Broke in

A few years ago, I was renting a house in Northern California. The neighborhood was just outside the suburbs. It seemed like the perfect balance of having space and having nice neighbors close enough not to feel isolated. The area had no street lights, so it was very dark at night especially if there were clouds blocking the moonlight. It didn't bother me though. It made my little house feel even more quaint on dark nights.

I got home from work one day in mid winter. It was a cloudy night, so pulling up to my house, I saw only what my headlights and front porch light illuminated. When I got out of my car, I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. That was odd as I had never smelled that before around that house. I didn't see anyone nearby, so I ignored it and went inside. I had just got off a shift with a few hours of overtime, so I felt pretty tired. Even though it wasn't even 7 yet, I decided to take a shower and call it a night.

I woke up sometime later sure that I had heard a noise inside my house. I wasn't worried right away because my friend would sometimes stop by to use my shower after work on his way to his night classes. I even gave him a spare key so he could stop by even if I wasn't home. He would always text me to let me know beforehand though, and I hadn't heard my phone go off.

I reached over to my bedside table and picked up my cell phone to see if my friend had sent me a text. The bright light from my phone's screen and number pad blinded me. These were the days before phones had a light sensor that would dim the screen in the dark, and this particular phone was so bright I could use it as a flashlight. Through squinted eyes, I could make out that it was 9 something, but I couldn't tell if I had an unread text or not.

I set my phone aside and called out my friend's name. There were a couple of seconds of silence before I heard loud foot falls as someone started running through the bottom floor of my house. I leapt out of bed and ran to the closet. They were already up the stairs by the time I had opened the door and stepped inside.

That house had three rooms upstairs: two bedrooms on either side of the hallway, the one I was in and a spare, and a bathroom at the end. The bedroom doors were both closed, but the bathroom door was cracked open. I heard whoever was in my house thunder down the hallway past my door and into the bathroom. Thank god he did. That gave me enough time to open the attic access in the ceiling of my closet and hoist myself up.

I had just started to lift myself up when the person ran back out of the bathroom. My feet were barely inside of the attic when my bedroom door burst open. I heard footsteps run into my room and stop. When they didn't see me in that room, they ran back to the hallway and into the other room which just had boxes stacked in a corner, some weights, and a table where I painted my miniature models. I guess they decided that if someone were hiding, it would be in the bedroom because they charged back into my room and turned on the light. A moment later the closet door was ripped open.

I was crouched in my attic just a foot or so away from the access, so I could try to stop them if they started to climb up. From my vantage point all I could see was from about their knee down. They were wearing dirty blue jeans with frayed cuffs and worn work boots. After a few seconds of looking in the closet, they stepped away and I heard a loud crash come from my room followed by a scream of frustration and anger. That scream was the most unnerving part of the incident for me. It reminded me far too much of my stepfather who would scream in a similar way when he lost his temper. He would eventually be put in a mental hospital for several mental disorders that resulted in erratic and violent tendencies.

The man in my house ran back down the stairs. I heard crashes and clatters as things were thrown around and furniture was knocked over. I stayed crouched in the attic. I had left my cell phone when I ran for the closet, and I wasn't certain I could climb down without him hearing. After some time, the noises stopped. I started counting slowly. When I reached 1,000, I decided it was safe enough to climb down and call the police.

The first thing I noticed when I exited the closet was the intruder had flipped my bed over. I assume in an attempt to find me. That was the loud noise I had heard after he stepped away from the closet. I couldn't find my cell phone, so I went to the land line by the bed and called the police. I waited in my room until I heard them call out from downstairs.

The first floor was a mess, but I had expected that. Chairs had been knocked over, the sofa had been flipped. All the books, pictures and knick knacks I had on my shelves were strewn across the floor. The cupboards in the kitchen had been opened and all the boxed and canned foods had been thrown to the ground. As far as I could tell though, the only thing missing was a single knife out of the wooden block in my kitchen.

The police checked the house from top to bottom. They found that the side door had been forced open by something like a crowbar. They also found a few cigarette butts along my fence line along with some foil and an empty pen tube which the police said people often use to smoke meth, so they think he had been watching my house for a while. I realized that he must have been out there smoking a cigarette when I got home. They collected up the 'evidence' and told me I should stay with family or friends that night and get that door fixed as soon as possible.

I opted to just not sleep. I moved a shelf over to block the broken door and spent the next couple hours cleaning things up. I would often go to the window with a flashlight and shine it along the fence line where the police found the cigarette butts and foil, but I didn't see anything.

The next day I called to have the door fixed and motion lights installed at the back and sides of my house. I ran a phone cable up into the attic and added a landline. I never wanted to be stuck up there without a phone again. Nothing else happened at that house though. I lived there another three years without incident.

One more precaution I took was practicing getting out of my bed, going to my closet and climbing into the attic as quickly and quietly as possible. I even kept at it when I moved, except now I go to a crawl space at the back of the closet instead of the attic. I try not to think about what would have happened if I had been a bit slower getting to the attic or if he hadn't gone into the bathroom at the end of the hall first.