So there I was, trying to drift off to sleep at 11pm last night. I was in that half-asleep-half-awake stage when I heard, as if in a dream, a sound that I thought was someone knocking at my door. Sometimes in that half-asleep stage I’ll get some auditory hallucinations…but these seemed rather real.
My first inclination was to ignore it, but then I figured I better go check it out. I pad in to the living room, buck naked, and glance at the security cameras. Sure enough, there’s some idiot standing on my porch.
Now, I learned a long time ago, and at great cost, that the best course of action when there is a stranger at your door, is to not open the door to ask what they want. Instead, I go up to the door and yell “What do you want?”
Back comes this meek and sorry voice saying “I just want talk to someone”. Are you freaking kidding me? This scraggly bearded hippie is either drunk, stoned, both, or otherwise not in their right mind.
So..definitely not opening the door. “No. Go away.” (‘Go away’ sounds less confrontational than ‘get lost’. So I go with that.)
He turns around and wanders into the night.
So… Back to bed for me? Well, that was the plan. Except my neighbors on both sides are women who live alone. :::sigh::: Pull on a pair of sweats and a hoodie, slip on my shoes, grab the MP5A2 and step outside to make sure he’s not freaking out the neighbors. No sign of him. Ok, duty fulfilled…time to go back to sleep.
This isn’t the first time some sort of weirdness like this has occurred. I think the reason is that my computer room is at the front of the house and since I leave the computer and monitors on all night, it gives the impression that someone is awake in the house. Thus, someone wanting to interact with a human, for whatever reason, is going to go to the house where the lights are on. I may need to start turning off the monitors at night since it seems to be the flame that draws the whacko moths.
Before anyone asks, no, this isnt a particularly dangerous town. At least, it didnt used to be. The two biggest ‘threats’ in this town are drunk college kids and crazy homeless people. Neither one is particularly better than the other, and both are tremendously annoying but its still calmer than NYC or LA.
Don’t know the size of your town but there was a time when the local LEOS used to do sweeps for thst type of thing.
No visible means of support. Night in jail and a ride in the daddy wagon to the town limits.
Same thing for the drunks. Usually Friday and Saturday nights after the bars closed.
But thanks to the idiots running the cities in this country pissing off one voter seems to be a very bad thing. So they just left them do what they want.
Thankfully I live in a small village. One bar. One resturant. It’s noisy this time of year because the local farmers are in the midst of harvest time.
03:30 am Phone rings. Can hear panicked next door single lady. FOOT, the bear is trying to eat Elmer. You guessed correct and I did consider wishing him bon-appetite before I racked my beside 12 and went for a stroll. Left before I got there.
I turn off the monitor, and sleep the computer. Keeps it dark, but always on. Good on you for warding your neighbors.
I know the town The Commander resides in… it’s one of the larger ones in Montana. I live about an hour due south of him and have to go to his stomping grounds if I need something from Costco, Winco, Lowe’s, etc.
Wife and I just moved outside of our town because our nice quiet little neighborhood has developed some big city problems in the past couple years. Nothing insurmountable… yet. So we had a chance to do something different and took it.
We now have five acres about five miles out of town. Close enough we didn’t have to completely start over with new docs, friends, etc. but far enough out of town to offer some additional security as well as peace and quiet.
I don’t miss hearing the cars with loud exhausts, blacked out windows and booming stereos roaming around at 2am…
This. Learning from the readership everyday. Location, location, location as a realtor’s mantra is a thing as well for the prudent preppers too! Leaving blue hives or sketchy zip codes helps reduce blood pressure and provides healthy environment conditions as well. Stay relaxed and stay frosty.
And.. mention the incident there where a Trans mtf that killed >her< neighbor, that was a
good one. It is shit everywhere bro, adapt as we are all behind enemy lines now. When you are 10-7 and in your bunk, kill all life signs internally, and as well do not emit Intel crumbs outwards to observers that they can use nefariously or construct larger data sets with, cause ya left some lights on and drapery open. Good actions plan. I would posit that a courtesy call in to your police dispatch may (or not, everyone's choice) have been prudent as well. Give them a rundown (who what when where etc cop data points like Adam 12) so they can roll on it if available. The suspects supposed departing may not have been the end contact for you, or neighbors so put the call out anyway, it documents your actions, so if that contact evolves into a shooting scenario you did some right steps, and let them cops dig into it and deal with it. You do have one of them pretty and easy to install home depot STEEL security screen doors installed at that entry point funnel called a front door? Asking for the readership. Stay frosty, really.
