To Catch A Scumbag Part 1

Strap in kids. This story is long and involved but the payoff is worth it. This is the true story of having our home burglarized, and how we caught the people who did it and got our stuff back. I have decided to break this story up into several smaller posts due to the length.

Just to give you some context, let me tell you about my and my wonderful wife Kathy’s (Kat for short) big Christmas vacation plans, which is when these events took place. Both Kat and I took two weeks off of work and had all sorts of plans to do things, which also included plenty of time to do nothing. On the first day of our “vacation,” Monday, Dec 22, we started off by watching movies. We were watching The Hulk when Kat said

“Hit mute. I hear something weird.” So I did and I heard it too. I got up and walked toward the source in the kitchen, and water trickling down from the ceiling in one spot. Then quickly another, then another, and another. Now water was coming from everywhere, including out of the light fixtures. It was obvious that a pipe burst in our attic so I had to shut off the water. The indoor shut off would not budge so I went to the main in the front yard. No luck there either. I needed to find my tools but by now I am panicking a bit and cannot think where they are. Finally, we did close the main shut off but by then the damage was done. There were several inches of water on the floor in every room in the house.

We got out the wet/dry vac and got all of the water sucked up. It looked like no real damage was done and none of our stuff was damaged. Kat had the presence of mind to grab all of our valuables, including portable electronics, and put them in the car. We were feeling pretty good that we mitigated the damage as much as possible when the ceiling collapsed, spreading drywall, more water, and wet insulation over EVERYTHING. Crap! We called the insurance company who sent over a company who came and cleaned up that mess and set up huge fans and dehumidifiers in an effort to dry everything out. That meant we could not stay in the house, so we went to a hotel and the dogs went to the kennel.

So late on December 22, we checked into Hilton near the airport (got a good rate off of Hotwire). Got up the next morning to meet the representative from the company doing the clean up to see how the drying was going. Turns out the damage was worse than initially thought and it was going to take several days to allow the equipment to run and determine what could be saved and what would need to be replaced. So we met again the next day, then the next, and on Friday it was determined that we would let it go the weekend and check again on Monday. Monday came, and while there was progress, it was not where they would like, so the next target was Wednesday. If there was not more improvement then more of the ceiling would have to come down.

Each day we had been coming and going from the house. Meeting the insurance people, doing laundry, meeting contractors, and such. There was one exception - Tuesday, December 30. Kat had to work that day and I had made plans to go geocaching with my friend Jeff. We did not go by the house at all that day. We had to meet the clean up company at 11:00 a.m. on New Year’s Eve (Wednesday). We arrived and the crew was right behind us. Keep in mind that the house is in total disarray. Nothing is where it should be and the furniture that was in the two most affected rooms, the kitchen and the dining room, was spread throughout the house, making each room cluttered. As we left the guys to work, Kat says “Where is your (stereo) receiver?” I looked around and could not find it. I also could not find my Sirius satellite radio receiver. Then we notice various drawers are open and things are more out of place than we left them. Kat went outside in the back and notices the cord for the blinds in our family room is hanging out of the closed window. As we toured around more we found a box of our checks thrown in the neighbor’s yard. Now we are certain someone was in the house. Since we were sure that the windows were locked, we assumed that one of the workers left the window unlocked and that he or some friend came back later. That made sense since no one knew we were not staying there and the dogs were in the kennel, except those people. Not to mention that most of those workers did not look like fine upstanding citizens.

To be continued…….