frommycolddeadhands
Regular Member
imported post
This isn't exactly a self defense story. Nothing violent happened, it was just a strange situation that put me on high alert for a while.
It's 330 in the AM, I'm upstairs in my bedroom trying to get to sleep. It's dark and raining outside and I keep hoping the pitter-patter of rain on the window will lull me to sleep sometime soon. My wife is down in the living room pounding away on the keyboard trying to get a college paper done. As I'm finally starting to drift off to sleep, I hear the front doorbell ring. (The back door has a different ring, so we always know if it's the front or back). It takes me a second to blink the cobwebs out of my head. My first thought is that my wife somehow locked herself out of the house, I couldn't think of anyone who would come for a visit at that godawful hour with the rain coming down like it was.
Downstairs I hear my wife call out "Who is it?"
I'm on my feet. My revolver comes out of the nightstand drawer. (Better safe than sorry) and I'm at the stairs in a hearbeat. My wife is at the foot of the stairs by our front door. Our house has an interior porch, so there is a door to get into the porch, and another door to get into the house proper. My wife had opened the inner door and positioned herself so that she could shut it quickly if she needed to. The outer door was still closed and locked, keeping whoever was outside......outside.
Our visitor calls through the door and says that his name is "Corey". We don't know anyone by that name. My wife asks what he wants.
The unfamiliar voice calls back through the door and asks if we "Have a girl in there." My wife raises an eyebrow and calls back "What girl?"
Answer: "I'm looking for a girl."
Wife: "What's her name?"
Answer: "Lisa."
Wife: "Sorry, you've got the wrong house."
Answer: "Ahh, well I'm trying to find this girl. She left her purse at the bar and I'm trying to get it back to her. You don't know any girl named Lisa around here?"
Wife (after thinking for a second): "You said you have her purse?"
Answer: "Yeah"
Wife: "And there's nothing inside the purse with this girl's address on it?"
(Pause) Answer: No, I mean, I dont actually have her purse. Just her social security card and a couple things like that. I'm just trying to get it back to her.
Wife: What is her last name?
Visitor: I dunno.
Wife: Her social security card doesn't have it?
Visitor: Uh...it's at my house.
Wife: And you don't know where she lives?
Answer: Somewhere around here.
Wife: Well how do you know that?
(Pause) Answer: The, uh, maroon car parked out here in front of your house looks like the car that she drives. Do you know who's car that is?
The outer door is still closed, so we can't see what car he's talking about, but it's not ours and we have no idea who's it is. My wife shrugs and asks me if the neighbor that lives behind us has a kid named Lisa. I shake my head no. At this point I should mention that the neighbor who lives behind us is a social butterfly who enjoys going to bars and bringing home college age boys. We figured this one just got lost.
Visitor: Uh, I'm really getting soaked out here.
At this point Amy shouted instructions for him to go around back and try our neighbors house. Lisa might be there. The guy shouts a muffled 'thanks' and goes around the side of our house. Something was off about this guy, his story didn't make a heck of a lot of sense, as far as I knew our neighbor didn't know anyone named Lisa or have anyone staying with her. I moved to one of the back windows just to keep an eye on what he decided to do.
He knocked onour neighbor'sfront door. Waited around, no answer. He goes around the side of her house and puts his hands up on the glass to peek in the window, then goes around front again and knocks on the door. It doesn't open. He turns around and walks back around the side of our house and stands on the sidewalk looking both ways. It was the first time I actually got a look at this guy. He looked like the average college slacker. (the university is only a few blocks from our house and he looked the right age) Hewas a white kid witha knit cap on his head, a few scraggly hairs on his chin posing as a goatee, a black jacket, and pants four sizes two big.
