This county girl has had about enough city-living.
I'm supposed to go out to my BFF's this coming weekend, for the big garage sale (US 12 in Michigan). Taking the dog with me. DH is doing his annual 2 week thing.
I'm having second thoughts about going. Maybe I'm seeing too many reports of crime these days. I don't trust the new neighbors. There's 2 duplexes across the street and we liked/trusted the old tenants who have all moved out in the past year (one graduated from the OHP academy and was sent to Norwalk and his Coastie buddy lived upstairs and I think the other may have bought a house and the other half of hers was vacant). The new neighbors moved in since winter - from what I can see it's a bunch of young girls with their babies and multiple baby daddies. I just don't get a good feeling from them. I don't know them so maybe that's why. But I just am not feeling 100% comfortable taking off for 3 days and the house being totally empty. Heck...Saturday night, I came back from the grocery store and the whole time I was unloading one of the baby daddies was standing out there watching me.
And I'm getting really tired of seeing the piece of crap hooptie sitting, unmoved, on the street directly across from our driveway for the last few months. Even better - it's been up on a jack the past few days.
DH says I'm being irrational and I probably am. But still.
Re: am I being irrational?
i'll house-sit for you! theres just a few things i'll need to know beforehand like.. how many tvs you own, where you hide your jewelry, are there any envelopes of cash in your unmentionables' drawer..??
in all serious, fear of leaving your house unattended for a few days is not irrational. i share the same anxiety whether we are home or not! but as my DH says: "if someone is going to break in, it doesn't matter if you take a 7 day vacation or a 30 minute trip to the store. they are going to do what they want to do." i'm like "thanks sweetie. way to make me feel better!"
See, I don't think DH has helped this at all. With him being a cop and all, he gets all the dirt on what goes down. I always want to take the dog for a walk at night...he says it's not safe (awesome).
I think why this concerns me more than say it would during the day while we're at work is our dog is a barker. Nonstop barking if she sees/hears anything (real or imagined) or when she wants to accompany the other neighborhood dogs. If she's not there, there's no barking.
I don't think you're irrational at all, but I am also of the opinion that you can't let fear dictate what you do.
Go on your trip... make sure the doors and windows are all secure, leave some lights on timers, and ask a friend/family member or neighbor that you DO trust to bring in mail/paper and keep an eye on your house.
Oh, and I would 10000% call and complain about that hooptie.
I may do this upon my return.
On a side note - the neighbor we share a driveway with just went to C-bus for a few days with no incident (and I noticed yesterday morning that her upstairs window had been open the whole time) so that's a good sign. She's had her vehicle broken into right in the driveway last summer (we had more questionable neighbors across the street at that time).
That is good to know about your neighbor's trip!
I tend to classify car break-ins and house break-ins totally differently, as well. In my experience, it's usually teenage kids and other young jackasses that break into cars, but they don't have the balls (thank goodness I guess...) to break into houses. When I lived with my parents, my car got broken into MULTIPLE times, but no one has ever even come near their house. As well, neighbors around us now have had their cars broken into a few times, but there has never been a home break-in in our immediate neighborhood.
I'm sure your DH would know actual statistics on this kind of stuff, but I just think of them in totally different ways.