Last March 6th, a Monday evening, I got home at about 5:15. When I put my key in the deadbolt and turned it the resulting sound and motion did seem a little off, but it didn’t register that I hadn’t heard the bolt sliding back.

I walked in the door and the first thing I saw was my deadbolt lying on the tile by the entry way closet, only I didn’t realize that was what it was. I thought, “Has building management been here?” Then I saw a woven handbag, in which I store my several evening bags, lying on the floor by the deadbolt. That bag is normally kept on the closet shelf in my room at the other end of the apartment. And looking into my living room, I could see the lid of my cedar chest standing open.

I thought, “I’ve been robbed,” and for a moment I just stood still, willing it not to be true.

Well, I went through the apartment first to see what had been taken before calling the police. The 30 or so CDs that I had stacked on the kitchen counter shelf were gone. They’d even taken my Luba CD — it was plainly the work of crackheads.

They’d rifled through things. A lid was off one of the canisters in the kitchen. The microwave I had just gotten for Christmas was still sitting on top of the fridge, fortunately.

In the living room the lid of the cedar chest was open as I said, and some of the things I stored in there (board games and toys for my nieces and nephews and other children who visit me, and a few old curtains) were on the floor. They’d thrown the hourglasses kept on top of the cedar chest on my couch, fortunately not breaking them, as my dad made them for me. One of the plants kept on top of the cedar chest, an aloe vera, was on the floor, with the dirt spilled around and many leaves broken. My sewing box lid was open. My TV (a 1997 model, which cost me $80 at Cash Converters), ghetto blaster (they would have done me a favour by hauling that one away as it ceased to work a week later), and my VCR and DVD player (also bought from Cash Converters) were all still in place, unsurprisingly.

The linen closet door stood open, the hall light was on, the guest room seemed undisturbed but I could tell from the not quite closed drawers and closet door that they’d gone through it too. Cabinet doors in both bathrooms stood open. It didn’t occur to me until I got about halfway though the place that the thieves might still be in the apartment, but by this point I was so furious I probably would have chased out a garden variety non-vicious criminal at the point of my rolling pin, screaming bloody murder all the while.

In my workroom the filing cabinet doors stood open. They’d taken a photo box down from the closet shelf and dumped it out on the floor. A box containing old family memorabilia and artefacts was dumped out on the floor, and the autograph album that had belonged to my great-grandmother and which is almost 120 years old and fragile, was lying in pieces. My computer (bought used 5 years ago from a co-worker for $300) was still sitting on my desk, and my sewing machine and brand new stained glass grinder were still in their places in the closet.

In my room, there were purses (normally stored, empty, on the closet shelf) scattered over the floor. Drawers and cupboard doors stood open. A drawer in one nightstand that can only be delicately described as the “goody drawer” was open and its contents pulled half out. There was a pillowcase missing from the bed, presumably taken and used as a loot bag. And the last thing I saw during my survey of the damage was the worst – my jewellery box lying on my bed with its empty drawers lying around it, and with only a few pieces of jewellery left in the top tray and ring bed.

I got the phone book from my bookshelves and looked up the non-emergency line for the police. Upon picking up the phone I discovered I had a message. I thought it might be building management or something and that I should check it. The message said, “Hi! This is ADT! We’re offering a special discount on security systems on houses in your area!” I said, “Oh hah hah,” and deleted it.

I called the police. They told me they’d send someone. I went across the hall and knocked on my neighbours’ door to ask if they heard anything. They’re a sweet couple in their eighties, and they hadn’t heard anything. They clucked over me for several minutes, and it seemed to rattle them terribly.

I made my list of what was lost, which was just the 30 CDs, the jewellery, and the pillowcase. I was most upset about the jewellery. One CD is as good as another, and most of mine were bought used and from garage sales and such, but jellwery usually cannot be replicated exactly, and much of it had been presents from people I cared about. My silver baby bracelet I was saving to give to my own daughter? Gone. The quartz and silver bracelet my mother bought in the Yukon last summer and gave me for my birthday? Gone. The turquoise and gold ring given to me by a former roommate, the silver ankle bracelet from a close friend, the steel watch I’d bought to celebrate getting a steady job after two years of unemployment, the bone bracelet given to my by my team leader after she got back from a trip to Africa, the triplot opal ring I’d bought to celebrate finishing my university degree, were all gone too. And more that I’m probably not remembering. Other bits and bobs I’d picked up over years of hunting in thrift shops were also gone, as was the good quality costume jewellery I’d splurged on the previous Christmas. They’d also cleaned out a box I kept on the top of my wardrobe, but it was mostly junk jewellery I didn’t ever wear.

