aka: Burglary of your home, Car break-in, Your bedroom getting searched by someone (Parents/Roomates/Housemates/ or even Burglars), Your Backpack, Personal Electronics/Phone/Computer/etc getting searched, etc. (Including any seaches by law enforcrment / security)
Basically, anything that can be considered “personal space”.
Why I ask?
Well… My parent’s car has signs of being searched through last night, I think they forgot to close the windows all the way, and some random thief got in and looking for valuables, nothing of value wa taken, but stuff were all over the car, now I hate the idea of getting into that car again (someone might’ve slept inside the car, blegh 😖). That car feels so “tainted” now.
Like this cant be only my feeling right? Like, you just feel disgusted after someone touch your things against your will (especially if they are strangers).
Had a landlord that I discovered had been in my apartment without letting me know. Luckily, tenants have quite good legal protections where I’m from. Among other things, we can have the lock changed by a locksmith and bill the landlord for it if they’ve done just that. So I sent them an email with the contact info for a local locksmith, along with the legal text saying I could do just that, and let them know they had burned through any goodwill with their first infraction (which I documented). They apologised and didn’t do it again.
Lol that landlord is an idiot. If they had a more aggressive tenant, the tenants could’ve just claim they are missing items and blame the landlord for it, or if they are at home at the time, even use lethal force and claim self defence (and probably gotten off any charges).
What a fucking idiot, the landlord is lucky someone didn’t mistake them for a burglar/home invader.
Probably depends on country, but where I’m from, you can’t use lethal force unless there’s danger to “life or health”, that is, you can’t use lethal force against a home invader unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Besides, the most lethal weapon in most peoples homes are the fire extinguisher and kitchen knives.
To be frank: You would never get away with killing a landlord that locked themselves into your apartment while you were home, unless they tried to harm you in some way. Not a burglar either for that matter.
Disclaimer: Obviously, if you confront a burglar, and it develops to a violent confrontation, lethal force can be justified. However, you will be hard pressed on whether you had the option to remove yourself from the situation before needing to resort to lethal force.
Oh, I’m in the USA, and people here can just willy-nilly shoot people, and you’d get away with it most of the time. (unless the person you shot is a cop, in which case you’re fucked, even if you genuinely thought they were a home invader)
Edit: Well it also depends on if the landlord was an individual “mom&pop” landlord, or someone with like 100 units. If its one of the “richer” landlords, I could see there being more investigations into the shooting. A shooting of those “poorer” landlords would just get swept under the rug. But I don’t know why someone with 100+ units would be managing properties by themselves, so the tenant in this hypothetical situation would almost be guaranteed to walk free, since the landlord would almost be guaranteed to be not “rich enough” to warrant the attention of the authorities.
In California we follow our version of castle doctrine:
198.5. Any person using force intended or likely to cause death or great bodily injury within his or her residence shall be presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily injury to self, family, or a member of the household when that force is used against another person, not a member of the family or household, who unlawfully and forcibly enters or has unlawfully and forcibly entered the residence and the person using the force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry occurred. As used in this section, great bodily injury means a significant or substantial physical injury.
Now, you can do what you need to do to protect yourself, but then you get to explain to the cops and possibly a judge what happened, and you better hope they agree with you. It’s also important to note that this doesn’t extend to someone intruding on your exterior property, just someone who breaks into your house, and you do have to have reason to believe they will harm you or your family.
Housemates left a door open; we lived in the woods.
A squirrel got into the house. Housemates, because young men are idiots, chased the squirrel further into the house… right into my bedroom.
They then tossed literally all of my possessions around the room in an attempt to remove or kill the squirrel.
Friends, they were not successful. The squirrel escaped the room and ran further into the house.
House was broken into while I was at work. They’d gone through the house and messed it up a bit. But when I got to the bedroom, they’d flipped the mattress and taken the pillow cases off. Couldn’t sleep in that bed for maybe six months. Slept on the couch. Even had my bow next to me too for a while.
Cop who showed up told me to get a sawed off shotgun and/or a big dog. Ended up moving 8 months later bc I never felt safe again.
Sorry about the car. That happened to me too, long time ago. We were walking out from work at night on Black Friday and saw them in my car. I caught and tackled one of them and beat the shit out of him. Other 2 the cops got.
get a sawed off shotgun
Not legal without a $200 tax and ATF form 4, fyi.
'Course, it’s not going to help you if it’s there and you’re not “next time,” that’s their shotgun now. Terrible advice, a pistol would be better, that way you’re covered while home and you can carry it with you so it can’t be stolen while you’re gone, if you’re gonna get a gun that is anyway.
Thanks for the info. I never looked into it but glad I know that now. I bought a Sig P365XL and later got a 12-gauge (not sawed off). Love the pistol.
Hell yeah, great choice! Those p365s are pretty damn neat.
Yea well it wasn’t even my car, but I needed to use that as a ride to get places. My parents doesn’t even seem bothered when this is their car being searched through (how can someone be this calm?), meanwhile, I, who doesn’t even own the car, get frustrated and disgusted at some rando potentially contaminating the car. (Maybe its my germaphobia kicking in again 🤷♂️)
Hell yes. I’m a person who always valued my own privacy, but I didn’t have much, especially during university plus almost ten years afterwards.
I lived with my brother in his tiny apartment, and my mom was most of the time living there too. My mom is a very nosy person, and it happened sometimes that I got home to seeing my personal belongings being re-arranged, some missing.
