Broken Window

The threashold on my front door is broken--the large rubber strip in the middle was off track, so it prevented the door from closing easily.  Sometimes if you didn't slam it all the way closed, it would just pop back open.  I showed it to Jo, the painter extraordinaire and he said he would fix it, but then he didn't.  I never used the front door if I could help it.  I was very careful closing it properly, but a lot of people come and go at my house, so I worried.

Adrienne called a week ago last friday and said, "Come home right now--we've been robbed."  She said that when she got home she noticed that the front door was open, but just thought that one of us had left without closing it properly.  It took her a little while to realize that her computer was missing and that we'd been robbed.

All the way driving home I was lamenting the fact that I am not handy.  A person who is not handy might have no business owning a home.  A person who is not handy, really ought to have a handyman on retainer so that little things like a threashold off its track will not escalate into a major problem.  We've been robbed--that's pretty major.  What is the point of having a door at all, if it won't close.  Lots of negative thoughts run through your mind when you are racing home at such a time.

So I got there and the police officer to take our report was there.  He said don't touch anything, because they will dust for fingerprints.  Really, I thought?  That's odd.  And yet, it was also soothing.  The police are actually going to try to solve this petty crime.  I am so lucky to live in such a nice City.  Of course several hours ago, I was so lucky to live in a City with no crime--I don't live there anymore.

As we went through the house assessing the damage and loss, there were only a few things missing (mostly Adrienne's stuff--sorry kid).  We just don't have very much to steal.  A yard sale soaking wet would have a hard time coming up with the matching money on Clean House.  They took Adam's computer which is a real bummer, but not nearly as bad as them taking Adrienne's laptop which she had lots of files and pictures on. 

So we are looking around and the police officer says, here's where they got in at the back window.  They actually broke the back window to get in.   The broken glass was on the windowsill which I thought was odd.  If they smashed the window, glass would have been on the floor.  My theory is that they had a small tap hammer or something to gently and maybe quietly break the glass right next to the lock to get it open.  I'm probably over romantizing it, but that's where my head went.

Now the front door--I can solve that problem.  We have a heavy duty screen door with a killer lock--no one can get through that way if we lock that lock.  And we have a dead bolt on the back doors--no pushovers there.  But I am not a handy person.  And now, I have a broken window on a Friday afternoon that needs to be fixed right now.  I called four places.  Three handymen services and one glass place.  The earliest appointment was the following wednesday.  The handymen services just said no.  The receptionist at my office heard me and offered to find someone.  I was sceptical, but I was getting no where anyway.  Adrienne offered to tape up some cardboard.  That seemed like a very weak response, but I didn't have any better ideas.

Ok, I take that back.  My idea was to go to home depot and buy a large piece of plywood and a nail gun.  I envisioned putting the plywood on the side of the house over the window and then (I would also have to buy a step ladder, because I don't want to put up my giant ladder that pinched my toe the last time I used it and the chairs that I stand on in the house are probably not tall enough to reach to the top of the plywood) shoot the nail gun all around the sides to hermedically seal the window.  And I was going to have to hurry, because I had to catch the train.  Wait, the plywood would not fit in my car, so I was going to have to rent a truck.  And I don't think that I can lift a piece of plywood by myself--this is getting complicated.  How do people own homes--it is insane.

Luckily, Christy was super successful.  The guys could come at 5:30 and would be done in time for me to catch the train.  Except that they wanted cash in an envelope and the cash machine would give me just enough and no more, so I couldn't tip the guys going into overtime to fix my window.  They were there and done in about four minutes.  They could have charged me twice what they did, since fixing the window perfectly, beat the crap out of my other idea.  [I don't think that I should be trusted with a nail gun.  Just a cautionary thought.]

The window has an extra lock that makes it impossible to open with the regular lock (so the theives would be reduced to breaking out all the glass to try to get in that way--hopefully theives are too lazy to go to all that trouble).  We never used the extra lock, because we usually left that window open all the time.  We're using it now.  I went through and locked all the rest of the windows.  I thought I would be nervous sleeping there, but I'm not.  Glendale still seems like a super safe City to me.  And if the thieves talk to each other, they'll know not to bother with my house anymore.  They must have been really frustrated to find so little to steal.  They seemed to have opened every drawer, probably looking for that secret stash of cash that I can't afford to keep there.  Lucky me.