Apartment broken into!!! Nothing stolen???

A little background: I lived in North Dakota until I met my wife 4 years ago (Match.com). She lived in South Dakota. So, I packed up all my belongings, and headed south.

All my scrap metal clients were still in ND. So I rented a flea-bag apartment in North Dakota where I can stay while I am cleaning up my clients. I do this ND-SD thing about 1 week in ND, 2 weeks in SD all summer long. Winter it slows down to nothing.

Well, got a call yesterday, gotta make a run from home (SD) to client (ND). So leave this morning to head north. Everything good.

Get to apartment in ND. Push on door, and it just swings open. Locked, but has been jimmied with a crow bar. Door jam all f'ed up, door frame bent. Somebody's been in here! Check closets, shower, double check closets...nobody here. Look around, nothing missing. Laptop (that I am typing this on as we speak) still here, can of coins, ice fishing stuff, beer in fridge, nothing gone. WTF.

Call landlord. He says call cops. So I call cops. Cop comes over, looks at door, looks at door jam. We BS for a while. After kinda getting to know the cop, he tells me there are a lot of transients coming here because they hear there are all kinds of high paying jobs in North Dakota with the oil boom and such. Well hello, I'm 200 miles from any oil well, or oil producing county. Apparently they just hear North Dakota and think it's easy money wherever you decide to plop down. BS with cop some more, he tells me he's been over here before "visiting" with my neighbor. This is not your standard apartment. Just an old house renovated into a 4-plex. Apparently neighbor kid is a nasty drunk. I've said hi to him a few times and how's it going...nothing more. Seemed like an ok kid to me. OK, BS more with cop. He says this kid (23-26 yearold) will break in to get booze. I tell cop I have 30 pack of Busch Lite in fridge and it's still there. Cop says; " This kid ain't interested in beer. Doesn't do it for him. He needs a 1/2 gallon of whiskey at a shot.". I'm like HUH?

So cop says bye, bye and I go about my business and he goes about his. I walk outside to plug my pickup in because it won't start without being plugged in at these cold temps. There is punk kid standing outside smoking a cig. What to do? I have my pistol, which I carry legally at all times. Do I show him the bulge in my pants pocket? HAHA, or just walk away like nothing happened? Walk back to door, Kid asks me: "Hey man, what were the cops doing here?" I start to quiz him: Did you see anything? Hear anything? Anyone suspicious around here? Of course all his answers were "No, I just come out here to smoke." Then punk asks me "Was anything stolen?" I say "no", and continue on with my questioning. After what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds, he said something very telling. "Glad nothing was stolen."

Now, when I told this whole story to the cop, to my wife, and to my sister, they all asked "are you sure nothing is missing?" Couldn't believe nothing was gone. When I told this punk kid that, he wasn't surprised nothing was stolen.

Full disclaimer: when I was young I did some very foolish things while under the influence of whatever. So I kind of have an understanding if this kid was just looking for some hard liquor. Also, he may have stolen my laptop and whatever else and returned it later...who knows. I haven't been here since Nov. 25th.

Side note: Cop forgot his gloves here. I called non-emergency number, and he came back by and was very happy with my honesty. Told him to keep his **** eyes on this place lol.

Thanks for reading my rant. No point to it really. Someone is going to say "Punch him in the face", I know that.

What would you do besides punching him in the face?

Rip off his lower mandible , hard to drink without a lower jaw

Ok honestly I hope it was not your neighbor , I know all signs point towards him , but it could be anything . Maybe try a fake alarm sticker or find a diffrent stay away place , glad nothing was stolen

Punch'm in the face an drop him in a ice fishing hole. ;)

I'm not known to be kind to people would commit a B&E.

Maybe it wasn't the kid an a rogue sheep gone wild...I hear one has to watch out for such sheep in your neck of the woods.

Sirscrapalot - Punching them in the face is always an option an less costly then a bullet to the kneecap. :)

Oh Sirscrapalot... If it was a sheep, that would be my date for the night. It gets cold and lonely up here in North Dakota.

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If it was a sheep, that would be my date for the night

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Where the men are men & the sheep are nervous! :D

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Originally Posted by HonestScrap

Where the men are men & the sheep are nervous! :D

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Us NDers say that about Montana.

A lot more sheep in Montana than ND...

Glad nothing was stolen but the sense of being violated, even if mildly, sucks.

If you want to get back, buy a bottle of cheap whiskey and leave it with just the liquor seal & cap peaking from a bag in your truck for a day or so as a little bait. When inside empty out about a quarter to a third and refill with some of your pi**. Shake it up good and leave it in the apartment. Giggle if your place gets busted into again and its gone :))

Could say something about tylenol and liquor but that could be a permanent and serious ending. Lets just say they don't mix well...

just get a reputation of being the crazy guy on the block...... :-) works for me! Seriously tho. Get security cameras. At least one above the front door. I have 6 cameras on my property the whole house is caught on camera. I don't think anyone would be stupid enough to break into my house....... We are well armed with every possible weapon. Be it compound bow, cross bow, guns, stun guns, bear spray, mace etc.

