Has anyone been up during the night and someone tries to break in

@cyraxible: Oh yeah, you're here too huh? It's Bothell/Woodinville. I say both because well, it's basically both. You're Tacoma right? Maybe that was someone else.

Anyways, I just woke up at 12 PM. Throughout that time I've waken up a few times talking to family members about it, and everyone was just saying how I'm most likely bigger and stronger than most of these people (my brother calls me a beast), and I could take him out and should fight for I and my family’s life no matter what if someone did break in. I'm not really freaked out anymore, and I hope this'll be a wakeup call for next time so I won't be as scared. Hopefully there won't be a next time. I'm still a bit angry about this, and probably will be for a while. I'm not sure if it was anyone that lived around here, but I'll be eyeballing people that walk around that I feel could have been a potential suspect. Yeah, I do believe this person was on drugs, or he's really fucking crazy. I suspect he either thought no one was home, or he thought my mom was the only one home since he saw her.

@PeasantAbuse: You're one who lives in WA too right? I replied to someone else, so if you come back in you'll see where.

@Winternet: What do you want to know? If he was caught or not? That I'm not sure about. I don't think we will get to know, 'cause I don't think the cop will call us again and say "Hey, we caught the guy!" If that's not what you're talking about, what was it? I do know that just a couple of blocks down someone else had their door kicked in when no one was home. We figured this out by the internet after.

It never happened to me. What I say is: "Invest in home security if you are worried. Chains, fences, locks, heavy and solid doors, alarms, guarding dog... there are a whole parafernalia for avoiding situations like these."

Never happened to me, probably thanks to the bulletproof windows I have and the metal shutters.

you wouldn't kill hitler? YOU MONSTER!
 you're like some sort of super-paragon

@Catarrhal said:

@believer258 said:

…get a maglite. Shine it in their eyes, then bash them one good time with it.

Yeah. Unfortunately, a Maglite is a cheap piece of trash. Many Surefire flashlights, on the other hand, are indeed capable of causing a momentary blindness, and some models even have "strike bezels" for bashing people with.

Yeah, because running up to an attacker and giving them a good smack with a flashlight is a totally great idea. Unless you can efficiently knock them out with one strike, which is super unlikely, all you're going to do is piss them off and make them far more volatile. Maybe they just wanted to take some of your shit, but now all they want to do is beat the shit out of you.

@Lysergica33 said:

For the record.. I love in England.

Testify brother!

I'm a cop and I've attended a lot of break-ins and home invasions.  They are brutal on the victim. If you are still shaken up, understand that that is normal. Tips I'd recommend is always leave a light on in the house, even if everyone is asleep. Hallway light or something. 
If someone does break into your residence, the best thing to do is to get everyone out of the house immediately through the opposite entrance that the offender used. You might win in a confrontation against a burgler, but you might not. Are you willing to risk your life over that bet? I take that bet a lot, but I'm armed and trained and usually have back-up.  If I was at home and off-duty, I'd be getting my wife out of the house asap.
 
Criminals will usually try for the vacant houses. That said, most of them if they are breaking into residences are high or drunk and are not thinking straight at all. They are fucking dangerous. I'm glad everything worked well for you. On the plus side, there is a strong likelihood that the crook won't try your residence again. If he got scared off, crooks typically won't risk the same residence again. That said, make sure you look for suspicious people that are hanging around your residence when you leave for errands. You don't have to confront them or anything, just make note of them and if they are there a lot, call the police and give a description of them, what they are wearing (style and colors), and what they are driving (make, model, year, if you know it and of course license plate).  
 
Understand that you are a victim of crime. Most police departments have services to assist you dealing with the sense of invasion and violation. Seek these out if you find you are having trouble coping.

@Napalm said:

@Catarrhal said:

@believer258 said:

…get a maglite. Shine it in their eyes, then bash them one good time with it.

Yeah. Unfortunately, a Maglite is a cheap piece of trash. Many Surefire flashlights, on the other hand, are indeed capable of causing a momentary blindness, and some models even have "strike bezels" for bashing people with.

Yeah, because running up to an attacker and giving them a good smack with a flashlight is a totally great idea. Unless you can efficiently knock them out with one strike, which is super unlikely, all you're going to do is piss them off and make them far more volatile. Maybe they just wanted to take some of your shit, but now all they want to do is beat the shit out of you.

Hence the "shine the flashlight in their eye" part.