Never call police,they only make anything worse and are a danger to everyone. ACORN!
A couple of weeks ago, I placed very low energy night lights in every room in my house. The missus said, “Don’t you think it will show someone looking in where you are?” I responded, “I am not John Wick. No one will be coming to assassinate me in my home. It’s more important for me to be able to see them if they get inside.”
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe if S actually does HTF, I will be at risk from someone who has decided to shoot me from outside my house and take my possessions. If that becomes a serious possibility, I will adjust. Until then, I expect that I will continue to use low illumination inside.
FYI, bizarrely, as I was writing this, a stranger came to my door. I observed him through the window and saw that, fortunately, he was holding a bouquet of flowers for the missus. No problem. (Yeah, yeah. I’ve seen those Mafia movies, too. 🙂 )
Yeah, I use those little 4 watt plug in, switchable not photo eye, incandescent not l.e.d., types as well. I place a foam cup over it to diffuse and subdue the light more so. Safety usage for moving about the house without needing to switch on lights. I do caution folks with the blinds open, lights on at night practice as it really blasts illuminates your house interior and activity outwards like a projection screen level of obviousness to any observers outside. The opsec and tactics fails are not worth the risk by not following through with a light (and noise as well) discipline regimen. Times are spicy don’t leave yourselves open.
Ditto. Been doing that for years. Keeps me from wrecking a toe or stepping on something. And as far as the protective pieces are concerned. They are close to hand in every room. As I have stated before. I walk out the door at night. It’s a 12 GA tactical shotgun I will be wielding. Higher hit probability. And less chance of hitting a neighbor then using a rifle.
If this happened to me and I responded the same, I would be thinking that maybe I was being tested by a higher authority. Maybe he just needed some human contact to help him through a tough spot in life. Hopefully he didn’t wander off and swallow some lead. He could have had I’ll intent… maybe not.
Perhaps he was at the end of his rope and needed some sort of human connection to keep him from laying his head on the railroad track and waiting for the Double-E. But there are better, less disturbing, ways to ask for help. Unfortunately, approaches like that push my frame of mind away from ‘compassion’ to ‘preservation’ and I’m less likely t be responsive to whatever his problems are.
Correct. Assume your standard tactics posture, no matter the sappy story or scenario playing out. Criminals will use all manner of ruse and tricks, crying girls etc, in a ploy to get you or normies to let their guard down. Hold your place and don’t put yourself out or expose to risks, seen all of those zombie shows, right? Call the POLICE, let them deal with it, you paid for their customer service, demand it. Cover you legal self as well, think out all those tripwires to avoid in spicy confrontations too, very important as well.
“Criminals will use all manner of ruse and tricks, crying girls etc, in a ploy to get you or normies to let their guard down.”
After 11 years of marriage and 10 years of dating before that, my wife reacts to any knock on an exterior door by going first to the bedroom to retrieve her revolver. Next, she goes to a side window that lets her see the front porch. Finally, if the visitor appears legit, she unlocks the front door with her left hand while holding the revolver at her side, concealed by the door frame.
What we’re working on now are all the considerations around how to react if a woman or a little kid is banging on the door, screaming and crying, “He’s after me! Please, please let me in!” I really don’t know how to train/test that response without getting a strange woman or kid involved and that could get tricky real fast. If you have ideas, please post here.
The other thing we’re working on is how to stand at the SIDE of the front door to should at the “visitor,” NOT directly behind it. I need to take my wife to an outdoor range where I can graphically show her how much wood a typical pistol round can penetrate. And of course if the “intruder” is a local LEO or from the ATF, they’ll have at least one 12 gauge, which makes an impressive demonstration at the range.
If any local indoor range offered a class to at least introduce folks to these concepts, I’d pay for it in a heartbeat.
IMHO, blackout courtains are an essential security feature in every house.
My light routine is a bit counterintuitive: In the dark hours, I generally keep the lights out, or the windows carefully blacked out, when I’m IN the house. On the other hand, I leave the courtains a bit open, and a couple of lamps on to let some light filter outside, when I’m OUT.
That said, I could never become accustomed to the fact that in the USA a stranger could walk from the street to the front door of most houses, even single detatched houses, without passing through some sort of barrier.
