I'm surprised that my anecdote about a worker sneaking onto my property is still being talked about. I didn't expect to get any reactions or interest about it at all. What concerns me is that somehow, either I haven't expressed myself properly, or have been grossly misunderstood.
Context matters.
One - this happened over 20 years ago, when I was a young sleep-deprived mother at home alone during the day with a toddler and a baby.
Two - this man was a total stranger to me. We hadn't hired him to do any work on or near our house. None of our neighbors were having work done. All of the houses were recently built at the time, within a couple of years. We were new to this area. I wasn't familiar enough yet with who lived around here, what was commonplace for this area, what wasn't, etc.
Three - during this time, I regularly spent some time outdoors each day with my toddler daughter. Walking out with her in my backyard to suddenly find a strange man in it would not have been a good situation. Mostly for him.
Four - I didn't confront him the first time I saw him. I don't care much about an isolated incident. I observed him doing this regularly, several times a day, over maybe a few days, before I said something to him. It went on longer than I knew though, because it took awhile before I really noticed that I was hearing the sound of water running every day, at times when no one was using any water in the house.
Five - he had the nerve to act like he was entitled to come in my yard and take my water. He didn't introduce himself, try to explain anything, or even make up a credible story like, "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize anyone was home, but, blah, blah, blah," any of which might have softened me up enough to let him continue. He was just mad that he'd been caught.
Six - if we have people working on our property, yes, they have access to our water, sinks, bathrooms, whatever they need, within reason, to ensure they're comfortable while doing their job. Sometimes workers have asked, sometimes not, but I don't fuss about it. I want them to do the best possible job. That's not going to happen if they're dying of thirst or their bladder/bowels are screaming at them.
I may come across as still too emotional over an incident that happened so long ago. Why, you ask? A couple of reasons.
I don't know if it's because we live on a corner or what, but there's been a tendency of people to act as though our property is public property. Either that, or it just provides easy access for a quick getaway, if needed.
Several of our neighbors have had their homes/property broken into in the 23 years we've lived here. Among them, 3 of our 4 adjoining neighbors. Sometimes the neighbors were home at the time, sometimes they weren't. This is the nicest and newest neighborhood in an old community.
Among our experiences since living here:
My husband's bike was stolen between 3 PM and 4 PM on a weekday, right out of our garage.
More than once, I'd been woken up in the middle of the night with people making a racket on the 2 play sets we had in the back yard for our kids. Just kind of a hit-and-run through and too dark to be able to identify anyone. I mean, who goes into someone's back yard at 3 AM to do that?
An adult woman who appeared to have Down's Syndrome, regularly sat on a bench swing on one of the play sets. I asked some of the neighbors about her. They said she was trouble and they had to keep chasing her off their porches. I told her she was on private property and had to leave. She came back several times after that, to the point I had to threaten to call the police. That worked. I've got nothing against people with Down's Syndrome. I once had a temp assignment at a workshop and found them to be some of the most delightful people. Again, it's the "stranger using my stuff without permission and I've got young kids to protect" Syndrome. We took the play sets down years ago, so at least that stuff isn't going on anymore.
Around 11 PM, right after I'd gone to bed, I heard a bump against the side of the house by the patio. The following morning, I found fresh cigarette butts on our patio. We don't smoke. I cleaned them up. Over the next few weeks, I kept finding them, kept cleaning them up. I starting looking around the entire back yard. Every day. At the time, we still had the play sets up. I kid you not - I found a partially buried Yoplait yogurt cup in the dirt right beneath the bench swing. We didn't have any in the house. By this time, our kids and their friends weren't using the play sets anymore. So, sometime the previous night, someone decided to have themselves a little sit on the play set, eat a yogurt, and bury their garbage in my yard!
We've had stolen CDs tossed into our back yard. Twice. Several years apart.
One time there were adult footprints in the snow that pointed to someone walking down the sidewalk, coming across our lawn, and standing there, peeking through a gap in the curtain into our family room. It wasn't any of us.
Around midnight once, we were awakened by a loud banging at our front door. It was so loud that my husband, who can sleep through almost anything, started to get out of bed to answer it. He was groggy, of course, and not thinking. I stopped him quick! Just before that, there had been warnings in our local paper about burglars who were using that as a tactic to gain entry into homes. It was working, unfortunately. People had been hurt already. I think we dodged one that time.
About a year ago, someone knocked on our door around 8 PM, when it was still dark, maybe around February. We didn't have a curtain on the window (now we do) and all I could see was a man with a hood up, looking in. Our kitchen lights were on and he could see me quite clearly, I'm sure. I immediately told my husband. He started walking down the hall towards the door. The guy immediately turned away and left. He hadn't even been standing there a minute. We both figured that if it had been anyone we knew, or anyone with legitimate business, he wouldn't have left.
One day, I noticed that an old man started parking his car in the street next to my house suddenly, in an area where no cars are usually parked. I wouldn't have thought anything of it, except it was starting to get light around 7:30 AM, so I'd open my patio curtains. As soon as I did, he'd drive away. After several days of this, I left the curtains closed longer. Sure enough, he still sat there, until I opened the curtains. I'll spare you the long story of that, but several neighbors got involved, the sheriff's office, the local police. Myself and many of the neighbors still had kids catching the school bus at our corner and the next corner, so it was a concerning matter to us.
I tell you this honestly, I felt safer living in Cleveland!
Disclaimer: our house in Cleveland was broken into before I ever lived there, but my husband wasn't home at the time. It had been vacant for awhile before he moved in. He figured that they might have thought it was still vacant. We had a pumpkin stolen out of our back yard. It was massive. I was regularly awoken by the sound of a crazy ex-neighbor shooting off a gun in front of our house. It wasn't personal though. He was trying to frighten his ex, who lived across the street from us. I'd regularly clean up the bullet casings from where they fell in the street next to my car. Eventually, he stopped coming around. Still, I felt safer, as odd as that sounds.
