B&E

B&E (Breaking and Entering) is the official complaint listed on the police report now in my possession. On February 2, 2012 while I was at work someone (or more likely multiple someones) broke into my house in Baltimore. I found out when I got home from work at 1am that day. It was not a fun night.

The first thing I thought when I got home and saw tons of stuff strewn about the floor was, "Damn dog!" I figure he must have gotten into the garbage (it wouldn't be the first time). However quickly after that thought, I realized that the items on the floor were from my purses and entryway table. It only took about one more second for me to look a little further into the room and realize that there was no longer a TV on my entertainment stand. Lightbulb.

Immediately, I dialed 911. Then, I continued to stand about 2 inches from the front door until the police arrived about 10 minutes later. Once they came inside, they took my information and we proceeded to go through the house one room at a time. We discovered that they entered by breaking the locks on my back window and also discovered most of my electronics missing (TVs, cameras, a MacbookPro, a blackberry). Thankfully I don't keep money around the house, because I'm pretty sure that's what they were looking for when they tore apart the rest of the house. The last little miracle was that none of my jewelry was missing; I would have been far more upset about that than electronics. They also did not take my back-up drive, so I still have all the contents, mostly photos, from my stolen computer.

After the police report was filed, I had the pleasure of waiting about another hour for the crime scene investigator to come and dust for fingerprints. That hour gave me plenty of time to cancel the credit cards that were taken - mainly store cards like Limited, Loft, Macy's, etc. Pretty much right as I finished that, a very nice crime scene lady arrived. Again, we went through the house room by room with me showing her everything that had been touched or moved. When we were in the last room she made the lovely comment of, "Don't worry, the dust comes off with any household cleaner." It hadn't even occurred to me that I was going to have to clean this all up. And for the record, fingerprint dust does NOT come off easily. I spent the next 2 hours cleaning each surface about 3 times to get it all off. Finally around 6am, I was so completely exhausted that I passed out.

The meanest part about this whole situation is who in Baltimore takes all of someone's TVs the day before the Ravens were to play in (and win!) the superbowl!

On a strange note, they also left behind all my Christmas gift certificates - Visa, Amazon - that were sitting out.  I found that odd, but I'm not going to argue about still being able to use them!