In the next couple weeks I have a feeling my family and I will be buying all the video alarm monitoring things for our houses in bulk. We live in a quiet Seattle neighborhood with not a lot of happenings, but lately we’ve seen more and more suspicious activity in the area and what happened at our house the other day is why I’m buying ALL The Nest doorbells and all the Arlo video things. For the longest time we have had a traditional alarm and it used to give me piece of mind until I started feeling like it wasn’t actually doing anything. I would accidentally open a door when the alarm was on and it would go off and I wouldn’t even get a phone call. Each time there would a reasonable excuse from the company but I was paying a lot for the reassurance and I wasn’t feeling very reassured. In the meantime we installed Arlo video alarm monitoring and we really appreciate how we get notifications when the sensors are triggered. One time it even caught a hummingbird.
When someone tries to break into your house
But the other night, a real prowler showed up on our Arlo video camera. He tried our front door. He went around to our back door and spent at least 2 minutes in our backyard trying to get in. I can’t even watch the videos because they terrify me so much but I thought I should share this with you so you can see what we woke up to in the middle of the night. At this point the phone notification alerted my husband and he watched the video and called the police as the guy trying to break in stood on the other side of our walls. We saw the guy wander down our street and into a house. INTO a house. At first we thought maybe he lived there because we don’t know those neighbors which was another terrifying thing in itself. But it turns out he found the front door open so he wandered in, stole a purse and then sat on the steps for awhile before he disappeared and the police showed up. Thankfully no one was hurt but I can imagine they were very shaken too.
But this is where things get scarier to me. I thought the whole ordeal was over but when I went to my car in the morning the front seat was all the way reclined and my car reeked like a skunk. The guy might have waited out the police while lying high in my car and he could have even watched everything unfold. This is the car that I rely on to get my precious cargo, my kids, to all the places they need to go. This car we had just detailed because a bag of groceries including milk had recently flipped over in the trunk. (In hindsight, because the car had just been cleaned there was definitely less to steal!) But to go into MY car and do scary things to me and my neighbors is something that just traumatizes my heart. I’m so sad that people feel they have to do these kinds of things. And I’m sad that we are seeing more and more of this in my neighborhood.
Nest or Ring or ???
I can see why people like things like the Nest Doorbell or Ring Doorbell Video Camera to protect their homes and at least let them know who is actually trying to get in. Having a face to go with an event that scares you sometimes makes it easier to go on afterward-you have one person to fear and deal with and not be scared of EVERY stranger who comes to the door. There are so many good and kind people in this world that I don’t want to dwell on the ones who do us a little harm. I don’t know which system would be better but we do already love the way Nest is so good and reliable with our home heating system that I think we will likely choose that as well. I am so grateful to my Arlo video and we will definitely be looking to add to our system. New systems that alert your phone seem to be a great way to monitor a house whether you are in it or away somewhere else. And locking the door is probably the best first defense. In the past when the twins were babies there are so many times I’ve even left my keys in the door by accident and we likely left the car door open the other night because we were out late at a soccer game and were trying to shuttle the kids into the house and forgot it unlocked in the process. I have to remember all the times we’ve been so lucky and do better to be a little more prepared.
I’m thankful that no one was hurt in this event and I hope that it doesn’t happen again. I felt shocked, embarrassed, violated, and angry even though nothing really happened, but I think that is why these kinds of crimes are so scary. Writing helps me deal with so many things in my life, so I wanted to share my story to make sure I got it out of my head. Have you ever had a break-in? How did you deal with it? Do you have any kind of video monitoring or an alarm?
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)