Security... more generally speaking

So, if you notice, it's about 3:30am at the moment. And you know the wee-hours-of-the-morning blogs are never going to be good. Especially when I was going to be getting up for work around 5am, so this is not like a planned late-night adventure.

(Mom, before you read any further, remember that I am blogging. Which means that I must be more or less ok.)

So, a really great way to spend your night is to wake up at 2:30am to the sound of a key turning in your lock. Of course, you don't know it's 2:30am, because of the aforementioned sleep out of which you were just jolted. And because of your groggy state, at first you aren't entirely certain that the key and footsteps you are hearing are actually in your apartment. At first you think you were just being paranoid in that split second that you woke up, and assume that the sounds are most likely really from the apartment above or below.

That is, until you see the hall light go on.

Turns out, I do not have anything in my bedroom that could effectively crush someone's skull. At least, not anything that I could recall and locate on a second's notice immediately after awakening. (Don't worry, this is a scenario I will be amending before another night passes. A geode bookend should serve nicely for this purpose, as long as I remember not to leave it next to the bed where I will inevitably just step on it.)

Adrenaline is a funny thing. In those few moments (seriously, it was probably under 60 seconds) in which I crawled silently out of bed to brace myself at my bedroom door while I waited as the unknown entrant turned off the light and left (to only close the push-button lock-- seriously, you came in through the deadbolt, so lock the &!@$ deadbolt again after yourself! Inconsiderate trespasser) I am sort of surprised that my heart didn't seize up from how hard it was pounding. After it sounded like the apartment was otherwise unoccupied again, and I located my cell phone and ventured out of my bedroom, I'm not entirely sure what I shouted into the empty apartment, but I'm pretty sure it involved something about ripping someone's face of. (Actually, now after the fact, I am experiencing a deep sense of shame that I wasn't able to come up with something more creative and ferocious. I will have to take some notes for next time, and leave them next to my handy blunt object.)

Anyway, it wasn't till after I'd checked the time, called the management company (maintenance somewhat bewilderedly told me that there shouldn't be anyone out at that hour), and was on the phone with the non-emergency police that I realized how hard I was shaking. I'm really glad the !%*&%# did turn on the hall light and thus assure me that I was not going crazy (cue flashbacks to those first times your parents left you home alone, or you were babysitting in a strange house with its own creepy sounds, and imagining all the various intruders just around the corner). I really appreciated being able to add "oh and then I saw the hall light go on and off" during the various times I told this story to assorted members of property management and law enforcement.

So the un-exciting end of this story is that two nice DPD officers came out, looked around with their nice big cop flashlights (now there's a handy blunt object for you... wonder where I could get one of those...) and told me that it was most likely someone else who lived in the apartment building. Apparently when your property management company totally blows (oh yeah, I will be having some strong words for them in the sleep-deprived morning) they basically order like 4 different locks for the entire building, and they're all really close to the same lock anyway, so pretty much you can open other peoples' apartments. Their take on the situation: somebody was drunker than they realized, and once they looked around and saw that this was not their place, they departed. The cops went to look around (though I would have been happier if they'd vowed to knock on every door in the building and report back to me with reassurance that the drunkard in such-and-such unit really had just unwittingly wandered in) and the one wished me, "try to have a good night." Such a nice, knowingly feeble attempt to reassure someone who had all sense of security just taken away from them.

Tomorrow, I'll be calling the management company. They will be changing the lock. And after they do so (and I will tell them this in advance), I will be taking the new key and trying it on every apartment in the building. I'll stop once they do it right. The lock to my place is going to be one-of-a-kind. I'll also be getting a chain lock to install, as it appears some previous resident had, based on the holes in the door.

But the point is, I shouldn't have to do any of this. I live in a secure building, with a locked main entry and buzzer system. My door has a peephole, a push-button lock and a deadbolt (both of which are locked every night-- and any time that I'm home, for that matter-- though apparently this does not matter). I should be able to sleep at night-- literally-- and rest secure.

&*@$@%#!

...is all I have to say about that.