Has anyone had a home intruder?

Had some raccoons break through a window in the living room a few years back (and caught bears trying to do same--in broad daylight!) when I was trying sleep (see the other thread here on Moe's).

Other than that, no. The ranch was hit 10 years ago several months after closing down for the winter. They stole the couch from the cabin, a cushy-chair, even the damn woodstove!! So I'm sure they were outfitting themselves for their own place. I always remove stuff like saddles and tools for the winter. Now we just remove the cushions for the couch and chair. Nobody wants those without cushions!

When I was in college, a friend's wife was home alone one night (her husband worked graveyard). She was awakened by a noise in the middle of the night and went to the kitchen because she thought her husband had come home and was getting something to eat. A high school kid had broken in because he thought no one was home. When she startled him, he panicked, grabbed a cast iron frying pan and beat her half to death with it. She was never the same again. Especially sad, because she had been an extremely pleasant, very bright young lady. In addition to being completely traumatized emotionally by the incident, she suffered permanent brain damage.

Since the wife and I and the dogs all sleep in the master bedroom, I subscribe to the "arm yourself, stay put and call 911" school of thought. In that situation, anyone coming through the bedroom door uninvited will be shot.

BTW, I think that in that scenario, your 911 call should make a point of stating to the dispatcher that the homeowner has armed himself but will stay in the one bedroom with all other legitimate occupants of the home until the police have arrived and clearly identified themselves as such.

My previous home was burglarized, but the closest I've ever come to a confrontation was just after I moved into my present house. Someone tried getting in through my bedroom window while I slept. I didn't even realize it until the next morning, when I found the window screen removed and set aside, with some smudging where they tried to move the sliding glass. I had a wooden dowel in the track, so they were unsuccessful.

Unlike home invaders, burglars generally go out of the their way to avoid occupied homes: enhanced sentencing, armed residents, witnesses. I'll never know what my "welcome wagon burglar" had in mind.

when we moved to the farm, we could not see any other houses around us. we were burgled shortly after we moved there. they got a couple of pistols and a scanner. The police called the guy BIG FOOT because they said he would knock on the front door and if noone answered, he'd kick it in. surely, there was a HUGE bootprint on the door. the doorjamb gave, not the lock. i fixed that by having a 1/4" steel plate cut and holes matched for the deadbolt to go in and attached that to the studs with a half dozen huge screws. the new door was solid wood.

i had one incident where i was mowing the yard and a crew cab truck came up the lane. it was full of guys. they all got out and walked towards me and i stopped the mower. they asked to used the phone... i would not let them in the house but went in and brought out the portable (you realize by now this was before cells, right?) when i was in the house, i told my wife to arm herself and stand guard. she got out the 12 gauge and stood just inside the door.

there were several vehicles in the drive, so the guys never really knew who or how many there were in the house... they kept looking back to the house kinda nervous like... but went on.

two other times i've had people knock at the door in the wee hours wanting things. i don't open the door, i offer to call someone for them even a taxi, but i won't open the door. one funny story this was just a few months ago...

a guy knocked on the door about 3 AM and said he needed gas to get his wife to the doctor and wanted to use my phone to call his brother. ALARM BELLS went off in my head because who doesn't have a cell phone these days? they give them away! i truly didn't have any fuel... so i offered to call his brother for him and did. his brother just laughed and said he wasn't going to. i offered to call someone else or 911 for an ambulance. he kept telling me to let him in, that he wouldn't hurt me... i told him i knew he wasn't going to hurt me because i was holding a 12 gauge.

he sort of coughed a little and left...

another time a fellow knocked on the door in the wee hours during a storm. he claimed he wanted in... i wasn't going to, noway! i told him to go over to the tractor shed and i'd call the cops to pick him up and get him out of the storm. he kept saying he couldn't hear me. i was hollering thru the door. i could hear him plainly. the went on for several minutes and i finally held a 357 up in the window and told him to get the H*** out... suddenly he heard me for he said... I'LL GO THE THE TRACTOR SHED!

i wonder who was standing on the side out of sight?

i've watched too many movies. i don't trust anyone anymore...