I pulled on some jeans, a t-shirt, my bedroom slippers, and a coat. I handed off my revolver to my wife, deciding this kid wasn't a threat that needed to be met with a firearm. I stepped outside into the rain to try and get this thing figured out. I seriously doubted his 'Lisa' story and I didn't want him hanging around in the pouring rain in front of my house all night. I never even got the chance to talk to him. Our other neighbor (beside us, not behind us) came out with a baseball bat in his hand. This kid had apparently gone around the backside of his house and tried to get in his basement door by punching random numbers into the keypad lock. Unfortunately the basement of their house is their oldest son's room. He heard the keypad numbers beeping and woke up his dad, who grabbed the bat and came outside. The two of them mixed words for a few seconds. My neighbor wasn't yelling or anything, he simply wanted to know what the kid was doing fiddling with his keypad. The kid denied everything and said he just knocked on the door looking for Lisa.
Two seconds later a cop cruiser pulls up. The neighbor had called prior to stepping outside. Good response time for the cops. They take the kid aside, search him and don't find anything aside from a few miniature bottles of booze in his pockets. We tell our story, the neighbor tells his story, and the kid continues to babble about some girl named Lisa who lost her purse- that he doesn't have- and her social security card that he's trying to return at 3am in the pouring rain- oh, but that's at his house, but not really his house, it's his buddy's house that's on the other side of town blah blah blah.
In the end the kid's story doesn't make any sense. The cops took him to lockup for the night. An officer approached us after everything was said and done. There'd been some local break-in's that they think the kid might have something to do with. Ringing the doorbell was just a way of seeing if anyone was home, and the BS story about looking for a girl was just in case someone actually answered. I raised an eyebrow at that theory because my wife was awake in the living room with the TV and the living room lights on. Why would he think our house was vacant?
Our landlord had put a 'FOR RENT' sign on the front lawn, (we're moving soon)and the lights weren't visible through the curtains. Great.
In any event, I was proud of my wife for not opening the door to the late night visitor, and glad that I had my firearm just-in-case things had turned out differently. It also made me realize how something as stupid as a "FOR RENT" sign on your lawn can paint your house as a target for idiots and break in artists.
This isn't exactly a self defense story. Nothing violent happened, it was just a strange situation that put me on high alert for a while.
It's 330 in the AM, I'm upstairs in my bedroom trying to get to sleep. It's dark and raining outside and I keep hoping the pitter-patter of rain on the window will lull me to sleep sometime soon. My wife is down in the living room pounding away on the keyboard trying to get a college paper done. As I'm finally starting to drift off to sleep, I hear the front doorbell ring. (The back door has a different ring, so we always know if it's the front or back). It takes me a second to blink the cobwebs out of my head. My first thought is that my wife somehow locked herself out of the house, I couldn't think of anyone who would come for a visit at that godawful hour with the rain coming down like it was.
Downstairs I hear my wife call out "Who is it?"
I'm on my feet. My revolver comes out of the nightstand drawer. (Better safe than sorry) and I'm at the stairs in a hearbeat. My wife is at the foot of the stairs by our front door. Our house has an interior porch, so there is a door to get into the porch, and another door to get into the house proper. My wife had opened the inner door and positioned herself so that she could shut it quickly if she needed to. The outer door was still closed and locked, keeping whoever was outside......outside.
Our visitor calls through the door and says that his name is "Corey". We don't know anyone by that name. My wife asks what he wants.
The unfamiliar voice calls back through the door and asks if we "Have a girl in there." My wife raises an eyebrow and calls back "What girl?"
Answer: "I'm looking for a girl."
Wife: "What's her name?"
Answer: "Lisa."
Wife: "Sorry, you've got the wrong house."
Answer: "Ahh, well I'm trying to find this girl. She left her purse at the bar and I'm trying to get it back to her. You don't know any girl named Lisa around here?"
Wife (after thinking for a second): "You said you have her purse?"
Answer: "Yeah"
Wife: "And there's nothing inside the purse with this girl's address on it?"
(Pause) Answer: No, I mean, I dont actually have her purse. Just her social security card and a couple things like that. I'm just trying to get it back to her.
