Ok, so I have always lived in a great safe neighborhood, and never worried about anything happening....well Eakin and I truly got the real taste of living "in Birmingham" and in the Crestwood neighborhood....Friday, as I was gone from 11-4 helping my mother with making our items for the Avondale Craft show Saturday, I came home to a destroyed house that was ransacked and broken into. When I arrived home, I noticed that our front porch chairs had been moved in an unusual way, so I had looked to see if the front door window had been broken and it wasn't. So I turned the knob and it was still locked. I turned my key and walked inside to every single drawer, cabinet, closet that had been throughly searched through. My heart went through the roof. I immediately called 911 and told them what happened, then called Eakin who luckily wasn't too far away, then of course my mother who I just left. Luckily, Lila was with me, so she was not at home.
The police came in about 10 min, as I was sitting on the front porch nervous as all hell. As this police officer (who had braces by the way, weird) came to the house I told him what I came into. Soon Eakin arrived and my mother arrived. I was a basketcase since this had never happened to me before. As we looked around the tore up house, we started to notice what was gone. As soon as the brace face cop was taking the report, his scanner went off of another robbery next door at our neighbors as well. Her house wasn't ransacked like ours, but her laptop was gone too, and he went through the front window that was gated and had two big dogs!
Eakin normally always takes his laptop to work with him, but for the past two days, he had not and his $3000 laptop for work was gone. Along with an about $800 Canon professional camera that he had borrowed from a co-worker to take pictures of all the stores that was sitting on our coffee table. It was overwhelming to notice what was all gone, since everything was not in it's place. However, with it obviously being one man, he could not get our 47 inch TV and Xbox. His laptop was sitting by his checkbook and that was still there surprisingly. He had gone through every single room in the house and in Eakin's office was his uncle's shotgun, which was also gone....along with the bullets....So the big things were the laptop, camera, and shotgun....if my laptop was here, then I wouldn't be typing this today! So at least we have one left! The good thing is that it was work property that was mostly taken, so Eakin of course will get another laptop, but that doesn't replace everything that was on the laptop.
In our living room, which has three big windows, two on the side have bars, the middle one has two horizontal bars and that is what he broke into. He broke it in pieces and seemed like he "lightly" placed it on my couch. We weren't able to get fingerprints till the next morning (thanks to connections, otherwise the brace face cop said it would be "5-7 days!" Thanks BPD!) and the CSI guy dusted and found nothing, because apparently he used socks on his hands. There were a few things that made us laugh, as we noticed that our big glass jug which had a lot of coins, was completely emptied. Even my change purse in my school bag was emptied! If there was a penny on the floor, then it was gone!
So we are in the process of fixing the window (has plexiglass right now) and getting an alarm system working (which is only half way done, and why I'm stuck at home right now). We have been basically prisioners in our own home until we know we are secured. With only plexi glass on the window for now, I do not feel comfortable leaving to do anything until the alarm system works. Although it is highly doubtful that he will come back (however he might get a buddy and come help him since he knows what we have now), it is just an uneasy feeling. And I will especially not leave Lila until that is done.
Even though nothing big and personal was taken of mine, it still feels terrible knowing that this guy knows every single thing in my home, even down to what underwear I wear! It makes me have a sick feeling in my stomach. I have never been personally violated like this in my life and I now know what it feels like and I would not wish this on anyone. Our neighbor has been living in her house for over 20 years and when we moved in, she said that in those many years, she had not had the first incident of any kind.
Crestwood is a great neighboorhood to live in, and even though we are on the "edge" of it, we thought we were safe. But I guess in today's world, and especially in this terrible time of economy, you can't be sure of that anymore. What would make a person be so desperate to do something like this? That is something that is hard to understand.
oh and one more thing that was missing......a sugar free red bull......guess he needed more energy to steal people's personal things...
12 years ago
