Don't Do Stupid Things!

Today's blog has nothing to do with real estate except, perhaps, to have a burglar alarm and a warning to homeowners not to do something stupid.  Stupid people often end up on America's Funniest Home Videos or dead.

On  a cold gray day in early December 1981 I returned to my Capitol Hill home in Denver about an hour or so before normal.  I normally rode the bus to work and left my Mercedes 450 SL in the garage. I owned the Denver four square house pictured above. I friend who had sold his house and was in the process of moving to New York shared a room for a couple of months. Otherwise, I lived alone.

I entered the front door and noticed things were displaced in the living room. The stereo was moved out from the front wall. Odd, I thought. I called out "Steve!".  No answer. I walked into the dining room, turned, and passed through the breakfast room where my Old English Sheepdog and Steve's tiny toy dog huddled under the breakfast table. I shouted "Steve!" as I moved toward the kitchen door when I saw glass all over the floor.

It took perhaps all of two or three seconds to walk past my dog and into the kitchen where I found a tall black kid standing against the far kitchen wall next to the refrigerator. He was startled as much as I was. He darted past me and through the glass door which he had smashed to gain entry into my house.

He through the back yard and leapt the six foot tall stockade gate. I chased after him and lost some time as I clumsily managed to unlock the gate. He was far ahead of me as I chased him down the alley where he hopped another fence. I still pursued him as he fled through a neighbor's yard and headed down the street. I stopped, exhausted. I couldn't catch him, and if I did, what would I do to a guy much taller and younger than I?

I returned home and looked at the glass on the floor. Winnie, my dog, and Manchi, Steve's dog, stood there looking at me wondering WTF was going on and what I was going to do about it. Then I thought someone else might still be in the house. I had a wall phone in the kitchen and called the police. I told the operator I had been burglarized and thought someone else might be in my house.  I went to the front porch to wait for the police who showed up within two or three minutes with shotguns in their hands.

I told then what happened. They asked if anyone else known to me was in the house. No, I said. They told me to stay back as they went into the house to search. A few minutes passed when they called me inside. We moved into the kitchen where I described what happened. I told them about the chase when they spotted my garage where we then went. My Mercedes was crammed with things from inside my house including the stereo. This was odd as the burglar couldn't take the car anywhere without a key - right?  We went back into my house and went to my bedroom where things were all over the floor. The burglar had opened my secretary desk where I kept various credit cards, a spare key to my car, and my gun. All were missing. 

They asked me to describe the intruder. He was tall, black, and young. That was it.  Oh, and a fast runner. One of the cops said there had been several recent burglaries in my area. He said the culprit would find houses that looked worthy of breaking into and then watch for times the owner would  be away.  I often tell my buyers that people are creatures of habit. I would normally have arrived home around 5:20  It was my returning home from work an hour early that prevented the theft of my car and maybe more.

I had several cocktails that night trying to calm down from what had happened. Over the following days I felt so invaded and so lucky at that the same time. It could have ended very badly. What a fool I had been chasing that kid. What a stupid fool.