Wife: What is her last name?
Visitor: I dunno.
Wife: Her social security card doesn't have it?
Visitor: Uh...it's at my house.
Wife: And you don't know where she lives?
Answer: Somewhere around here.
Wife: Well how do you know that?
(Pause) Answer: The, uh, maroon car parked out here in front of your house looks like the car that she drives. Do you know who's car that is?
The outer door is still closed, so we can't see what car he's talking about, but it's not ours and we have no idea who's it is. My wife shrugs and asks me if the neighbor that lives behind us has a kid named Lisa. I shake my head no. At this point I should mention that the neighbor who lives behind us is a social butterfly who enjoys going to bars and bringing home college age boys. We figured this one just got lost.
Visitor: Uh, I'm really getting soaked out here.
At this point Amy shouted instructions for him to go around back and try our neighbors house. Lisa might be there. The guy shouts a muffled 'thanks' and goes around the side of our house. Something was off about this guy, his story didn't make a heck of a lot of sense, as far as I knew our neighbor didn't know anyone named Lisa or have anyone staying with her. I moved to one of the back windows just to keep an eye on what he decided to do.
He knocked onour neighbor'sfront door. Waited around, no answer. He goes around the side of her house and puts his hands up on the glass to peek in the window, then goes around front again and knocks on the door. It doesn't open. He turns around and walks back around the side of our house and stands on the sidewalk looking both ways. It was the first time I actually got a look at this guy. He looked like the average college slacker. (the university is only a few blocks from our house and he looked the right age) Hewas a white kid witha knit cap on his head, a few scraggly hairs on his chin posing as a goatee, a black jacket, and pants four sizes two big.
I pulled on some jeans, a t-shirt, my bedroom slippers, and a coat. I handed off my revolver to my wife, deciding this kid wasn't a threat that needed to be met with a firearm. I stepped outside into the rain to try and get this thing figured out. I seriously doubted his 'Lisa' story and I didn't want him hanging around in the pouring rain in front of my house all night. I never even got the chance to talk to him. Our other neighbor (beside us, not behind us) came out with a baseball bat in his hand. This kid had apparently gone around the backside of his house and tried to get in his basement door by punching random numbers into the keypad lock. Unfortunately the basement of their house is their oldest son's room. He heard the keypad numbers beeping and woke up his dad, who grabbed the bat and came outside. The two of them mixed words for a few seconds. My neighbor wasn't yelling or anything, he simply wanted to know what the kid was doing fiddling with his keypad. The kid denied everything and said he just knocked on the door looking for Lisa.
Two seconds later a cop cruiser pulls up. The neighbor had called prior to stepping outside. Good response time for the cops. They take the kid aside, search him and don't find anything aside from a few miniature bottles of booze in his pockets. We tell our story, the neighbor tells his story, and the kid continues to babble about some girl named Lisa who lost her purse- that he doesn't have- and her social security card that he's trying to return at 3am in the pouring rain- oh, but that's at his house, but not really his house, it's his buddy's house that's on the other side of town blah blah blah.
In the end the kid's story doesn't make any sense. The cops took him to lockup for the night. An officer approached us after everything was said and done. There'd been some local break-in's that they think the kid might have something to do with. Ringing the doorbell was just a way of seeing if anyone was home, and the BS story about looking for a girl was just in case someone actually answered. I raised an eyebrow at that theory because my wife was awake in the living room with the TV and the living room lights on. Why would he think our house was vacant?
Our landlord had put a 'FOR RENT' sign on the front lawn, (we're moving soon)and the lights weren't visible through the curtains. Great.
In any event, I was proud of my wife for not opening the door to the late night visitor, and glad that I had my firearm just-in-case things had turned out differently. It also made me realize how something as stupid as a "FOR RENT" sign on your lawn can paint your house as a target for idiots and break in artists.
