Homesteading

Five years ago this week, Matt signed the papers to buy our home. FIVE YEARS. Wow, it has flown by. And yet we've come a long way in five years. When we first moved in we were quite tentative about the area. We were unsure about what we'd done, worried a little but trying to keep it hidden.We had a lot of challenges too. A lot of reasons to doubt. I'm not sure if it was our stubbornness or our naivete that kept us going. Whatever it was, I can say that the troubles in the beginning are mostly forgotten now. We're completely happy here and for me at least, that grows truer everyday.

Yesterday, however, was an adventure.

We redid our home office earlier this year, and my desk is right next to the window. I telecommute one day a week, so I was sitting at my desk, working, when out of the corner of my eye I spotted some teenage boys in the alley. We don't have any teenage boys living on our block, so this is of immediate concern. Especially because they were cruising slowly, one on a recumbent bike, the other walking beside him.

Slowly up the alley they went, and I kept my eyes on them, turning around to look out the other window. They stopped at the base of the parking pad of a house across from me and down a few houses. There wasn't a car in the spot, and the grass was a little tall, but it is an occupied home. When I saw them walk up to the window and peer in, with their hands cupped to the glass, I called 911. I watched as they pulled the screen down together and placed it in front of the door. I was tempted to just scream out the window at them, like I often do at people looking suspicious, but I knew these guys needed to be caught, so I waited impatiently for the police.

One of the guys pushed the window open an inch or two, and at that point another neighbor on the row, a little further down than me, came outside. They saw him and they hid behind the AC Compressor, watching him the whole time and not noticing me in the window. I watched them watch him while I was on the phone with 911. One of them looked like he was about to jump up and run away. The other one, probably the older one, started to inch the window up, bit by bit. By the time the neighbor went inside he had it almost all the way open. He pushed it up the rest of the way and jumped inside, with the other boy right behind him.

I called 911 again and said "they're in the house!" and while I was on the phone with them, the boys jumped out of the house, with a laptop. I said "They've got a laptop!" and they took off. A police officer, gun drawn, came down the alley from the opposite direction and I opened my window to tell him which direction they went. I was completely annoyed that he'd arrived late, but in reality the time passed so oddly that it was probably just a minute or two.

Then something amazing happened. Foxtrot showed up! Foxtrot is the official name of the police helicopter everyone refers to as "the Ghetto bird". With the helicopter the police can see between all the blocks of row houses quickly, and that's exactly what happened. I was standing next to an officer in the alley when I heard on his radio "They're coming up ___ st now!" The officer took off running. I'm not sure which officer actually managed to catch them, but there were a lot of people involved and it all happened in a matter of just a few minutes. The boys still had the property on them, and still had the bike I'd first noticed.

I was still in the alley talking with neighbors about what had happened. An officer took a report from me and then I was asked to identify the suspects. Another neighbor was on the phone with the home owner. The alarm was still going off. I think I was pretty shaken up, standing there in the noon day sun, adrenaline pumping.

I jumped into the back of a tinted window car and was driven to the suspects, who looked really upset at having been caught. I'm sure they didn't expect a helicopter. They certainly didn't think anybody would see them. I hope they know not to mess with my block again. I was able to positively identify them so they were put in the lockup van and taken away. I was then taken to the police station to give my statement. That took a few hours, but I was completely happy to comply.



Back home, I knew I couldn't get any work done that day so I took the afternoon off. Talked to the neighbor whose home it was and confirmed that she'd gotten her laptop back and nothing else was missing. That window just hadn't been clipped fully when it had been locked. The boys were 14 and 16 years old, and they really seemed to know what they were doing. I think the best part is that the police suspect these guys were responsible for a lot of other burglaries. The officer said they found car keys on them as well. So while I'm really upset they were able to get into her house and swipe something, the fact that she got it back quickly and they got caught was pretty perfect.

My day of crime-fighting, however, left me completely exhausted. Looking forward to the weekend.