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Thought exercise, home break in...
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So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,

Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,

I usually lay there for a while, just listening. Generally, I lay there long enough to conclude that if it were a murderer, he would have killed me by now, and I go back to sleep. I have a pistol under the bed in a pistol safe; I’ve yet to actually get it out and wander around the house with it. If I heard glass breaking, voices, or something obvious like that, I’d probably grab it.

___________________________________________________
Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [spot] [ In reply to ]
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I usually remain asleep unaware of the noise. What usually wakes me up is my wife hitting me and saying, did you hear that. What was that. Go downstairs and see what that is. Should I call 911.
I'll usually wait a minute and if I don't hear anything I'll go back to sleep. If I do hear something, I'll make a bunch of noise figuring if it's someone in the house they will hear me and take off.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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I just keep listening until I figure it out or it stops.

I have a security pump shotgun loaded with buckshot and slugs, assault rifle, and Glock model 23 (.40 caliber) under the bed just in case.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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When we moved in to our house, it had an unfinished basement, a basement door, and a door to the garage which didn't lock. Within the first week or so we were awaken by a very, very loud sound of a door slamming shut right under our bedroom.

I grabbed a knife, locked the door from upstairs to the basement, and quietly ran around to the basement door from the yard. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to trap the Intruders in the basement rather then come down the obvious way (stairs) and be an easy target. It was also strange being so new to the house I felt no sense of home field advantage, knowing where corners and the right angles to conceal oneself are, where the squeaky floor boards are, etc.

Anyways, turned out the storm door to the basement didn't shut well and the wind just opened and slammed it shut, and the sound reverberated really strongly in the empty basement.

Our house is old, and now that we've been here a while I know every sound in the place. Every door squeaks, there are squeaky floors everywhere, and an intruder wouldn't make it 2 feet in any direction without me knowing exactly where they are!

Long Chile was a silly place.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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I have a pump shotgun and buckshot readily grabbable. I loaded it once when the front door slammed open in the middle of the night. It was pretty scary. I pumped the gun and yelled GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE as menacingly as possible as I ran out of my room with an EMHO. Was probably quite the sight. There was no one there, the door wasn’t locked, doesn’t close well, and the wind blew it open.

I know a guy who shot his wife about 20 years ago thinking she was an intruder. She survived and they’re still married. Guns don’t play. I have a healthy respect for them and hope to never point one at a person.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Open the door. Tell them they are fucked. Go back to bed. Clean up the pieces in the morning if any are left.



I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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On the wall of my bedroom I have a foot long knife I got in Nepal that is made for hacking through bamboo. It is heavy duty and very sharp. A couple times I’ve been woken by strange noise and have grabbed that knife off the wall and walked around the house. I know the angles and creaks well enough that I’d have a pretty good chance even if an intruder was armed, and that knife could take a hand off at the wrist with a good swing.

Truth is though, my dog is going to hear and alert to anyone trying to get in long before I do. We had a drunk person come up the walk in the wee hours one night thinking he was at a different house, and the shepherd was at the door sounding scary as hell before the dude even had started trying his key in the lock.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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If the strange noise is a creaking sound, I go back to bed. If it's my alarm siren, shit's about to get real.

I'm gonna put on a little Johnny Gill, light some candles, and hope the intruder is up for some ass play.

Have you seen Pulp Fiction?
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [JSA] [ In reply to ]
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JSA wrote:


TheForge would approve !

"I think I've cracked the code. double letters are cheaters except for perfect squares (a, d, i, p and y). So Leddy isn't a cheater... "
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [BCtriguy1] [ In reply to ]
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BCtriguy1 wrote:
When we moved in to our house, it had an unfinished basement, a basement door, and a door to the garage which didn't lock. Within the first week or so we were awaken by a very, very loud sound of a door slamming shut right under our bedroom.