The thief or thieves hadn’t been all that thorough. I had about four pairs of earrings; they took one of each. And they’d left me a few things. They didn’t bother scooping out everything that was in the top tray of my jewellery box, so there was a cameo necklace, a silver locket and chain (grade eight graduation present, although the matching earrings were gone), a silver chain with a rose on it (which I bought myself at 14), and a bead necklace my sister had given me for Christmas. They didn’t bother to take one ring which was really obviously worthless. Also they seemed to miss even seeing a compartment in the jewellery box that contained a few brooches.

Fortunately I had been wearing the two pieces I cared about the most to work that day, and so they were spared. One was the gold Bulova watch I’d bought myself the previous summer as a reward for meeting a personal goal. The other was the gold signet ring my father gave me for my sixteenth birthday (he gave all his five children signet rings for their sixteenth birthdays). Oh, and I was wearing one more piece of jewellery – a bracelet I’d bought myself at work that day because a co-worker was selling them for charity. It was so perfect that I couldn’t resist buying it though I’d thought to myself that I didn’t need it as I had three bracelets at home….

I couldn’t do anything – couldn’t clean up, nor make supper, nor do my usual evening routine of going for my walk and writing – until the police got there. And they were taking their time.

So I called one of my closest friends and she talked to me until her baby son start squalling in the background. Then I called the police to see when they were coming and got rather snarly with them because I was ravenously hungry and they said they’d be there when they got there, that there was another break in to another apartment in my building and they’d been waiting since two that afternoon so I had no cause for complaint, and not to make dinner. Then I ate about nine cookies as it was the only convenience food I had on hand. Then I called my mother. It was during my phone call with her that the police showed up, about two and a half hours after I’d called them.

The cop who knocked on my door was very cute, very young, and not the sharpest tool in the shed. He said cheerily, “Hey, how you doing?” and then awkwardly retracted the question when he saw the expression that came over my face. I immediately handed him my list of things that were stolen and told him I’d talked to the neighbours and they hadn’t heard anything. He said, “Great!” and then again, responding to the look on my face, said, “I mean, great that you made the list, not great that you had stuff stolen.”

We walked through my place and I pointed out what the thieves had done. I made an effort to stand in front of the stuff spilling out of the goody drawer so as not to destroy whatever remained of his innocence, and my dignity.

His partner, who was a no-nonsense woman of about 40, showed up a few minutes later and again we did the walk through. The male cop took off to interview the neighbours, and the female cop told me that I’d had more stuff taken than the other apartment owner, though she’d had much more stuff to steal, like an expensive stereo system and a PlayStation. They didn’t think it a professional job. I commented that I didn’t have much to steal, nothing with a resale value anyway, but she said I didn’t understand, that people on drugs will take a TV they can sell for ten dollars. I later spoke with a friend of mine who is a criminal lawyer, and he told me that things like appliances are actually hard to sell, because they have serial numbers and the pawnshop industry is regulated. You need a fence for them. Jewellery and CDs, however, can be sold with no questions asked, unless the jewwllery is very high-end and the stones are registered.

The security guard for the building showed up and said, “Hey, how you doing?” I deadpanned, “Just great thanks, you?” and he didn’t get it. I reflected that this was really reminding me of a Margaret Atwood novel (Lady Oracle, I believe), in which the protagonist’s father calls her and they exchange the usual “How are you? Good thanks and you?” pleasantries before her father tells her that her mother has fallen down the cellar steps and broken her neck. Must be a Canadian thing.

The cops and the security guard asked if I had contents insurance. I said I didn’t. They made sympathetic noises and I said I still had no regrets. There’d be a $500 deductible, and I wouldn’t have gotten a dime back after years of paying insurance premiums.

Another cop (a middle aged man) showed up to take pictures and dust for prints. He also came out with an upbeat, “Hey, how you doing?” I cringed when he took pictures of the contents of the goody drawer. Then, when he dusted various places for prints (my sewing box, the lid of the canister, my jewellery box, the bathroom cabinets, the front door), and found not a one. Not even mine.

After he left I could begin cleaning up. The locksmith showed up and said, “Hey, how you doing?” I said, “Well, since you ask,” and burst into loud, mock sobs. He wanted $140 to put a new deadbolt in the lock and add a wrap around plate to the deadbolt lock. Normally for home repairs I do research to find out if I can do them myself and then shop around for the best price, but this was plainly no time to be dicking about being frugal, so I handed him my credit card and told him to go ahead. The doorknob lock was still fine as I hadn’t locked it that morning (you have to lock it on the inside before closing the door, and it was newly installed and I wasn’t used to that yet and in a hurry), but I wouldn’t have felt safe with just it locked.

Well, he did his work, commenting that the door on the 11th floor had gotten bashed in, while on mine the lock just broke. I cleaned up. I was glad that nothing was permanently damaged save my aloe vera plant, and while that was down to half its former size it would eventually recover.