Sometimes she would just open my cabinet right in front of me and search for something in there like it’s second nature, without even asking.
It was extremely infuriating and humiliating to me. And I feel so lucky and so peaceful now that I have my own apartment.
I just moved out of Los Angeles. LA is crazy.
My first car in college got broken into, they stole my Sub in the trunk and my CDs, but they couldn’t get the radio out and broke the faceplate.
I felt so f-ing violated. It was my first car, my home away from home, my freedom to go places. I was traumatized like ptsd. That lasted a long time.
6 months later the entire car was gone, they stole it. Police took 2-3 days to find it. There was no tires, no engine, no muffler, and the interior was trashed.
I was destroyed for a long time after that. Fuck thieves!!!
I threw a Xmas party at my house with friends, and one “friend” had a new girlfriend and they went into the bathroom and stole a ton of my moms makeup, jewerly, and other stuff.
Then maybe a month later that same guy poured white paint on my car windows. What a nice friend I had.
I had another friend move out of state, and he left me to take care of his dog for a few months… turns out he stole $1000 worth of stuff from my house, canceled my phone plan and never came back for his dog.
My wife was almost kidnapped as a kid, it freaked her out and when she was home she had her parents check all the cabinets for the kidnapper.
Years later someone broke into her attic, which the stairs led into her bedroom. That one also really freaked her out. She knew who the guy was too. I saw him once and he gave me a nasty look and I took his picture lol
So glad to be out of LA now.
My house was broken into last Christmas, just about a year ago exactly. I understand what you mean, it feels like a violation of your space in the most personal way, even when you weren’t there to witness the deed. It sucks. All we can do is pick up the pieces though- give the car interior a good clean, maybe a long with some of the things rummaged through. Also think about what you can do to prevent the situation going forward- not to victim blame at all, but there are usually concrete things that one can do to protect against stuff like that. For example, making extra sure to lock all doors/windows and leaving the car in a well-lit area.
I’m sorry that happened to y’all, but take comfort in the fact that you are not alone in your experience.
How many benches have you sat on? How many resturant chairs have you been in? How many hotels have you slept in? How many used cars have you been in? How many rentals? Oh man, the school bus?
My point is, whoever did it is just a human. Desperate perhaps, but not “unclean” or some monster that taints something. If they didn’t do damage you even have the best kind of thief on your hands.
It’s normal. A biological instinct caused by the “scent” of an intruder invading the safety of one’s “nest”. Most animals have been seen showing some kind of reaction, we aren’t that different.
My mum felt entitled to go through any and all of my things the entire time I lived with her. Never had privacy until after I moved out. I’m pretty fucked up, mental health wise.
My family’s home was robbed multiple times when I was a kid. It was not a good feeling. I lost bikes, my first computer, and my general sense of security. There was a drug den around the corner, and homes all over the neighborhood were getting hit by people who were living there.
It was probably one of the factors that led to my lifelong lack of interest in trying recreational drugs.
When I was in middle school thieves broke into our house and robbed us. They got some of my dad’s guns and some of my mom’s jewelry. The jewelry hit her hard because it included things her father has given her.
When I was in college I had an amcient, yellow VW rabbit that got broken into a few times. The vent windows had hardware that was just glued to the glass, so you could just wedge something in and pop the glass out. Each time they’d rummage through it looking for valuables. It had to be someone who was a complete moron because I don’t know how else they could imagine someone driving a $50 VW had anything of value.
Eventually we replaced the vent windows with windows from a newer model that had the hardware bolted on and it stopped happening.
Someone also stole the antenna off it when it was parked once. I hope that bastard died slowly of malignant ass cancer that just ate him from the bottom up. The closest thing to nice about that car was being able to listen to the radio, and that son of a bitch took that way from me.
The first time we stayed with the in-laws she repacked my luggage for me. We barely knew each other. Wasn’t that nice of her? /s
About two weeks after I moved out of my parents’ place, my apartment was broken into while I was at work.
I had a pretty bitchin’ video game collection and a basement apartment. They broke in through a window and cleaned me out.
Kind of a funny story, I had worked a double shift and was pretty exhausted when I came home. Went straight to the kitchen to make some mac n’ cheese. Came back out to the living room to watch TV with dinner and there was no TV. That was my first clue something was amiss.
I couldn’t stay in that apartment, ended up moving elsewhere before my first month’s rent was up. I felt a bit better when I was in a different apartment, but I guess that feeling of my nest being violated stuck around a bit longer. I kept a bat by the door for a long time, and I still end up triple checking the locks because of something that happened like fifteen years ago.
Closest I’ve ever had is probably my dad searching my room for candy when I was younger or may be a year or so ago I went to see summer fireworks and came home to find out he went into my room and went into my electronic junk/storage dresser drawer and snagged some cookies I planned on eating when I got back later that night. I’m not super pissed about it since they were for my mom, but I’m not happy about it either, even to this day.
As for the other incidents of candy snagging when I was younger, I can’t remember anything specific so I don’t feel anything about them.
When I moved out at 18 I was sitting on my parents front porch waiting for my ride and my mom came out and started rooting through all my stuff. Destroyed the dried flowers my boyfriend gave me for prom, took anything she decided I wasn’t allowed to have because she paid for, broke a few other sentimental things while screaming. I just sat back and let her. Didn’t say a word. I had an eerie calm about me because I was leaving and she wouldn’t have any power over me anymore.
