Robbed! (and Related PSAs)

Last Thursday, I arrived home from work (after working "the princess shift" - 11:30am-6pm) to find that I'd been robbed.

Yep, someone broke into my house and stole my laptop and some of my jewelry.

Seriously... WTF is wrong with people?!?

Since I worked the early shift, my mom had brought Jordyn to my house and we were going to order in and I was going to get to spend some time with Jordyn before she had to go to sleep. They arrived at 6pm, and I got there at 6:40. I was focused on getting to Jordyn ASAP, so I didn't notice my laptop wasn't on the coffee table, where it lives, until a few minutes later. My mom had brought her upstairs to change both of them since Jordyn had just slimed them both. I found them up there, got my mom a t-shirt to put on, got Jordyn changed (she'd pooped, too), and then we went back downstairs.

I walked back into the den, saw that my laptop wasn't there, and asked my mom where it was. Since she'd gotten to my house before I did, I figured maybe she'd moved it somewhere. But of course she hadn't. I started to process what this meant... I was absolutely 100% sure the laptop had been on the coffee table when I'd left for work at 11am, because I'd used it shortly before leaving. I called my dad, thinking maybe he'd borrowed it (which makes almost no sense, but I guess I was in denial), and of course he hadn't. I started to cry, and said I thought it had been stolen. He told me I needed to call the police, and also see if anything else had been taken.

I walked around the house, and everything looked fine until I got to my bedroom and noticed that some jewelry was missing from my top dresser drawer.

PSA #1- The top drawer of your dresser is a completely stupid place to "hide" your jewelry (no offense intended - I did it, too!). If you currently have jewelry there, go hide it somewhere else. I don't know, in the guest room closet, or a kitchen cabinet, or a box marked "old junk" in the attic. Anywhere but your dresser drawer!

I only had some of my jewelry in my top dresser drawer, the rest of it was in a better hiding place that they didn't find. But what I had in my dresser were the things I'd worn more recently, and of course that means it was the stuff I liked the most. Best I can figure, they got three necklaces and a ring. Two of the necklaces were silver, so not worth a huge amount, but I really liked them. The third necklace was gold and a diamond, and my parents had it made for me a bunch of years ago. It was probably worth around $3K. The ring... oh, the ring! It was platinum, with a ruby (I think - a pink stone) and little diamonds, a one-of-a-kind (I think) estate piece that my grandfather gave to me, and he's since passed away. It was appraised at almost $9K several years ago, so probably worth more than that now with the current price of gold.

PSA #2 - Take a picture of any jewelry you own that's worth a decent amount of money. The police asked me if I had a picture of the ring, even just a picture of me wearing it, like at a wedding or something. I don't think I do. Plus, all my pictures were on my laptop...

PSA #3 - BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER. I'm an idiot - I didn't. I'm lucky in that my dad has pretty much all the Jordyn pics on his computer, plus I put a bunch on shut.terfly, some are on face.book, and most of the ones I took are still on my phone and camera. But all my other pictures, and email, and documents... gone. :( It's unlikely that the police will find my laptop, and even if they do, it'll likely be wiped down to factory settings, with none of my personal stuff on it anymore.

PSA#4 - Password protect your computer. I had a password on mine, and I'm SO glad I did. I feel *slightly* better that whoever has my computer can't just easily open it up and use it, and see all my personal stuff like pictures and email, and can't get onto all the websites I have set to automatically log me in.

PSA#5 - If you don't have an alarm system and don't want to get one, at least make it LOOK like you have one. That's my plan. I'm going to figure out how to get A.DT signs and stickers and make it look like I've installed an alarm system.

So, anyway, I called the police, they came, looked around, listened to my story, asked questions, etc. They had a detective come by later, who did basically the same thing. He was supposed to come back on Friday morning to try to get some fingerprints, but he ended up not being able to come before I left for work, and was going to come later, and my downstairs neighbor (who'd also been robbed - it's a two-family house and the asshole got into both units!) would be around. Apparently, he ended up never showing up at all, so I have to follow up on that tomorrow.

PSA #6 - If you have decent jewelry, insure it. Because of that ring, I was paying extra for a rider on my insurance policy for jewelry coverage, up to $10K with no deductible. It probably won't cover all that I lost, but it'll cover most of it, although I'd really rather just have the jewelry back!

In case you're wondering, the front door to my unit was locked when my mom got there, so she had no idea anything had happened until I got home and noticed my computer missing. There's damage to the back door, which is how the guy got in. He apparently popped the lock somehow on my neighbor's front door (which was open when he got home that evening), went through his apartment taking stuff, then up the back stairs and broke in to my place.

One other random thing - When I walked through the kitchen on my way upstairs when I first got home, I noticed the fridge door was open about 3 inches. I closed it, and thought, "geez, mom, you gotta close the fridge door all the way next time!", and was going to say something about it to her when I got upstairs. I forgot, but thought about it later when the detective was there, and my mom said she hadn't touched the fridge. He wasn't at all surprised, and said, "yeah, these guys come in and eat". Which made me happy that I hadn't gone grocery shopping in quite some time, and that there was absolutely *nothing* to eat in my fridge!

I keep reminding myself that it's just stuff, and that at least no one was home and no one was hurt. Jordyn's fine, I'm fine... But it still really sucks, I'm still really pissed off and upset, and the worst part? Some fucking asshole was in my house, in my BABY'S house! Every time I stand in front of my dresser, I think about the guy who stood there while he was stealing my jewelry. UGH!