Kind of a scary scenario

[Madhouse]

I packed up a couple pistols and my GSG-5 to do some plinking. My wife and I left in the truck, I dropped her off at Target for some shopping while I threw some lead downrange.

After shooting I dropped by the house before going back to Target to collect my wife, and when I got there one of the garage doors was open (not the side for my truck, which hadn't gotten opened that morning).

I took my truck gun out and came inside (house door in the garage wasn't locked and the alarm wasn't armed). I cleared the immediate area once inside the door, then listened at the bottom of the stairs for a bit. I cleared the rest of the first floor, then went upstairs. This was nerve-racking because all four bedrooms are upstairs and all the doors were closed so I had to go through each room, and make noise opening the doors.

As it turned out, nobody was in the house, and nothing was taken/disturbed, so I don't think anybody came in. I still have no idea how the garage door got up - I have 2 friends with door openers and checked with them, neither had come by.

That's not something I care to have to do again. We always lock the inside door now (actually we almost always did before, not sure why it wasn't that day).

[imschur]

Wow, thats unnerving

[SOFMatchstaff]

Have any of you ever done a practice run on your own house? It is a definate advantage if you choose to do something like Madhouse just did. I have done several different entry exercises on my own casa and it is an eye opener, to say the least.

I am always armed, pistol minimum, other stuff as deemed necessary, so the chance encounter will be a deadly confontation. Discussions have lead me to the idea that giving the suspected occupant a way out is prefferable to trapping and forcing a showdown with an unknown number of assailants.

I have access to all sides of the property, with multiple entrys to the house, those are checked first for the obvious, then I can clear the inside from the shop, thru the front of the house, and compress into the back where the egress is out the windows. At this point I will announce and let the knowledge sink in to the folks that might need to know about it, that a very deadly encounter is eminent. From that point its up to them, window or body bag.

The practice runs have revealed the best way to do it and I'm glad I have the plan down, gives more time to think when actually executing the entry. I have run it in reverse at night and like that a whole lot less. Although all the little red vampire lights on different devices give a good orientation and movement indications if they start to wink at me. I also have the electronic muffs, and use them to hear better, as well as save the ears. I cant see around corners ,but I can damn well hear around them.

Its a drill to secure the place when I leave, and it doesnt vary.

I'm glad you had a non noisey return to the normal state of things

Al N...SOF

[imschur]

Its a bit odd but our dog does a room to room search whenever we get home. He also has an odd sense of things being out of place or out of the ordinary.

I live in an area of constant crime. These drug addicts and thieves cruise parking lots looking for open cars and stuff on decks. They steal bottles and cans for the nickel as well as anything else if they think nobody is looking. On more then one occasion of extracted these folks from the decks of other apts. Im the only guy in a 5 family unit. The girls get scared.
There was one time where I kind of snapped. I was alerted to the guy sneaking around by the dogs low growl. I looked out the peep hole and when the loser was bent over going through stuff on my deck I threw open my 80 year old solid wood out swinging door and creamed him with it.

I keep a Katana and a Recon Tanto in my truck just in case

[tqtran]

Madhouse : When was the last time you changed your garage door code? If its been a while, I would suggest doing so. If you have never changed it then there's your problem.

[Madhouse]

That's a good point tqtran, I'll do that!

SOF - that's a good idea, it was unfortunate that my first time doing that was a real-life scenario, but it was eye-opening. I'll do it every now and again as a refresher from now on.

[Joester41]

I have run drills for clearing my house at night as if there was a break in. I turn off all the lights as it would be after I lock up for the night, then let my eyes adjust. I run my drills with my PS90. I am pretty confident in my sweep, there are a few areas that are difficult to clear simultaniously due to the geometry of the floorplan. But, in those few instances I rely on a combination of auditory senses and probability of where they would most likely be in the house.

[richiecotite]

Hate to post in an old thread, but back at my parents house occasionally fighter jets would cause our garage door to automatically open. No clue how, but we would notice it would always happen when jets were flying by.

[SONYtec]

High power RF energy can do funny things to simple circuits.

The radar system on the jet probably is the cause.