Ever held one of these lights, mate? If you smack someone upside the head with one and it barely fazes them, then you are dealing with no ordinary attacker.

The odds of getting away with murder are 1 in 2. you got lucky

@killacam: I might, but not if I'm just operating the way I am now. If it was like last night, I may have.

Well Seattle + Apartments = Safe. So far.

Also, I'd wager that a sword and shield would freak out a burglar more than pointing a gun at him. I suggest a longsword, they are a bit more scary looking than a katana .

There hasn't been a robbery round my way since medieval times....

@Yanngc33: Yeah, I would love unbreakable bullet proof glass for my room, and to buy some invisible gun turrets for the entrances that says "You are in violation, you are in violation." (like in Chronicles of Riddick), and the person gets blasted. Just kidding.

@Unchained: No, I'm totally fine now. It's my mom that really freaks out. Even with little things, if she freaks out, it's completely possible she could freak me or someone else out. I mean, this was different, and maybe it was good she yelled about calling the cops, but good god was she sending a message to my brain that was saying "WE'RE ALL FUCKING DEAD! AHH!" I didn't think to assess the situation for myself. I've always imagined how creepy it would be to have a window open, or at least the blinds open at night and find someone staring in, and now that it came real, that's just freaky. Also, it's weird how it was Friday the 13th, not saying that means much, but thought I'd mention it.

We always have lights on at night, but the one place we didn't and don't usually have the light on, was the exact place this person was looking in. We've since plugged the light in. Anyways, I'm fine, thanks, but it is one of those things you'll be thinking about regardless. What I'm wondering right now is why he tried to break in the front door when he knew someone was home, or the back door I guess, but it's the door we use most since it's the carport. Did he not know my brother and I were home and he thought it was just my mom? I don't know. I just hope they catch this guy even if he doesn't plan on coming back.

I live in Texas. I live in a low-income area of Austin.

Two summers ago, there was a pounding on my door really fucking loud at 2am. The next night at midnight. My girlfriend and I were watching TV in bed and really couldn't believe it. We just ignored it. But the third night someone knocks on my door and goes to my side door and pounds on it. My dog is in the yard at this point going totally nuts. I walk out the front door and say, "Hey, what are you doing?" in a pretty loud voice. This husky, bearded dude who I have never seen for more than a glimpse in the past comes out. I am mostly assuming this is my immediate neighbor. The guy proceeds to cuss me out about my dog. Cuss me out cuss me out cuss me out. I listen to him and tell him, "Alright, you need to leave now."

I was mostly just astonished that some guy would come pounding on all the doors of my house and proceed to cuss me out. What if I had a gun or weapon? I had been working in customer service heavily at the time so I pretty much just listened to what he had to say and told him to leave. I'm not the kinda guy to tell people to fuck off, in general. Pretty much the guy went home and I am pretty sure he was drunk but it wasn't till about 6 months ago that I stopped being totally pissed off any time I glanced over at their house, or heard his stupid motorcycle, or saw his wife pull into their driveway. I'd classify the dude's behavior as social terrorism or something thereof.

I totally empathize with someone that has their safety of their home compromised whether physically or mentally through stress.

@NTM:

I live in an apartment, so no. But this very story is the reason why I will NEVER live in a house.

@Bruce: That's weird how some people talk about apartment safety, when there's much more of a risk in apartments that there'll be something that goes wrong. I lived in three different apartments in my life, the early parts, and well, to say the least, it was "exciting". Then again, I'm sure not every apartment complex is the same and not all have shitty people, but still.

@NTM said:

@cyraxible: Oh yeah, you're here too huh? It's Bothell/Woodinville. I say both because well, it's basically both. You're Tacoma right? Maybe that was someone else.

I'm just about to move to Bothell, you have me so excited.

Family is almost slaughtered.

Better make forum post

@NTM:

People are more likely to try to fuck with a house than an apartment on the twentieth floor of a forty floor building. Just my experience. lol

some years back, some dip shit dope fiend broke into my house while i was home and very much awake. i put him down with a couple shots from my AR-15 with a magazine loaded with nosler ballistic tip rounds.

@NTM Read through this thread and decided I should put something that could at least somewhat protect me in a emergency to put under my bed. So I got up and kicked over my glass of water which made a large ding and just scared the crap out of me. If that got me after just reading all this then I can't imagine how I'd react in your situation. You acted in the right way though so don't worry. That guy won't be stupid enough to try that again. And if he went as far as he did while people were aware of him he was probably on something. So I think you're in the clear and can relax.