Here in Italy, and in most of Europe, most suburban single houses and many townhouses have fenced front yards. A visitor coming to my house has to ring a doorbell at the fence’s gate and be buzzed in. If I hear an unexpected knock on my front door, I’m istantly aware that the visitor is a traspasser with bad intentions, because he must have got over the fence or forced the gate open.
If such situation were to happen, I plan to ask “who is this” loudly from behind an internal wall a few yards away from the front door, while holding a Glock… Unfortunately there’s no Castle Law in my country.
Thanks, Daniele
+1 on the blackout curtains. They make some rather nice ones these days.
And there may come a day when they are handy.
Blackout curtains are good. Blackout shutters (wind/violence protection, energy efficiency enhancement, light control) are better. When/if we can afford these, I want them. https://rolladenlv.com/
And yes, as well, on the insanity of so many homes having no controlled entryway but merely a front door that opens directly into the living space. At the very minimum, a home ought to have an enclosed vestibule (for both privacy and security) between the outside and the living quarters.
We currently have neither, partly due to finances and partly because we now live in the middle of the forest where no one can even see our front door. I put up a few cheap room darkening curtains because we don’t like getting up with the dawn, and the deer kept poking their heads up to the windows to let me know they wanted food.
“Blackout curtains are good. Blackout shutters (wind/violence protection, energy efficiency enhancement, light control) are better. When/if we can afford these, I want them. https://rolladenlv.com/”
That’s another thing I fail to undertand in Anglosaxon housing: here in my country every house, even the poorer ones, have windows equipped with storm/blackout shutters, either the wooden panels that swing close in place or the ones that rolls up and down like those in the link you provided.
That’s one of the reason for which residential real estate is comparatively much more expensive in Europe than in the USA. The vast majority of our houses are made from actual bricks and mortar and have very solid windows.
These are artifacts of millennium of war and crime. The US has not experienced a true invasion in 200+ years(except for last4) and until the last decade crime was rare except notorious areas. There are still areas where does don’t get locked and keys left in cars due to high trust/low crime
I spent 27 months in Vicenza courtesy of Uncle Sam, I always thought the residential access intercom and lock was a good idea. Ciao!
The downside is that European houses are relatively more expensive then American ones, in part bacause of this very features, see my reply above.
Arrivederci.
Wouldn’t it have been more fun, to grab the MP and a jar of vasaline, stay full monty and go open the door and say Hi, your just the guy I was looking for.
I’m sure the word would get around to stay the fuck away from that guys house.
Hi!
Yours was a VERY SoCo response!
Ceejay
Everyone knows the proper response is combat boots, M4 and a light coat of CLP.
“…a light coat of CLP”.
On the gun, right?
Everything needs,cleaning, lubrication and protection
the dogs are a giant PITA but earn their keep when it comes time to release the hounds, I follow up behind them with the Ithaca 37. Buck, slug, buck, repeat.
This poor cop was doing the right thing by trying to deescalate the situation and assist the lady. Got slashed in the face, could have been his jugular. No good deed goes unpunished.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JggL4jJeFfg
About 50 years ago I was a student in the other big college town to CZ’s east. It was a Friday night, late, cold and snowy. I was in my basement apartment that was half underground, so that my living room windows were at ground level. There was a car doing do-nuts in the snow just outside. So I called the Bozo-town cops and said there was a drunk driver outside my place. The response was “if we had to arrest every drunk driver on a Friday night, half the town would be in jail.”
“So I called the Bozo-town cops . . . . .” – reminds me of something a friend said years ago regarding advice to call the cops when there’s a potential intruder and such in \ near your domicile – “at 3 AM, in my house, I AM THE COPS”
You need a Pepper Spray Doorbell
They make those? Hmmm. Maybe Santa could help me out.
Brother, this is purely rhetorical, but…
you know they sell blackout draperies in all sizes even at freaking WallyWorld, right…?
I have two large front windows.
They have precut sheets of 1/4″ styrofoam, cut to fit and stay put by pressure at the frame edges, with three coats of black latex paint on both sides. And lift-up flaps over view slots to see outside. They work day or night, when I want no one seeing in, nor any light getting out.
I’ve checked them at all hours of the day and night, and no one sees in, and zero light escapes, anytime I pop them in place. Like when I’m asleep.
Consider it another way to “be somewhere else”, when someone’s wondering if you’re right there.
Just saying.
