Picking Food Up Off The Floor

Why You Should Always Have A Clean House…

…You might have 3 policemen and a CSI taking photos and fingerprints inside of it!

“I’m sorry, do you have to show the judge those photos of my bedroom?”

You are probably wondering what on earth I’m talking about and honestly I’m still feeling a little off kilter as I write and wanting to type faster than my brain is working. So here’s the story to the best of my ability.

Thursday night Bran had a rough night of sleep with molars cutting and a cold. So around 6am when I heard someone in my bedroom I told Bran to go back to bed. Then my brain turned on and I remembered that there’s a gate over their door and there was no way he could be in my room. Mike says the next thing he remembers is me shouting, “Who are you and why are you in my house!”. Upon realizing that is was not, in fact, Brandon, I put on my glasses and found a man, not 5 feet from me, pilfering through an empty suitcase in my bedroom! The first thought that went through my mind was, “what if he won’t leave?” Mike jumped over the bed and between the 2 of us we chased him down the stairs to the front door. (If you’re not familiar with Edmonton, 6am in June is bright daylight. So this was not a middle of the night break in, this was ‘Hi, I’m breaking into your house in the middle of the day with you in it.’) As we got to the door we both noticed that he had our laptops and power cables. We both shouted for him to drop them. He said he had a knife and would use it if we came any closer (we never saw one and his other hand was on the door), but it didn’t seem to be the wisest thing to push it. So when he ran out the door, Mike ran for the phone to call 911. I ran to the sidewalk to see which way he went and we were able to tell the police the direction he fled and what he was wearing/looked like.

While we were waiting for the police to come (which was all of about 5 minutes), we searched the house to see if we could figure out where he came in. All the doors and windows on the first floor were locked and I knew for certain I had locked the front door when we went to bed. The police did a search of the house and discovered that he had come in through a window in the basement which is underneath our deck! It also has bars on it, which he managed to bend until it broke (even stranger, we can’t actually find the bars he broke through, they are no where to be found!). He also left muddy footprints all over my carpets which is I am really annoyed about! The police brought a dog which was able to pick up the guy’s scent and found him a few blocks away, our laptops had been dumped in the mud. We got them back and they work just as well as they did before. Apparently ours wasn’t his only break in that morning so it seems they have a good case, plus they’re waiting to get back the info on the fingerprints they lifted from the window he came in through. Hopefully that will give them an open and shut case. They’re telling us it may be 6 months to 2 years before it goes to trial and we’ll have to testify.

It wasn’t until later in the day that the whole episode really started to filter through. Before that I was too busy being embarrassed about the state of my house (who expects to have police officers walking through your house and taking pictures?) and showing the boys the police cars, and keeping them out of the CSI guy’s dusting powder! They thought he was the coolest thing. They kept trying to open his kit and when they weren’t allowed to do that, they tried to carry it around the house for him.

I was so impressed by the quality of the Edmonton Police Department. They arrived quickly, they got the dogs out and apprehended the suspect within 20 minutes. They were so nice to us and patient with the boys, and the CSI guy came within an hour and half (they told us it could be any time that day) and actually seemed to know what he was doing and found some prints (unlike CSI’s in other cities that I’ve heard about… wink, wink… Holly and Jeffery). I still have my moments of freaking out and it’s hard to remember everything that happened since I was woken out of sleep, which really kind of bothers me. But, we are super thankful that everyone is okay, and it helps that in the end we got everything back.

Now, for those of you who know me well, do you think I’ll be able to keep my house clean just in case? Probably not! And let’s pray it never happens again.

Mike: The whole story is much longer than this… and quite a bit funnier. It manages to involve a naked man (not in our house), a leather couch, women’s jeans, a red football jersey, someone else’s porch, and a photo lineup. Make sure you ask Shayna for the full details.

Posted under: Edmonton