The Sunday Report: the Good, Bad, and the Ugly

OK, let's get the bad stuff out of the way first:

Security Breach at Hotel Gail

Christa is on the phone to Switzerland right now to try and recover through insurance some $2,000 worth of hardware (digital camera, mobile phone, CD player) and cash which was stolen today from the apartment, but it's not looking good at the moment... her insurance policy was recently renewed, and theft was left out...

The worst part about this situation is that around 2:15 this afternoon, someone snuck into the apartment, took Christa's bag from the closet about a metre and a half from the door, took her digital camera on the shelf further into the room, and her mobile phone off the table while she was asleep on the couch, less than two metres away!!!

At first, Christa wasn't thinking about her personal safety. She phoned me right after she realized it wasn't me who went into the apartment, which was only a moment before she realized her bag and stuff was gone. I phoned the police, the police told me that they would need to speak to Christa directly, so I gave them the home phone number and quickly reversed the call-forward from home to my mobile number. Then I phoned the building managers to inform them of a very recent theft and the possibility of a burglar still in the building, then I phoned FIDO to suspend the account on the mobile phone. At the time, I was in Surrey playing with the kids, so when Christa phoned me to tell me the news, I was horrified at the thought of a burglar stepping over Christa to steal her stuff... but at the time, the bed was put away, and she was napping on the sofa. But after she updated me tonight on how the home invasion had happened, I was still very creeped out to think someone could do that.

I feel at least partly responsible, since I left the apartment twice in the morning, but when I went back the second time to retrieve something I'd left behind, I'd left the door unlocked in my haste to catch transit.

Thing is, every single day when I'm working at home, I leave the door unlocked... I only lock the door when I leave, and most of the reason why I do that (the same goes for my car) is because my insurance coverage is contingent open forced entry. I don't think a deadbolt or a carlock would stop someone from breaking into my apartment or my car, but at least if that ever happened, I want to make sure the insurance people cough up because I followed their rules. When I'm at home, I don't anticipate burglary. Naivete or stupidity? I have been living here for five and a half years this way, and don't recall ever locking my door when I'm at home. (The neighbours made me knock on wood that my karma holds out.) The only history of theft I've had (in Canada) occurred outside of the apartment, or to people who've stayed here or visited, and none of the situations made me feel a heightened concern about my personal safety:

1) Eliza's bike got stolen from the bike rack out front (she only locked the front tire, though, not the frame, so they left the tire);
2) Chris Hale's old bike was stolen from the bike rack when Shaun, the guy from Florida, borrowed it;
3) Chris Hale's car was broken into while it was parked in my parking spot (California license plates were probably the main attraction);
4) My keys were stolen from Eliza's car, which was parked in her underground parkade (which has security cameras and two sets of gates);
5) Christa's bike was stolen from outside the Burrard Street Skytrain station, five days after she bought it;
6) While Christa was staying here last year, her homestay in New Westminster was burgled (they stole her cash).

None of the above, or anything I say to Christa about my feelings toward security in the building or the West End or Vancouver in general is going to get her stuff back, but at least she did not come to any harm. Other home invasions in Vancouver have had different outcomes which, if I'd elaborated, would only serve to freak her out...

When I arrived home this evening, I went to my neighbours' doors to inquire if they were around the floor this afternoon, because Christa heard an apartment door locking, and the elevator bells. When the burglar/s exited the apartment, the door was left wide open, so the perpetrator was in a big rush to leave. But did anyone see anything? I woke up my next-door neighbour, and spoke to the neighbours down the hall, most of whom are old-timers like me. One of the neighbours suggested we check the garbage bins downstairs, so we went down to inspect them and the ones outside. In the elevator, we spoke to another neighbour from another floor, and she informed us that with the recent change in building ownership, some policy changes had resulted in eviction notices...

What did this mean? She (the neighbour) seemed to think it was related to the recent elevator vandalism -- broken glass... a possible connection?? An inside job? The more we considered the details of the entry, the more convinced we were that it was an inside job.

Personally, I don't think it was anyone on this floor, but I think Christa is not so sure I should rule everyone out. I have my reasons why I think it's someone on another floor, but more on this later.

While we were dumpster diving outside (this part was just plain GROSS) to see if we could find any discarded stuff of Christa's, we met up with one of the the Concord Security guards who patrol the building, to see if he could help us. The guy turned out to be a good sight more sympathetic to us than the Vancouver Police, who did not even bother to come to the scene of the crime, only conducting the investigation by way of a phone call to Christa...

What's next?

I reviewed my insurance policy, and confirmed that forcible entry needed to be proven. According to the policy, they want visible marks. We definitely don't have that. We can't even get invisible marks -- no fingerprints were taken by police, and we've effectively smeared off anything worth checking now, since we've touched the doorknobs on both sides. So we may be checking out some pawn shops tomorrow, to see if we can find some joy there... we're not holding out much hope, though.

When I mentioned to my neighbours what had happened, everyone was similarly horrified that someone had the nerve to go into the apartment while Christa was there! It was after that point that she realized a number of other possible scenarios IF she had woken up while the burglar was burgling...

Let's not dwell too much on the WHAT IF, at this point, otherwise Christa will never sleep properly again...