After everyone had finally gone I sat down at the computer feeling rather in need of comfort sex I had no chance of getting. The friend I’d called earlier did call back as her son had conked out for the night, and I sent some emails, then went to bed myself.

The next day I went shopping at lunch and bought a new set of pillowcases and a budget blowing gold necklace. And over the next couple of months I greatly enjoyed buying new jewellery. Jewellery counters in stores drew me like magnets (“Oooh! Sparkly things!”) There are times when retail therapy is helpful and appropriate; this was one of those times. I decided immediately that I was not going to try to replicate my old collection, first of all because it was next to impossible and would be a frustrating task, and second because I didn’t want to be reminded of what I had lost. So I bought new, different things that I love, and that have no bad associations. I haven’t replaced any of the CDs were taken either, though I probably will eventually.

My friend the criminal lawyer suggested that maybe the thieves took my pillowcase for sniffing purposes. I pointed out that if they wanted something along those lines there was my nightgown lying in plain sight on the bed or plenty of lingerie in the drawers they went through, but thanked him for helpfully planting such a thought in my mind.

Building management told me a few days after the robbery that they would reimburse me for the locksmith bill, though it did take them three months to do so. I found my Chris Isaak “Forever Blue” CD still in my ghetto (the loser thieves made off with an empty case nyah nyah). The thieves weren’t ever caught so far as I know. The police hadn’t any evidence to go on.

I never got too upset or traumatized by this event, because it was just stuff. Though I could still kick those thieves’ teeth in. A couple of stupid, useless, fucking assholes who can’t be bothered to work for what they want decided they’d just take away things I’d worked for. I was most upset about the loss of my jewellery, and what really drove me crazy was the thought that so much of it wasn’t worth anything and the thieves would probably just end up throwing it out. And crime makes waste. The price the thieves would get for those things they stole was nothing compared to what I paid for them, let alone what I would have to pay to replace them.

I’ve always been cavalier about my safety and I still am. Besides it isn’t that probable that my place will be broken into again. You’d need a blowtorch to get around that plate on the door, and there’s no other entry to my apartment unless a thief pulls a Spiderman and climbs from balcony to balcony. I’m more worried about securing the house I’m moving to in November. I’ll be getting a security system and a dog, but even then, if someone really wants in, they’ll be able to get in.

I have home invasion-themed nightmares now, although I have always had many nightmares and vivid dreams. One night I dreamed that I heard noises, that the noises clarified themselves into the sound of someone breaking through the front door, and when I went to the door of my room there was a man dressed in black and covering his face running down the hall towards me. I screamed at him to get out of my home, but he blew past me, fell on my bed, took his hands away from his face, and lay there laughing. He turned out to be someone I dated last October who really hurt me.

It’s lovely what horrible new combinations the subconscious can make of one’s already unpleasant reality, isn’t it.

Ah, sorry to hear all that, Orangey. I've never replaced half the CDs that were stolen when my truck was rifled in a parking garage ... now I'm not even sure what all of them were. One of them was the first CD I ever bought (Kate Bush).

I'm sorry to hear your story. It makes me upset on your behalf.

They took the pillowcase as a convenient bag to carry the other stolen goods away in, of course. Your pillowcase-sniffing lawyer friend is a pervert.

Well told, Orange Swan.

Six years ago my girlfriend's car was broken into. Nothing was taken. All that was inside were a number of tapes and CDs. She asked me why they hadn't taken anything. I told her that there was nothing to take.

"But, what about the tapes and CDs?"

"They were probably kids" I said. "They don't like the stuff you listen to."

She paused and asked "but why not sell them to a pawn shop or something?"

I paused.

"Oh" she said.

I'm still not sure if she was more hurt by the violation of the break-in or the fact that her choice in music was so roundly disparaged.

Heh. Your lawyer clearly hasn't been burgled much. They always take a pillow case - to put stuff in. We were robbed a number of times when we lived in New Orleans... Definitely the worst loss was a locket that had belonged to my mother, which she gave to me. They should have just held it for ransom, since I would have paid far more to get it back than they could ever get selling it.

or, what ikkyu2 said.

By 'sniffing', I'd have to guess that yr lawyer meant the sniffing of glue, paint, or another type of inhalant and not the pervert type of sniffing.

If it's any consolation, that is.

Yeah, my friend is kind of wired that way. It was probably an attempt to make me laugh. Of course I knew he was wrong.

That's rotten. My house was burgled 2 years ago when I was on vacation. It's a very crummy experience, especially the long-term loss of security in your own home. Retail - jewelry buying therapy is clearly the recommended treatment. I'll have to try it.

Aargh, that sucks. Try not to let it get to you.