got tickets to the Alamo Drafthouse with some friends of ours. Bought them a month ago, and Jim rearranged his days off for this month in order to go to the movie. And then last night as we were leaving for the theatre, we saw two guys hanging around the stairwell in front of our apartment.
Now, we know for a fact no one lives next to us - there's workers in there right now, putting down new flooring and what-not. And Jim says that when he talked to the leasing office on Monday, they told him that there's no one in the apartment above ours because those folks just got evicted. (Thank God; they were really loud neighbors.) So why are these two guys hanging out on our stairwell, you ask?
Good question. As we're walking to the parking lot, Jim glanced behind us, in time to see one of said guys peeking around the corner - as though to see if we had left yet. This does not sit well with either of us. We called the cops again to report suspicious loitering, or whatever that's called, and long story short Jim missed the movie because we didn't want to leave our apartment unattended from 9pm to 3am.
That. Sucks.
I ended up going to the movie with my friends, and lawnornament17 took the last ticket and came with me despite knowing not the first little thing about the Harry Potter fandom. (She's weird like that but I love her anyway.) That made me feel a smidgeon better, because wasting a ticket like that is just terrible, but it still sucked for Jim, and I don't know when we'll have a chance to go see it again when he can actually make it.
tl;dr - WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT LEAVING OUR APARTMENT UNOCCUPIED. But we do. Hence, moving.
In case I haven't told you the story, here's what happened on Sunday:
I was on my way back from Austin at the time, on 290, just outside of Manor, I think - I remember I had about two hours' drive left before I'd be home. Jim was scheduled to go into work that day at noon, so it was about 11:30am when he was leaving home. He told me that as he stepped out of our apartment, backpack in hand, and as he was locking up a black guy about our age stumbled up to him - visibly drunk or high or something - and asked for a light. Jim told him no, he didn't have a lighter, sorry buddy, and then left. He had just put the trash in the dumpster and was on the way to his car when he heard a strange bang noise. (In case you don't know this about my hubby, he is a suspicious paranoid jerk, and I say this with full love and affection for him.) So, hearing this noise, Jim doubles back just to check on our apartment, and SURE ENOUGH, sees the same guy from before disappearing into our apartment and closing the door behind himself.
The noise was said guy kicking in the door to our apartment. Jim goes in behind the guy and tells him to GTFO, while calling the cops. The would-be-robber is stumbling over himself to apologise, saying he thought this was his friend's place, giving Jim his (fake) name, saying his aunt works in the complex (lies), and etc. Jim basically doesn't want to hear it and just tells him to leave. He calls the cops, files a police report for breaking and entering, gives them all the (fake) information that the would-be-robber told him, and then calls me. The cops came over to check the place out but apparently didn't catch the guy, since Jim saw him again an hour or so later in the parking lot, when he finally went to work. Our neighbor Eric came to house-sit until I got back from Austin, since the emergency maintenance guy did a half-assed job putting the door frame and locks back together.
We've kinda narrowed in on one place and we'll probably be signing a new lease sometime next week. I'm glad to be moving - I've wanted to for a while. But there are two downsides. The first is that this new place is pretty much gonna max out our monthly income. We were gonna wait to move until I found a full-time job, but that hasn't happened yet, and we're at the point where moving is no longer optional. So we're gonna be very tight on the purse-strings until I can find work. Sucky thing number two is that I haven't yet found a place that will accept exotic pets, which means I still can't have my corn snake actually living with me, dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. D:
I was going somewhere with this, I promise.
ETA: Oh, right! So we went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II in theatres last night. We got tickets to the Alamo Drafthouse with some friends of ours. Bought them a month ago, and Jim rearranged his days off for this month in order to go to the movie. And then last night as we were leaving for the theatre, we saw two guys hanging around the stairwell in front of our apartment.
Now, we know for a fact no one lives next to us - there's workers in there right now, putting down new flooring and what-not. And Jim says that when he talked to the leasing office on Monday, they told him that there's no one in the apartment above ours because those folks just got evicted. (Thank God; they were really loud neighbors.) So why are these two guys hanging out on our stairwell, you ask?
Good question. As we're walking to the parking lot, Jim glanced behind us, in time to see one of said guys peeking around the corner - as though to see if we had left yet. This does not sit well with either of us. We called the cops again to report suspicious loitering, or whatever that's called, and long story short Jim missed the movie because we didn't want to leave our apartment unattended from 9pm to 3am.
That. Sucks.
I ended up going to the movie with my friends, and lawnornament17 took the last ticket and came with me despite knowing not the first little thing about the Harry Potter fandom. (She's weird like that but I love her anyway.) That made me feel a smidgeon better, because wasting a ticket like that is just terrible, but it still sucked for Jim, and I don't know when we'll have a chance to go see it again when he can actually make it.
tl;dr - WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT LEAVING OUR APARTMENT UNOCCUPIED. But we do. Hence, moving.