Family Starts Rebuilding After Home Invasion
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert
Imagine you’ve lived at your home for a number of years, but it doesn’t feel like home anymore. It used to be a place that was comforting and soothing; a place of security where you didn’t have to “worry.”
But then your home is burglarized. Your home is ransacked; your home life has been violated. The sense of home security is gone. This is what happened to the Bastyr family.
“I hear every little noise,” Colleen Bastyr said. “I’m always looking through the windows to see if someone is there. When someone knocks at the door – or we hear a sound – my daughter hides.”
Imagine. It makes me want to break something when I read that. People who have worked their whole lives, raising a family and doing the right thing are made to feel fear in their own home because someone needed to get a fix, or for fun or some other stupid reason. It’s just not fair.
The family had left the home, locked, but apparently no alarm, to take the husband to the hospital for a surgery. When they came home the lights were on and a ladder was leaning up against the home with a window open.
The house was in shambles. Tables, chairs, dresser draws, everything turned upside down.
“The burglar(s) had scribbled all over the walls, cabinets, floors, chairs and couches in red fingernail polish, Colleen recalls. The curtains were all torn up and the couches had been cut apart with a knife.
The burglar(s) then took ketchup, mustard and salsa out of the refrigerator and poured it all over the Bastyr’s bedroom mattress. Colleen also found that her cabinets, refrigerator and oven range had been smashed, holes were kicked in the doors, and dresser drawers had been dumped on the floor, along with all the shelves and clothes in the family’s closets.”
All told there was $30,000 in damage done. The only stolen item was a laptop computer. Seems the family came home and scared the burglars/vandals away.
From now on the home is a reminder of that terrible day. Some say, it could have been worse, fortunately nobody was hurt, they have their health. Yes, and that is all true. While gaining perspective certainly helps cope, it doesn’t change what happened. When a person’s sense of home security is violated in that way, their sense of life is no longer the same.
“At this point we have each other and that’s what matters,” she added. “We won’t let them bring us down. We won’t let them win.” And life goes on.
Robert Siciliano personal security expert, to Home Security Source discussing home invasions on the Montel Williams Show (Disclosures)