P.S. On a side note, my 7 yo girl has her own compound bow and knows how to use it:-). I'm proud of her

An here I was trying to be good...

North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana...their all the same to me, cept for different ways of keeping warm in those cold months.

;)

As seen on a bumper sticker from one of the above three states..

http://ih0.redbubble.net/image.13504...375x360.u1.png

I herd this T-Shirt is all the rage up there..

http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/k...e-sheep-32.png

:)

Sirscrapalot - Who needs a feather when you can use the whole flock. - Somebody in ND, SD, MT, or WY.

Honest advice, and I cannot possibly make this more obvious to you.

HIGH QUALITY GAME CAMERA. The kind you can put a 3g or 4g sim card in. Best **** investment I have made in my entire life bar none. Caught a guy in my garage, caught another guy trying to break into my storage, yet ANOTHER successfully inside the warehouse with the alarm going off, got his face, IR cam and all, right in the background a nice little piece of tape with his height for the cops. Every time the game cam caught a license plate, a face of the driver or both.

I've tried remote monitored security systems and their only as good as the response time, but having a 10 or 20 megapixel infrared picture of someone cannot get much better than that, no security system in the world can beat that.

I would hide it, sometimes plain sight goes unnnoticed though...like in the clear plastic package front from walmart, I just put batteries in it, set it up and put it back inside the package, left the top open, the instructions laid out, pointed right at the door. Be creative.

Set up the camera and then let him know you will be gone for a few days and can keep a lookout on your place. If it is him he will be caught...

Where Does Vigin Wool Come From?

Ugly Sheep!

http://youtu.be/AarHxXD_vKY

Hummmm .... it's a puzzler. You see the door jimmied like that and you would think that someone broke in to rob the place. It could have been like that for weeks and nobody passing by took anything ? Are you sure you aren't talking about a certain island just off the coast of Maine ? ( I never lock my doors. That way they can't break in. )

The thing about breaking in for whiskey doesn't seem to fit. I've heard of guys drinking sterno and just about anything with alcohol in it to stave off the DT's.

It could have been a homeless person. It's pretty cold out there. You can't really blame somebody for seeking shelter. It's better than dying from hypothermia.

I have to wonder if they broke in for some other reason. You said it was a fleabag and that it was cut up into four apartments. They probably did a half assed job of breaking it up.

Does every apt have it's own thermostat ? If the thermostat in your place controls the heat in the other apts they might have forced their way in to turn it up.

Is there any sign that they've recently been working on the plumbing ? Freeze ups & pipe breaks are pretty common in the dead of winter. Sewer lines catch and back up. Sections of baseboard heat sometimes go air bound and have to be bled. We used to get quite a few freeze up calls after the power had been out for a day or two.

The building code is a PITA in regard to smoke detectors. They're supposed to be hard wired so that when one goes off they ALL go off. Sometimes the detectors go bad or just get dust in em'. If the bad one is inside a locked apt there's only one way to re-set it.

Is the circuit breaker -or- fuse panel in your apartment ? They might have had to come in to re-set a circuit that runs through one of the other apartments. Heaven forbid it was the furnace that went out ....

Could it have been somebody checking on your well being ? Maybe they hadn't seen you in weeks and were wondering if you had died ?

Lastly .... i hope you aren't one to go off and leave the TV running. If i was in the next apartment over and had to listen to CNN 24/7 i would either shoot myself or go in and shut the darn thing off. ;)

I have to wonder if the kid knows more than he's letting on. Have you talked with the other neighbors ? Maybe something happened while you were gone ?

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Originally Posted by Scrappah

Hummmm .... it's a puzzler. You see the door jimmied like that and you would think that someone broke in to rob the place. It could have been like that for weeks and nobody passing by took anything ? Are you sure you aren't talking about a certain island just off the coast of Maine ? ( I never lock my doors. That way they can't break in. )

The thing about breaking in for whiskey doesn't seem to fit. I've heard of guys drinking sterno and just about anything with alcohol in it to stave off the DT's.

It could have been a homeless person. It's pretty cold out there. You can't really blame somebody for seeking shelter. It's better than dying from hypothermia.

I have to wonder if they broke in for some other reason. You said it was a fleabag and that it was cut up into four apartments. They probably did a half assed job of breaking it up.

Does every apt have it's own thermostat ? If the thermostat in your place controls the heat in the other apts they might have forced their way in to turn it up.

Is there any sign that they've recently been working on the plumbing ? Freeze ups & pipe breaks are pretty common in the dead of winter. Sewer lines catch and back up. Sections of baseboard heat sometimes go air bound and have to be bled. We used to get quite a few freeze up calls after the power had been out for a day or two.

