Just knock next time!

[bhskittykatt]

The following is what my friend posted on FaceBook:

"Just wanted share a note about my evening yesterday. I got home from classes and ate some dinner while watching a couple of tv shows I recorded on the DVR. It was a pretty blah, normal afternoon and evening. The dogs had all settled down next to me on the sofa. They all sighed in contentment curled up all cozy next to me. Then all of a sudden, some chick burst through the front door! We both froze for a few seconds just looking at each other. By this time the dogs were sounding the intruder alarm, finally realizing we didn't know this person. For half a second I thought she was part of my imagination. Finally, she started to talk: "Oh, I'm sorry." I got up from my seat to grab two of the dogs. Through the dogs barking I could hear her say something about a person named Sophia. I think she said something like; "Does Sophia live here?" or "Doesn't Sophia live here?" All I could manage to say to the girl was, "No." Then, as she sheepishly started to leave; I think she apologized again. I stood up and made sure the door was closed but not before I peeked out to see she was gone. I couldn't see a car; so I don't know if she even drove up. She was so silent coming up to the front door that the dogs didn't hear her footsteps and she didn't even bloody knock before entering someone's house!!! Normally, I do lock the doorknob at least; but today I forgot. Of all the days I forget to lock the door, which have been a few times, some college-age person comes silently up and lets herself in. Needless to say, it was weird enough that I am still thinking about it the next day and writing about it on FB."

[Syriilord]

Oddly enough, I've had something similar happen before. It was during my college years, and I was sharing a house with a group of other people. Late one night, a random girl (not sure if she was visiting a resident or if it was during one of the frequent "study groups" my housemates had) opened the door to my room while I was asleep and turned on the lights, just long enough to realise that she was in the wrong place.
Now while you might think that this is an easy mistake to make, let me point out three things she would have had to pass to get to my room: 1) The front door of the house; 2) The downstairs bathroom (which had the door left open as we always did to indicate it was unoccupied, thus allowing a clear view of the fact that it was a bathroom); 3) The back door to the house. Now, both outside doors are PVC with frosted glass, distinctly different from the all wood-like substance of the internal doors and my room is so out-of-the-way, that the only way to find it is to be specifically looking for it.
Somehow, despite my always sleeping like a hibernating rock in a sensory deprivation tank, her small intrusion and light-switching act woke me, amazingly already sitting up in the bed. In my hazy, half-asleep mind, I was convinced my house-mates were pulling some kind of childish drunken prank on me and I was pissed as hell (which is strange enough for me). Next I know, I'm at the door trying to open it and meeting some resistance. I forcibly wrench the door open to find this girl huddled on the floor literally shaking in fear as she looked straight up at me. The rest of that event is hazy between my realising she'd somehow made a mistake and waking up the next morning.

Oddly enough, I never saw her again

[tollbaby]

Happened to us in college. Some drunk guy made it through our front door (which my roomie had forgotten to lock when he got home), up our front stairs and walked into our livingroom where we were enjoying a movie before we realized he was there. He looks at us and starts yelling that we're in his house... I just raised one eyebrow and said, "Now what's more likely? That we broke into your house, changed all your furniture around and stayed to watch tv, or that you walked into the wrong house after a few pops?"

He scratched his head, said, "Are you SURE this isn't my house?" errr... pretty sure, yep. He walked right back out and we never saw him again. LOL

[Raveni]

I never locked my dorm room door while I was home for this very reason. You'd be surprised how often this happens.

[chainedbarista]

i keep mine locked; we've had too many random weirdos skulking around for that. one actually claimed to be my 'soon to be ex,' who was, in reality, stationed overseas at the time.

mmm, ok; you're my ex, but you've changed race. how did that happen, again?

[GiggityGiggityGoo]

Would have been hilarious if the dogs lunged and attacked her

[Frantic Freddie]

The last time some lady acted funny at my house (she'd driven up,knocked & then started looking through the windows) she got a quick introduction to Messrs. Smith & Wesson.

"What the fuck are you doing?!?"

"I'm looking for my dog,I thought I'd ask if you'd seen him"

"By lookin' in my fuckin' windows?!? Lady,that's a good way to get shot around here"

Later I found out she kept losin' the dog & would wander around randomly asking people if they'd seen it.Apparently she was also batshit crazy.

