Trouble in the Neigborhood

Another J! True Story   (yes, with a typo in the title ;)

Yesterday, the emails and group posts were flying around like crazy. Our little neighborhood has a private Yahoo Group for residents to communicate and connect- I’ve been overjoyed to have the online venue and it certainly proved useful these past couple of days.

We live at the end of a cul de sac, with a lovely wooded area occupying the space past our fenced-in back yard. Past the woods is a main street they’re in the process of widening. (I know, grrreeat). A couple of weekends ago, two adult men (who were obviously out of place) came up behind our house out of those woods. Our lab/rottie mix (who looks like a full Rottweiler) took notice and wasn’t happy.

So, as any good dog owner would do in that situation… I let her out to have at it. The yard is fenced, so there was no danger of anyone (them or her) getting hurt. But- it was enough to scare the crap out of them and their lackadaisical walk quickly turned into a swift gait the other direction. I couldn’t help but giggle a little.

Mission Accomplished. For now anyway.

I didn’t think much about it until yesterday when my inbox lit up with posts to our online neighborhood group. It seems there have been several similarly suspicious situations (say that 3 times fast) occurring at various times of the day and night in our little corner of Earth. Mostly, what we (the neighborhood) deemed a childish prank has now turned into a full blown ‘security’ issue. (You knew that word was coming!)

It started with harmless prank doorbell-ringing, but the offense list has grown to include instances of beating and kicking doors in the wee hours of the morning. Other neighbors have noted recent instances of someone coming onto their back deck and tapping on the back door, only to have disappeared before the home owners could make it downstairs. Each time the culprit takes off if –or before– the occupant can respond. There have been only a couple of partial-sightings, where another neighbor caught a glimpse of the incident, and it has been confirmed that these are not kids. From the posts yesterday from a handful of folks, I’d say there were at least a dozen or so instances already documented.

So that leads me to wonder… are they merely childish pranks… or are these adults scoping out a neighborhood and testing to see who’s home… ?

Either way, midnight window-tapping and 3:00am kicks at your front door (which evidently left dents) are nothing to dismiss. We’re asking the local Police Department to increase the frequency of their drive-thrus in the area. And, I’m thinking of having the group organize a neighborhood camera system.

For now, our 75-pound, four-legged black and tan security system helps me feel a little better about it all.

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