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At 6:30 AM on October 22nd, an intruder made their way into my Grandview townhome through an unlocked window in the rear. I woke up hearing heavy breathing and footsteps. I got out of bed, said "...Hello?" and I could hear the guy start to quicken his pace down the stairs. I ran after him, and when I reached the top of the stairs, he shouted up the stairs, "Don't come down here. Come down here and I'll shoot you. I'll shoot you."
So I walked back into my bedroom and called 911 on my cell phone, gave it to my girlfriend, told her to take it in the closet and tell the police there was an armed intruder. Police arrived within 2-3 minutes and the guy was gone; he had made his way back outside through the window he climbed. I never actually saw anything of the guy, just heard his footsteps and heard him talking to me from downstairs.
The window was unlocked, but not open, and it was covered with a screen, so someone outside couldn't just walk down the side of the building and try windows until he found one that was unlocked. He damaged one screen trying to get it off, and gave up because it stuck, so he tried the one next to it, climbing on a trash can to reach the window. Once the screen was off, he opened the window and climbed onto my computer desk, which has the most valuable things in my apartment strewn about it.
Who breaks into an apartment at 6:30 in the morning, when people are waking up to get ready for work? Doesn't it make sense to sneak in around 3 or 4 am when people are likely to be in a deep sleep and stay that way? Who climbs onto a desk full of valuable electronics, and even steps on a laptop, yet takes nothing? Someone not looking to steal anything, says I.
It is a terrible, terrible thing not to feel safe in your own home. Obviously from now on we will be extremely strict about keeping doors and windows locked at all times...Even after checking and rechecking every window and door last night before bed it was almost impossible for me to sleep. Every noise from our cats or neighbors walking around sent chills down my spine, and I was soaking wet with sweat sleeping with my glasses on and my cell phone in-hand. This is no way to go on.
Any words of advice? This is my first home invasion....it's left me a little shaken. I always considered Grandview to be a relatively safe place...I have no enemies or people who wish to do me harm. The police officers told me it was an isolated incident, and they haven't had any similar reports in the area. My landlord told me it was the first trouble he'd had with this sort of thing for the 20 years he's owned the place.
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