Back in the mid 1970s, my parents bought a very large old house in the country that had been empty for several months.  It had squeaky hardwood floors throughout. We were renovating it one room at a time prior to moving in.
After getting several rooms completed and starting to bring in possessions, my father and I started sleeping there, both bunked in a front room. I was about 16.
Shortly after both of us turned in one night, someone kicked in the side door and went up the creaky stairs to the second floor. We could hear them walking around upstairs. We already had phone service hooked up so a call was made to the state police, who dispatch said was about 20 minutes away.
We were both armed, so while waiting for police to arrive, he covered the doorway leading to the floor we were on. Through a side window, I watched the door that was entered to see if the person exited.
All the while, we continued hearing distinct footsteps on the floor above us.
Just one state trooper arrived, so we sort of acted like his backup while he searched the top floor, but no one was found.
We figured whoever it was must have climbed out onto the roof and jumped to the ground to make his escape.
I'm not sure what would have happened if either of us was confronted by the person before police got there. My dad was a World War II vet so I can only imagine it would have not been good for the intruder. Positioned where I was, my role was really only to see if he left.
It made for a pretty harrowing night.
My folks lived there about 15 years and never had another problem.

Never a home intruder, but have been burgled. Only the once, and it was 40 odd years ago. It leaves a horrible feeling of violation, and seemed quite traumatic at the time.

In Basic Training, back in 1968, my platoon was sent to Camp Roberts in sun scorched Central California for two weeks. Our assigned drill instructors were replaced by some lazy National Guard instructors. (We were never told why).
Some of the recruits, bored out of their skulls, piled up footlockers in one of the barracks,  to get into an attic entryway. There, they found  a cache of stolen wallets dating back to the 1940's.

Never had a home intruder. Actually never really experienced any sort of crime in 24 years in east TN (plus 1.5 overseas) then moved to SoCal for med school and in 4 years had 3 car stereos stolen, car vandalized once, car broken into two other times, and eventually stolen (police found it the next day) as well as a bike stolen and some other stuff I'm probably forgetting. I was pretty over it by the end and made a beeline back home lol.

I came home once to find more than 1/2 my possesions gone. I was walking around in a daze and the phone rang.
It was my soon to be divorced wife saying "no you weren't burglarized, I just took what I thought would be my share of things"
She left the big heavy 27" tv, VCR and a few other electonic items, all of which broke within 6 months.

there could have been an instance once as I was falling asleep on the couch next to the window around 3AM and heard the distinctive sound of my neighbor's gate being opened. I looked out and saw 3 guys who immeditely saw me and split.

No home invasion, but...While living in a rural area in Ohio, had a detached garage that was burglarized. Took all my hand tools and the battery from my lawn tractor.

Around 1989 in AZ, house suffered a door kick burglary while I was at work. Crook got some jewelry and a VCR.

Lastly, also in Phoenix metro, wife’s car was broken into while shopping at a Walmart. Broad daylight too. They made off with some CDs and the removable face of an aftermarket stereo.

Thieves suck.

We've never experienced that -- fortunately -- but we are urban dwellers, have no interest in living in any remote location. We like city life with people around

Naw...they just have holes in the bottles....

Shortly after we were married, through a comedy of errors, we ended up in a ground floor apartment in a triple-decker in downtown Brockton, which is the undisputed anal valve of Massachusetts. I woke up one night to what sounded like squirrels in the walls. I sat up to try to locate the sound and could see someone prying at one of the windows in the room across from the bedroom. The perp was backlit by the streetlight outside so there was no doubt it was a person and not a squirrel. I had a four D cell Maglite on the bedside table so I grabbed that and I tiptoed over to the window. I had all the windows pinned so they could only open about six inches so I knew he wasn't getting in -- when I got right next to the window I turned the flashlight on and pointed right in his face. He was so startled that he fell off the milk crate he was standing on, dropped his tools and screwed.

I called the cops and went outside to wait for them -- they never showed up. The next morning I went out to the window and picked up the flatbar he dropped. I still have it.

A couple months later at the same apartment we left for work one morning. At the end of the street I realized I forgot something and we turned around. I walked into the vestibule and saw someone kneeling in front of our door. He jumped up and I recognized him as a kid that lived on the third floor -- maybe twelve or thirteen. He was cornered and had nowhere to run. He had a puny screwdriver in his hand. I held out mine and he turned it over to me. We had a short negotiation and we agreed that I wouldn't kick his ass unless I saw him anywhere near the apartment again. Two days later his mom knocks on my door. She says -- My son is afraid you're going to kick his ass. I said - Yeah, I may have mentioned that, and told her the story. She called his name -- which I can't remember, and he slowly came down from the landing above where she had evidently told him to wait. She asked him if that's what happened and he nodded. She told him to say he was sorry and I told her he'd already done that. She wanted him to say it again. The boy and I shook hands and that was the end of it.

Yeah -- that was a simpler and better time -- and of course I would never have smacked a kid -- even then. We moved out of that craphole a month or two later so I have know way of knowing what became of the kid, but I like to think that his strong mother would be able to keep him on an honest path.