@believer258 said:

Ever held one of these lights, mate? If you smack someone upside the head with one and it barely fazes them, then you are dealing with no ordinary attacker.

If you smack somebody once with one of those things, you'll probably dizzy/stagger them, to which then you should whack them a few more times to get them down. Like I said, one swing is just going to piss them off.

@StrainedEyes: Trust me, like I said, it's an area that this is not likely to happen, but everywhere can have these type of people. This is just a rare occurrence. You'll be fine, trust me.

@xaLieNxGrEyx: Well, I wouldn't put it that way.

@NTM said:

@cyraxible: Oh yeah, you're here too huh? It's Bothell/Woodinville. I say both because well, it's basically both. You're Tacoma right? Maybe that was someone else.

Man, I live between Woodinville and Duvall. They would get the pointy end of of some 7.62x39 if they tried that at my house.

Yes. I live in an apartment on the 3rd floor. Alone. One door, one way out. Wake up at 4:00am on Saturday to banging on the door and someone repeatedly trying to open it. Sends your heart racing fast. Looked like 2 drunk 20-somethings so I imagine they had the wrong apartment and were just being assholes. I let them bang on the door for 10 minutes; they weren't getting in. Then I went back to sleep.

I think that's a good thing about living in an apartment. Many people around. Not many entries into your apartment for a person to get in.

Had a friend over while we were sitting in the basement, just hanging out, listening to music and playing Xbox. Heard a knock on the basement door, we got really quiet and heard a banging on it. Keep in mind it's like 2:30 am. We both grabbed knives and ran outside after whoever was doing it. We heard someone running, but they never came back.

My basement consist of a 9mm pistol, a shotgun, .22 and 30:06 rifle now. We didn't buy all those after this incident happened, we just ended up getting them. Dad bought the pistol for safety, won the shotgun at some game dinner thing, bought the .22 just to shoot for fun I think and the 30:06 was his dad's old WW2 rifle before he later died in Vietnam and they're now in a safe ready for us to grab if needed.

I don't grab guns though, I simply don't like fucking around with them at all with anyone nearby. When I was younger, my friends and I were walking down the road late at night. We weren't drinking, going on anyone's property or making noise, none of that. That didn't stop a neighbor from running out of his front door and start shooting a .22 at us. I heard the bullets go by my head and I dove into a ditch, crawled down the ditch a little bit, got out and then started running. My friends and I got into an old burnt down abandon house (I know this sounds like some kind of made up horror movie now) and hid there. We saw the guy drive by in his truck a couple times, but we eventually made our way back to my house safely.

So moral of the story is don't walk down the road at night or you'll look like a robber. And also don't start shooting at people unless they're obviously threatening/breaking in/harming you.

@fullmetal5550: Make sure you buy at least a .40 caliber, hallow point ammo, always have a bullet in the chamber, and make sure it can fire regardless if there is a magazine in it or not. Also, take self defense classes. There is nothing worse than being shot with your own weapon..

@handlas: The house we live in is very close to the other ones. There's a bit less privacy, but no one around is annoying or anything like that. We all keep to our own business and sometimes, but not much, my mom will talk to a neighbor or something. Very friendly neighborhood and harder to try that kind of crap, so like I've said many times before, very surprising it would happen.

maybe it was one of your neighbors. you never know

@Example1013: Yeah, it may have been. We've discussed that before.

I'd shoot Hitler on sight. There is no absolute morality. Just what we shape our world into. Nietzsche out.

Not really the same but I feel I should post it here. At christmas a friend of a friend was out drinking with us, he decided to go back to our house early but being drunk and not knowing the area he chose the wrong house. We came back to find him talking to the police. He had been bashing on the door of an old ladies house shouting "I know you're in there". Must have been scary as shit for her.

@Jumanji said:

@l4wd0g said:

@fullmetal5550: Make sure you buy at least a .40 caliber, hallow point ammo, always have a bullet in the chamber, and make sure it can fire regardless if there is a magazine in it or not. Also, take self defense classes. There is nothing worse than being shot with your own weapon..

Keeping a bullet in the chamber 24/7 is a sure path to an ND and, yes, being shot by your own weapon.

Yeah, never store a gun with a bullet in the chamber. Never.