STOP THIEF!

Too late. The sons of bitches already broke in.

I went to go out today and what did I discover? Someone broke our garage door and had a field day inside the garage.

My garage door looks kind of like this, except that the second panel down is windows. The SOBs peeled back the weather stripping on the side and took apart a hinge enough to pop the panels from the hinges. That gave them enough room to fit an arm through and push the button to open the dang door. Of course, this was after they unscrewed the flood lights of the motion detector that is on the outside of the garage and put a wicker basket over the sensor itself.

The garage is a detached from the house and while it used to be a two car garage, one of the bays does not have a bay door. So my car is parked in one bay, the other bay is full of "stuff". To get most of it in or out, my car must be backed out of the garage.

What's in the other bay? Ron's motorcycle, the riding lawn mower, the hand mower, a big charcoal grill, tool boxes, etc etc etc. What is no longer in there? A snow blower we JUST bought last winter, an air compressor and a power washer. AARGH. I feel violated for sure, but overpowering that, I am just PISSED.

On the positive side, I could see that someone tried to get in my car. The doors were locked so at least a window wasn't broken to get in to steal my $10 umbrella in the back seat. Although they were nice enough to scratch my brand new bumper on my car getting something out.

This wasn't some kids going up and down the neighborhood looking for trouble. This was someone who picked US out and meant to do us harm. About a week ago, we saw that the flood lights had been unscrewed. The lights weren't taken out of the socket, just unscrewed enough to break the circuit.

Grr. Now what is the used value of these items? Enough to file a claim after my $500 deductible and watch my rates go up? Maybe this is the worst of it; knowing we're just screwed.

So now I just have to get over it. I hate this town; I hate this neighborhood. I will finish up this pity party with all of the outside lights turned on and then start anew tomorrow.