A timely Reminder to always check your doors are locked...

[Ionica]

Hope it all works out well for you. My wife is often casual about locking doors - I may have to show her this.

[Kerrie]

So glad this ended well for you. How horrible.



Get a deadlock that locks automatically simply by closing your door, but remains unlocked if u need to get out. I'm sure ur already looking into it.

[Sammi]

Long term, consider getting a reasonble sized dog. Even a labrador will growl in the middle of the night (mine do) and its a great deterent if someone happens to be sneaking around outside. Mine go off, if someone comes down the path at night.

Rik weve been talking about getting a husky for sometime now, but have put it off cause were renting and where gonna wait till we brought our own place but i think we will be getting permission from the owner to get a dog now for that exact reason. even a growl to let us know.. if it hadnt been for bub waking up a bit earlier i dont know if i would have relized they where there..

[Mark L]

Glad you all are safe. You will get over this.
and other swear words for people that do this!

.....
Get a deadlock that locks automatically simply by closing your door, but remains unlocked if u need to get out. I'm sure ur already looking into it.

That's fair, but I want to remind people not to dead lock doors with a key if there are people in the house. Fires happen fast and people have died in the panic trying to get internally dead locked doors open.
Get down low and go, go, go.

[ameerat42]

Some key points mentioned in this long thread.

[Allie]

This was very frightening for you and I'm so very glad that all that is missing is your sleep and the feeling of security in your home but I hope you get that back soon. <hugs> I agree with Rick that it was probably someone trying a series of doors until an open one was found - a planned event would have had a different outcome, though it was very bold as no doubt with a child and a new baby it was probably obvious that the house was occupied.

I had something similar happen over summer but nowhere near as frightening as yours - just disturbing. The front door and security door of my empty rental property awaiting repair was left open late at night by me for one night only in anticipation of an early electrician visit the following morning (stupid in retrospect but I had changed all the locks and didn't want anyone else to have the last set of keys). During that night a young man opened the doors and slept in front of the heater on a clean dog bed I was using to protect the bathroom tiles from tools. He was only discovered by a passer-by as he was exiting the house. Although there were various tools laying around, nothing was taken or damaged or used (other than the dog bed). How he knew it was open I don't know as it was opened unobtrusively from the inside and I exited from the rear which was deadlocked. I think he was just someone looking for somewhere to sleep and was trying all the houses he passed - this house is among a series of holiday homes. Hopefully your intruder only had similar intentions and you can rest a bit easier.

Thanks for sharing this experience as it is a good reminder. I also recommend the dog owning suggestion as a deterrent although that is probably difficult when you rent - but I need to add that in that respect, thieves can take anything I have as long as they don't hurt my dog.

[Tommo224]

I agree with Rick that a dog would help if possible (any size- my Jack Russell sounds very ferocious when he barks), it has made all the difference to me feeling safe when hubby is away. Several years ago when we lived in town we had our car broken into. We called the police and they told us groups of thieves were "mapping" properties with dogs by getting them to bark at night, and then targetting houses without any.

Could be why my dogs at home used to bark so often at "nothing", causing our neighbours to complain often? Maybe they were barking for reason such as the underlined?


Hopefully your landlord allows you to have a dog, I'm sure they won't have a problem with it after these reasons and if you keep the place clean. (I know I would be OK with it in your case if you were living in my rental property).


Such a scary thought! The image in my head is creeping me out majorly. I just hope, for your sake, that they were merely casing houses out in the street, happened to come across yours and was checking the rooms to figure out where the people in the house were, so they could sneak around elsewhere in the house. And you just happened to wake up and startled them before they could take anything! Had you not woken up, they may have snuck around elsewhere to take items from other rooms and had no intentions on bringing harm to you and your family. I really hope that is the case (better of two evils?).

My wishes and thoughts to you, and hopefully this person is taken down!

[ving]

Holly cow! Am glad you are ok and that's the main thing hey. Keep that door locked hey!

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[elysium]

Wow, its really an eye opener, other half is always telling me to lock the screen and main door but i never pay attention, I will from now on!
Glad you are okay!

[old dog]

thank goodness you and your family are safe after this awful experience. Such a shame to have to lock ourselves in but there is a world full of bottom feeders out there.

[yummymummy]

oh Sammi, I feel your pain sweety I had the same thing happen to me, hence why I moved out bush!!! I was a single mum at the time, with two small kids, unfortunately I wasn't as lucky and did get some damage when I was forcefully pushed to the ground by two of the men on their way out the door. I now sleep very lightly, and check, double check, and triple check the doors and windows before going to bed..... sleep will come peacefully again to you, it might take a while, but you'll get there xoxoxoxo