A Thief in the Night

On Saturday morning as I went to load some stuff for a weekend at STC Dressage, I saw that my truck door hadn't been shut properly. I flipped a U-turn and went back into the house. "I didn't shut my truck door last night," I told my husband. I worried that I might need to jump start it which would have been a big bummer as I had just bought two new batteries in November.

When I went back out to Newt, I noticed a series of things that hit me like the rat-a-tat-tat of a machine gun.

• my cloth groceries bags were on the passenger side floorboard. 
• my center console had the edge of a hand sanitizer hanging out, and it wasn't closed all the way.
• my windshield sunshade was on the back seat.
• the rubber liner to a cubby was on the floor.
• my glovebox dropped open as I was putting things back in their place.

To each thing I kept repeating, I must have been in a big hurry on Friday night when I got home from work. And then I got in to start the truck to check the battery. My driver side seat was pushed back. I am 5'3". A lightening bolt struck me; someone had broken into my truck. Son of a bleeping beep. Before I touched anything else, I brought my husband out to show him. I discovered that the interior lights had been turned off which is why none of them came on when I opened the door which is one reason I had worried that my battery was dead.

We both stood there shaking our heads, getting madder as each second passed. The front of our house is well lit at night. We have a light post right in front of our house. We have motion lights. We live in a gated community. My community, of which I am a board member, has a contract with a private security firm who does drive-bys throughout the day and night. And yet, someone was able to sneak around my front yard and break into my truck. Fortunately, there was nothing of value to take, and no damage was done, but still ...

Later in the day I posted the break-in on the Nextdoor App. My neighborhood uses it as a sort of neighborhood watch. All of my neighbors post suspicious activity, so I knew I'd get a response. The next day, several other people reported that the same thing had happened to them, and one of them shared a screen shot from his video camera.

Unfortunately, there isn't anything any of us can do except warn each other and be vigilant. We have a board meeting coming up, so I am going to suggest we change our gate code again. We're considering adding an exterior video camera to monitor what's happening outside at night. We have an interior camera for our security system, but it appears we need to do more.

If we weren't truck people, our vehicles would fit in the garage. As it is, my husband's truck does fit, but only barely. Newt is way too long. Our garage is wide, but we'd need at least another three feet to get Newt's big butt in there. She sleeps outside, but I am now worried about her safety.

What's the world coming too? Big, big, sigh.