Rude awakening to 2022
1 Jan 2022 05:53![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nwhikerDh and I were woken up by Linnea at 4:30 or so, saying someone had come to tap on her window. This is not normal, no duh.
Dh went to check outside (I went to the bathroom and to brush my teeth. If we were going to have A Morning Assault on the House, I was not about to be caught having to pee or with nasty unbrushed teeth). By the time I was done, dh was on the phone with 911 and...
... knocking, knocking at the front door.
Needless to say, here in unincorporated county, it took about 30 minutes to get the cops here. In the meanwhile, the person was knocking and banging at the front door, the cats were all staring at said front door and poor Linnea hid under our bed, eventually emerging covered in goose down (I ordered a new duvet. All of a sudden, ours starting tearing at the slightest provocation, ie even a cat just walking across it. What was two rents a week ago is now closer to 10. Dh thinks the cats are "fluffing" it. By cats, he means "Twisp".)
I tried to reach Perry on the phone (he was asleep downstairs). I texted him. He slept through my calls.
The knocking at the door continued. And continued. Yes, that was scary.
No, none of us entertained the thought of answering the door. Too early on a cold morning, we're at the end of a quiet and seemingly deserted street with no streetlights and houses often far from the road, and anyone who knows us would know that our bedroom window is right there and knocked at that to speak to us. We're not social people, to be honest, and we don't know a lot of people. The few people who know us should have our phone number or called out our names.
Perry's alarm went off (even though they are not rowing today) and I was able to call him to to tell him what was going on.
The police showed up eventually with a dog.
A few minutes later, they knocked on the door and we opened to see what was up. It had been a young man, he claimed to know us, to have come to a party here years ago and that he knew someone who lived here. No. He was charging his phone at the outlet we have by the front door.
I feel horrid. Poor young man, it's freezing cold (like 16F) and he probably needed shelter... but I can't see what else we could have done. I mean, opening the door at 5am, when you live at the end of the road and someone keeps on knocking? At this point we live in a society, as Linnea pointed out, where the assumption is that anyone trying to break into your house at 4am is armed and will shoot to kill. It was quite scary not knowing if someone was knocking to make sure the house was empty before breaking down the door or some such.
The cops were not all aggressive towards the dude, duh, he was white, and pretty much told us he was probably homeless and they'd take to someplace he could get help. UGH. I feel even more guilty.
Four things:
1. The cats are useless guard animals, LOL. They all sat by the front door waiting for the guest who was sure to offer them treats and let them drool on him. I lured them into the bathroom with treats so they could be locked up and away from any potential open doors.
2. During the half hour of persistent knocking, my suggestion was to burn some toast to get the fire alarm blaring to scare off the dude. I thought that was brilliant. Nobody appreciated my brilliance. OK, maybe it was a dumb idea. Dh says he didn't hear me. He was on the phone with 911 so that's probably the case.
3. It may be time for a Ring or other doorbell. We could have, at least, told the cops that the person was sitting by the front door charging their phone, which would have reduced the possibility of a lethal encounter. Because that was what was on my mind the whole time.
4. This was really weird. So dh called 911 with his phone. When was done, he got a message saying that all blocked numbers on his phone had been automatically unblocked and would be blocked again in 2 hours. They do it so 911 can reach you from any number, but we didn't expect that.
ETA Dh pointed out the situationality of the whole thing: we'd have opened the door at 8am. And that by starting with knocking at Linnea's window (which is at the back of the house, down a slope, so not like our front bedroom windows), we were primed to 'threat'.
Dh went to check outside (I went to the bathroom and to brush my teeth. If we were going to have A Morning Assault on the House, I was not about to be caught having to pee or with nasty unbrushed teeth). By the time I was done, dh was on the phone with 911 and...
... knocking, knocking at the front door.
Needless to say, here in unincorporated county, it took about 30 minutes to get the cops here. In the meanwhile, the person was knocking and banging at the front door, the cats were all staring at said front door and poor Linnea hid under our bed, eventually emerging covered in goose down (I ordered a new duvet. All of a sudden, ours starting tearing at the slightest provocation, ie even a cat just walking across it. What was two rents a week ago is now closer to 10. Dh thinks the cats are "fluffing" it. By cats, he means "Twisp".)
I tried to reach Perry on the phone (he was asleep downstairs). I texted him. He slept through my calls.
The knocking at the door continued. And continued. Yes, that was scary.
No, none of us entertained the thought of answering the door. Too early on a cold morning, we're at the end of a quiet and seemingly deserted street with no streetlights and houses often far from the road, and anyone who knows us would know that our bedroom window is right there and knocked at that to speak to us. We're not social people, to be honest, and we don't know a lot of people. The few people who know us should have our phone number or called out our names.
Perry's alarm went off (even though they are not rowing today) and I was able to call him to to tell him what was going on.
The police showed up eventually with a dog.
A few minutes later, they knocked on the door and we opened to see what was up. It had been a young man, he claimed to know us, to have come to a party here years ago and that he knew someone who lived here. No. He was charging his phone at the outlet we have by the front door.
I feel horrid. Poor young man, it's freezing cold (like 16F) and he probably needed shelter... but I can't see what else we could have done. I mean, opening the door at 5am, when you live at the end of the road and someone keeps on knocking? At this point we live in a society, as Linnea pointed out, where the assumption is that anyone trying to break into your house at 4am is armed and will shoot to kill. It was quite scary not knowing if someone was knocking to make sure the house was empty before breaking down the door or some such.
The cops were not all aggressive towards the dude, duh, he was white, and pretty much told us he was probably homeless and they'd take to someplace he could get help. UGH. I feel even more guilty.
Four things:
1. The cats are useless guard animals, LOL. They all sat by the front door waiting for the guest who was sure to offer them treats and let them drool on him. I lured them into the bathroom with treats so they could be locked up and away from any potential open doors.
2. During the half hour of persistent knocking, my suggestion was to burn some toast to get the fire alarm blaring to scare off the dude. I thought that was brilliant. Nobody appreciated my brilliance. OK, maybe it was a dumb idea. Dh says he didn't hear me. He was on the phone with 911 so that's probably the case.
3. It may be time for a Ring or other doorbell. We could have, at least, told the cops that the person was sitting by the front door charging their phone, which would have reduced the possibility of a lethal encounter. Because that was what was on my mind the whole time.
4. This was really weird. So dh called 911 with his phone. When was done, he got a message saying that all blocked numbers on his phone had been automatically unblocked and would be blocked again in 2 hours. They do it so 911 can reach you from any number, but we didn't expect that.
ETA Dh pointed out the situationality of the whole thing: we'd have opened the door at 8am. And that by starting with knocking at Linnea's window (which is at the back of the house, down a slope, so not like our front bedroom windows), we were primed to 'threat'.
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no subject
Date: 4 Jan 2022 02:15 (UTC)A while back we had someone try to enter the house in the wee hours of the morning (rattling the door knob IIRC; I forget whether or not there was knocking - our doorbell doesn't work), and then plop down on the porch. I called the police, and yelled at him; he stumbled off, so was probably drunk or otherwise impaired. The police circled around but didn't find anyone. If we lived in a remote area or the knocking had started at the back of the house, I probably would have been under a bed like Linnea!
Point 4 is interesting - I wonder if that is done nationwide or just in your area? Not going to test it out though :^)
And point 2: one of our fire alarms had been going off at random times. Since they're all connected, they all go off. That's loud. Not fun. (But not as obnoxious as the ones in the chemistry building at UM - after being blasted by them once or twice, I wondered if they were intentionally more obnoxious than other buildings because of all the potentially hazardous flammable chemicals in the labs.)