[bainsidhe]

My first year here, the landlord let himself into my apartment to check the radiators. Now the law says he's supposed to give notice, but since he knocked and nobody answered, he assumed it was okay. It was Black Friday and I hadn't slept for 27 hours. I was dead to the world, but some stranger walking into my bedroom sure as hell woke me up. Not cool. I jolted awake and screamed in surprise, not to mention I was embarrassed as hell that I...don't wear many layers while sleeping. *cough*.

[MadMike]

I almost did something like that once at college. The dorm building was actually two units each with their own street address and set of apartment numbers, even though they were connected and shared a common basement/lounge area.

The first night there, I was hanging out with some guys in the lounge, and we met up with some girls. We ended up going back to their place to hang out. Their place was on the other side of the building, which I didn't notice, or maybe I forgot by the time I left.

After I was done hanging out with them, I went upstairs to apartment 8 (my apartment number), tried to open the door, only to find my key didn't work. Thankfully I realized I was at apartment 8 in the other half of the building before I started ringing the doorbell and made an ass of myself.

[blas]

I keep my door locked all the time, even if I'm home and just sitting around on the couch.

[Shalom]

I keep my door locked all the time, even if I'm home and just sitting around on the couch.

So do I. I grew up in Brooklyn. Nobody leaves their doors unlocked, and most have more than one lock. And that's even in the "good" neighborhoods.

[Kogarashi]

This happened a lot at the university I went to, thankfully not to my apartment, but to several others. The people at that university were waaaaaaay too trusting, leaving dorm rooms, apartments, offices, cars, lockers, etc. unlocked and backpacks and other valuables unattended on tables in the library or student union while stepping around the corner for something.

What was happening, according to various articles in the paper and stories heard from other students, was that some random guy or guys (potentially drifters or homeless) would wander into apartment buildings around campus, through the bedrooms and everything, and claim they were looking for So-and-So when confronted by the residents. They'd always wander back out when told that person didn't live there, but seriously, wandering into the bedrooms? Highly suspect.

One of the many reasons my like-a-sister roommate and I tried to convince our other two roommates that it was a good idea to lock our doors all the time, even when we were home.

In Hubby's and my current apartment, thankfully, there's an outer door that automatically locks, followed by the inner door to the apartment proper that also locks and has both a deadbolt and a chain. Yes, we're on the edge of the good neighborhoods, but we're also two blocks away from this city's version of a ghetto.

[morgana]

I started keeping my doors locked a LOOOOOONG time ago.

My house was on a cul-de-sac in a good neighborhood in a small Midwestern town. No reason to lock my doors, right? At least not until I was ready to retire for the night. Right?

Until the evening I headed from the sewing room into the kitchen for a snack, and found a small blond boy peeing in my bathroom. A small blond boy I didn't know . . .

At least it wasn't a big blond boy with a knife, but I lock my doors now.

[LillFilly]

Wow; people just walking into someone's house are lucky not to get pepper sprayed...or worse!

There was something on the news a while back about how a lot of burglaries happen while you're at home, because that's the time the door is likely to be unlocked. You're all in the dining room having supper, someone can creep in, grab a cell phone and purse, and be out before you know it. Even had interviews with former burglars about how they would use a wire and hook your purse/keys to them through the mail flap of the door make a copy of your key, and put it back!

I was doing dishes one day and saw a guy walk through my side gate and into my backyard. I barged out the back door and asked him what he was doing. He seemed pretty frantic and said he was my neighbor to the rear (we'd only been there a few months) and he was looking for his cat who was missing, and he used to come into the yard all the time with the previous neighbor's permission. I told him oh, ok, it was ok with me if he came into the yard to look for his cat, but that he should ask first from now on.

[Jetfire]

The old Discovery show "It takes a thief" had one episode where they broke into the target's house while they were still in it. He made out with a huge pile of stuff while the home owner was oblivious. Then when they had the homeowner there for when the break in was supposed to take place, they just played the tape of the earlier break in, and broke the news to her at that point. It was very enlightening.

Since I live alone, I've always made sure to keep my doors locked whether I'm home or not.