And kudos for the suggestion from the Anon poster: the MacGyver in me says there has to be a simple way to rig a short tube through the wall, leaving the business end aimed at the front door vicinity, to make yourself an OC door answering device, with the canister mounted inside the domicile. Ideally, the item in question being one of those largish cans of bear spray.
In case “Go Away!” doesn’t evoke the desired response, and shooting through the door with the MP5 is too much escalation.
Make imperative tense commands actually imperative.
We are out in sticks, no neighbors, dirt road. No lights on in our house at night, curtains closed, doors locked. You never know what might wander in. But from any distance, it appears to be nothing down here at all. We don’t any curious wanderers to stumble in.
“Buck naked”… way too many jokes so let’s not go there, but from a preparedness point of view, is naked sleeping a good way to go?
I sleep in underwear. My pants for the next day, already loaded with knife, leatherman, keys, flashlight, etc, etc, are on the floor next to the bed. Pair of boots that are easy to get on but snug in the foot are by the pants, and shirt/jacket on the chair at the end on the bed.
For a strange noise the boots go on, as I’d rather be “buck naked” than barefoot. That takes a couple of seconds. If it’s a known situation, and I have a bit more time, I can be fully dressed in half a minute.
At that point I’m ready for anything, whether it’s a bump in the night or an emergency call from my elderly parents down the street.
Having a firearm that is easy to get to by the bed is great, but what about other stuff? I’ve had two “boots and gun” incidents in about 20 years, but I’ve had 7 medical emergency with my parents in the past 2 years.
I normally keep a hooded sweatshirt, a pair of sweatpants, and a pair of slip on shoes in the corner with my MP5 so i can respond quickly to things if needed. In this instance, I just didnt feel like getting dressed….you wake me up at 11pm, you get the free show.
As for sleeping naked…holy crap, man…I gotta wear clothes all day long why would anyone wear them at night in bed?
CZ, my comment from a couple days ago never got published and I can’t figure out why. Nothing controversial at all. It was fairly long, so is there some kind of limit on the length of comments? Just wondering. This is the first time for any of my Comments here to just vanish.
Rarely, some comments get caught in the spam filter. I’ll go look later and if I see it there I’ll move it.
All these replies and only one mention of dogs. My fur missile early warning system is so automatic, I am only awakened when he deploys. He is not a little guy and has a deep, rumbling, and LOUD bark. A very effective deterrent. And if an intruder doesn’t get the hint, I have been given enough time to arm and get slippers on. I too am a naked sleeper. How embarrassing would it be to get capped by a naked old guy?
MOST people get a dog, or two, and then assume they are safe from external trouble. The BIG problem with this is that NONE of those dogs are trained to respond in a useful manner. All they normally do is annoy their neighbors, who quickly learn that a barking dog means nothing bad is happening, until it attacks a neighbors visitor. And then the dog owner discovers that homeowners insurance DOESN’T COVER DOG ATTACKS! Anyone care to guess how much that can cost? Selling your $2M McMansion may not cover all the expenses.
A pox on urban dog owners. They tend to be anti-gun idiots in general.
You sound like a dog hating HOA-type complainer. Find another place to project, Karen.
He sounds like someone speaking from experience.
Disregard the message at your own risk.
I’m told she spent a week in hospital for multiple surgeries to put her back together.
Those houses were $2m new, with inflation probably more now.
She called ME, because her husband’s phone wasn’t connecting. She couldn’t talk, so the friend had to explain the problem. Had to instruct her to call 911 for a medical response! I’ve seen the sweatsuit she was wearing, and it looks like it was used to soak up a gallon of old motor oil.
I don’t think I have EVER encountered a large pet dog that was professionally trained, here in CA. Most are Asians, and not pro gun, which is why they get a big dog or two. People think they are saving money by not getting the training.
The city or county took the dog and killed it.
Amen. Our dog only barks when someone approaches the door. She was trained by us. Her job is not attack unless someone approaches us directly. She will stay between intruder or us. She’s even run off a. Dry large male coyote. Good dogs are hard to find. Btw she is not seduced by food. She is only motivated to keep anything away that breech her perimeter. We feel very lucky
I have ring cameras with motion detection, which I most always check, most the time it’s a stray cat, squirrel or Amazon delivery. The one time I didn’t check it in the middle of the night, it was a car prowler, they didn’t get anything, but I was upset I didn’t check it, thinking it was the stray cat wandering around.