I grabbed a knife, locked the door from upstairs to the basement, and quietly ran around to the basement door from the yard. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to trap the Intruders in the basement rather then come down the obvious way (stairs) and be an easy target. It was also strange being so new to the house I felt no sense of home field advantage, knowing where corners and the right angles to conceal oneself are, where the squeaky floor boards are, etc.

Anyways, turned out the storm door to the basement didn't shut well and the wind just opened and slammed it shut, and the sound reverberated really strongly in the empty basement.

Our house is old, and now that we've been here a while I know every sound in the place. Every door squeaks, there are squeaky floors everywhere, and an intruder wouldn't make it 2 feet in any direction without me knowing exactly where they are!
Reads like a scene from a wannabe horror flick.


_____________________________________
DISH is how we do it.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [ In reply to ]
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I usually just get up and start wandering around in my underwear, unarmed. This winter I heard some noise outside at ~2 am and went to check things out with a flashlight for defense...luckily for me it was just a large buck eating my cedar hedges (f--king urban deer!). I've been meaning to put a large knife or something in my nightstand but haven't gotten around to it. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe today's the day.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [re-fresh] [ In reply to ]
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re-fresh wrote:
I usually just get up and start wandering around in my underwear, unarmed. This winter I heard some noise outside at ~2 am and went to check things out with a flashlight for defense...luckily for me it was just a large buck eating my cedar hedges (f--king urban deer!). I've been meaning to put a large knife or something in my nightstand but haven't gotten around to it. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe today's the day.
Forget the knives and hide a hammer. I keep a hammer behind my mattress in the event that some asshole tries to creep through my bedroom window. Smashing hands and fingers is more painful than cuts.


_____________________________________
DISH is how we do it.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Several years ago I was the sole tenant in a 4-plex apartment that my friend recently purchased and renovated. My girlfriend and I were sound asleep and awoke to the sound of someone at the front door. Other than my friend, I was the only one with a key to the building and my apartment, so I knew something was amiss at 2AM, jumped out of bed, and hustled to the living room, where the door was. I intended to grab my large chef’s knife from the kitchen, but was too terrified and physically somewhat frozen. All I could do is yell as the door opened, “Get the fuck out of here!!” Ten seconds felt like an hour, every breath felt like it might be my last, but I was stuck in concrete, like a deer staring at the oncoming car knowing something terrible is about to happen. And as quickly as it started, the guy became apologetic, seemed frightened himself, pulled my keys from the front door, held them up as a token of submission. Turns out that he was drunk and got the buildings mixed up, and my girlfriend happened to forget the keys when I carried groceries in. I’m still unsure about how the exterior doors were also open, but one may have been propped a little when we came in.

No idea what I’d do today if there were an actual intruder. I hope I’d protect my kids without freezing, but I learned that you never know how your body will react in that situation. It seems that I excel better in the types of stressful situations you can plan your reactions to, like household crises when something breaks or like my wife’s recent loss of income (~40% of the household income...) and am cool under that pressure, but the crisis that requires an immediate response without planning is one that I’m ill equipped for.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [travelmama] [ In reply to ]
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travelmama wrote:
re-fresh wrote:
I usually just get up and start wandering around in my underwear, unarmed. This winter I heard some noise outside at ~2 am and went to check things out with a flashlight for defense...luckily for me it was just a large buck eating my cedar hedges (f--king urban deer!). I've been meaning to put a large knife or something in my nightstand but haven't gotten around to it. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe today's the day.

Forget the knives and hide a hammer. I keep a hammer behind my mattress in the event that some asshole tries to creep through my bedroom window. Smashing hands and fingers is more painful than cuts.

Perhaps. But it's pretty easy to take the hammer away from a person who is physically outmatched. My wife, who is easily in the top 10% of females when it comes to strength, wouldn't get more than one swing with the hammer before I had it out of her hand if so inclined. She's a beast, I'm nothing special, and I'm still dramatically stronger than she is.

I think it's somewhat tragic that women are the ones who seem most opposed to firearms when they are the ones who have the most potential benefit from owning/using them...

