Crowbar through the door

This time, I am talking literally, but the story has a happy ending.

So, I got over to the house late Saturday morning. Picked up paint on Friday, but had to go back with a little piece of trim surgially removed from the shoe molding so they could match the glossy white. Because you know, not all whites are the same.

Will spare all the details, but sometime when I got back to the house, I noticed two unmistakeable crowbar imprints in my back door, between the deadbolt lock and the knob. This is the only door on the house that doesn't have some sort of reinforced metal outer door. It was pretty obvious, so I was sure I would have noticed it before.

Imagine the sinking feeling. Someone had tried to break into my empty house. There have been several incidents of robberies, and even an attempted home invasion in my new neighborhood recently. This is a nice neighborhood, folks, but it's near some major streets and let's face it. The city I live in is a crime-ridden armpit. Also, I have a theory that people go crazy and get brazen in the springtime.

Anyway, I felt pretty sick and depressed. I want to feel safe in my home. I really thought I had made a huge mistake. The evening before, I had sat in the backyard and marvelled at how quiet it was--just me and the birds, chirping and dive-bombing the birdbath. Now I thought I might not even want to be in my backyard at night. Would I have to install the obnoxious motion-detector floodlights that I scorn?

First things being first, after doing a tiny bit of painting, I went to Home Depot with my dad and bought a steel security door. While I was signing the papers, my house's former-owner called (I had left her a message) to deliver the news that the crowbar marks were not, indeed, fresh. No, the house was broken into four years ago, before she had an alarm or good locks.

HUGE RELIEF.

Still, I'm getting the damn door. It's being installed this week.