The building code is a PITA in regard to smoke detectors. They're supposed to be hard wired so that when one goes off they ALL go off. Sometimes the detectors go bad or just get dust in em'. If the bad one is inside a locked apt there's only one way to re-set it.

Is the circuit breaker -or- fuse panel in your apartment ? They might have had to come in to re-set a circuit that runs through one of the other apartments. Heaven forbid it was the furnace that went out ....

Could it have been somebody checking on your well being ? Maybe they hadn't seen you in weeks and were wondering if you had died ?

Lastly .... i hope you aren't one to go off and leave the TV running. If i was in the next apartment over and had to listen to CNN 24/7 i would either shoot myself or go in and shut the darn thing off. ;)

I have to wonder if the kid knows more than he's letting on. Have you talked with the other neighbors ? Maybe something happened while you were gone ?

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Yikes... where to start with all this. Island off the coast of Maine??? Are you referring to Marxist Vineyard? I'm just a simple rube from the dakotas.

Homeless? I doubt it. Homeless people are weeded out this time of year. Plus if it was a homeless person, he/she would still be here when I showed up.

Yes, every apt. has it's own thermostat. It is an old house that someone made into 4 apartments. Two upstairs, two downstairs.

No, plumbing is fine. Nothing froze up, if it was the landlord has a key.

No on smoke detector, again landlord.

No on circuit breaker. In a different apt.

Nobody would be worried about my well-being. Friends and family and landlord know where I am.

And no, I don't leave the TV on CNN. In fact I don't even have TV here. I'm too German and Cheap!!!

No, I haven't talked to other neighbors. According to the cop who came over they are just as sketchy as the kid next door. LOL.

It's the low rent district. $260/mo. That kind of rent attracts the riff-raff.

pjost
That cop may have given you a hint. Pee in a half full bottle of cheap whiskey.

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Originally Posted by Abuilder

pjost
That cop may have given you a hint. Pee in a half full bottle of cheap whiskey.

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I heard of using epsom salts the other day on tv. Gives em' a wild case of diarrhea. >:)

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Originally Posted by pjost

Yikes... where to start with all this. Island off the coast of Maine??? Are you referring to Marxist Vineyard? I'm just a simple rube from the dakotas.

Homeless? I doubt it. Homeless people are weeded out this time of year. Plus if it was a homeless person, he/she would still be here when I showed up.

Yes, every apt. has it's own thermostat. It is an old house that someone made into 4 apartments. Two upstairs, two downstairs.

No, plumbing is fine. Nothing froze up, if it was the landlord has a key.

No on smoke detector, again landlord.

No on circuit breaker. In a different apt.

Nobody would be worried about my well-being. Friends and family and landlord know where I am.

And no, I don't leave the TV on CNN. In fact I don't even have TV here. I'm too German and Cheap!!!

No, I haven't talked to other neighbors. According to the cop who came over they are just as sketchy as the kid next door. LOL.

It's the low rent district. $260/mo. That kind of rent attracts the riff-raff.

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I was just curious. It's capitalist central here on the island. We're just simple hard working folk that tend to be a bit on the conservative side. Break in's aren't much of a problem in my part of town. Much as anything .... a lock on the door is an annoyance when i'm trying to get something done.Gotta go find the darn key. I know it's somewhere but where ?

I grew up just outside of Boston so i'm familiar with the other side of it. Saw my share of trouble and roughed up a few as a lesson not to mess with me. If i had to sum it all up i would say that things weren't always as they would seem. Quite often there was more to the story but the truth of things didn't reveal itself till later on.

That's why i was puzzled by your situation. Seems like there's a piece missing. When it doesn't add up it's better to step back and look at it with a fresh eye. Maybe there's a possibility that hasn't been considered yet.

UPDATE!!!

Well the landlord got an offer he couldn't refuse. Actually he wouldn't refuse any offer lol. This place is soon to be a parking lot. Yes, it's being torn down, so I am being evicted.

The landlord, knowing I am a scrapper asked me to get rid of all the appliances out of the place. OK, I can do that. Pitched stoves, AC units and refrigerators off the 2nd floor. Kinda fun. In the process, took the grand tour of the place. Holy Sh!t it is unbelievable how some people (druggies) live. Light fixtures pulled out, hypodermic needles all over, garbage and waste strewn about... SICK stuff.

Got my deposit ($100) + appliances + a $500 check for my labor and hauling. Not too shabby.

where are u going to live now?
forgive me if u already mentioned it but i just read the last few posts.

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Originally Posted by msmoorad

where are u going to live now?
forgive me if u already mentioned it but i just read the last few posts.

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Right now this is all I have; Beer in the tank and a fire in the bowl for cooking and heat.

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Just kidding I found a new apartment.

i hope that something better is waiting for u