To answer OP. I grab my CCW pistol from the biometric safe and go take a look around.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I would be extremely pissed off that my alarm did not go off. I set it to the "STAY" setting every night when I go to bed and it's loud AF.

clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [travelmama] [ In reply to ]
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A 28 inch baseball bat would work pretty well.

I keep one of those handy too.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [travelmama] [ In reply to ]
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travelmama wrote:
BCtriguy1 wrote:
When we moved in to our house, it had an unfinished basement, a basement door, and a door to the garage which didn't lock. Within the first week or so we were awaken by a very, very loud sound of a door slamming shut right under our bedroom.

I grabbed a knife, locked the door from upstairs to the basement, and quietly ran around to the basement door from the yard. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to trap the Intruders in the basement rather then come down the obvious way (stairs) and be an easy target. It was also strange being so new to the house I felt no sense of home field advantage, knowing where corners and the right angles to conceal oneself are, where the squeaky floor boards are, etc.

Anyways, turned out the storm door to the basement didn't shut well and the wind just opened and slammed it shut, and the sound reverberated really strongly in the empty basement.

Our house is old, and now that we've been here a while I know every sound in the place. Every door squeaks, there are squeaky floors everywhere, and an intruder wouldn't make it 2 feet in any direction without me knowing exactly where they are!
Reads like a scene from a wannabe horror flick.

It kind of felt like one. But, I remember feeling more angry then scared. Probably a mix of being pissed off for being woken up and startled, and "oh hell no you're not getting in here without a fight" type anger. I have no clue what actually would have transpired had there been someone in the basement with me between them and the only exit, seeing as I had locked the door to upstairs (not that they would have known that immediately).

Long Chile was a silly place.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [travelmama] [ In reply to ]
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Google tactical tomahawk.

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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Grab Glock 22 and tactical flashlight in the nightstand.

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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I sleep through it, always do. My dog will wake everybody in the house except me. Eventually, I'll get up and calm everyone down (the intruder will have fled).
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [oldandslow] [ In reply to ]
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I like the bit where zero replies have said "I'd call the cops"...

Murica: Shoot first and ask questions later.
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Re: Thought exercise, home break in... [DavHamm] [ In reply to ]
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DavHamm wrote:
So your sleeping, hear a strange noise in the house, what do you do..

I can recall once or twice encountering this, and getting up and slowly walking around the house, once I might have made my way to the kitchen to get a knife, but overall don't think I had a plan, other than scare them off, or make noise and get family out of house. So I wondered do people with guns in the house, grab them before checking out the noise? Then are you stealthy going around corners and sweeping each room?

Just wondering,


Absolutely! I have a plan.

I have alarms and cameras. But occasionally I forget to set the alarm. Recently, we heard something crash downstairs. Hair raising. I grabbed my gun. Turned on the red laser. Turned on the light (I have a switch next to my nightstand). Grabbed my phone and checked my security cameras. Nothing.

Then I eased to the door. Turned on lights upstairs. Swept the room with the gun/laser then checked the alarm. Damn it, it wasn't on. Turned on all the lights in the front (7) and back (10). Then eased down the stairs. Swept the rooms down there. Then went to open the door to the storage area (which also has a door to the outside) but it was blocked. Pushed it open. A piece of pegboard I had leaned against the wall had fallen. Still, I swept the room and checked the door. It was locked. I think the sound was the pegboard had fallen.

I checked every room, closet, nook and cranny in the house with the gun/laser. Nothing. So I set the alarm and returned to bed. My wife had remained in the bedroom with her cellphone ready to call 911 in the event things escalated.

Yes, I have a plan. Yes, I am comfortable executing it. Now I ask you, why would I not have a plan?

Knife? A knife? Reminds me of Sean Taylor. It didn't work for him. I don't rely on something like that. I am shocked so many apparently do.
Last edited by: Harbinger: Mar 13, 18 4:00
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